Well that was brilliant, if a little unexpected. When you doubt these lads this is how they respond. They did the same last year against the same opponent. Remember how we all thought that trip to Leicester on Boxing Day was going to be a massive test for us and we went there and demolished them? Same thing happened.
I’ll be honest, I thought this was going to be really tough. Coming off an international break and with half a team on the sidelines, it’s never easy. Leicester have had injury problems of their own but they’d won every away game this season and their counter attacking style could have given us a lot of problems given the defensive changes we had to make.
Then there was the Brendan factor looming large too. We were one game away from the record and the last team to beat us were managed by a former Reds boss, Roy Hodgson. Throw in the fact that the team that set the previous record saw it ended by Leicester and it all seemed set up for a let down.
Honestly though, I could tell after about five minutes it wasn’t going to be. You could see immediately the lads were at it and I was sure we’d win from a very early stage. We made a great start and continued it for about an hour. Leicester then had a five or ten minute spell of possession after they changed their formation, but once we adapted to that we took control again. It was just a great performance.
Brendan was typically magnanimous in his post match. He always is after defeats. He said the better team won, he was full of praise for our players and said he thought his team were too passive, which they were. He was also asked if he saw it as a missed opportunity due to the “makeshift” backline we fielded.
I thought his answer was spot on. Matip is a top defender, Fabinho has filled in brilliantly, Robbo and Alisson always play and Milner is great wherever he plays. It wasn’t the first choice defence but it’s not like we’ve sent a load of mugs out there either. He was being complimentary of what we have rather than dismissing what we don't.
Yet I hear on Talksport this morning that “Rodgers dismisses Liverpool injury crisis” when that’s not what he did at all. Proper snide reporting that. And the thing is, Leicester were missing three of their best defenders too, so if we had suffered a bad result we couldn’t have really used that as an excuse anyway. Not that Klopp or the players would have done. Whoever plays is expected to do a job and has the full confidence of Klopp.
I made the point after we lost Virgil that all it meant was we would run away with the league again and would now have to work harder to win it. We’ve lost Gomez since, which makes it even more difficult as we’re relying on Matip staying fit, which he has so far been unable to do in his entire time here. What we’ve also seen is that if we do need to occasionally call on Nat Phillips or Rhys Williams, we can still win games.
And if we have Matip and Fabinho playing? That’s as good as any pairing in the league. Seriously. It is. Matip is the best defender in the league other than Virgil, while Fabinho potentially could be as he's been brilliant in the limited time he's spent there. He can only get better with more games.
They were both great in this game. It’s easy to say they weren’t tested much and that’s true, but a lot of it is down to their positional discipline and anticipation of situations. Vardy didn’t get a sniff. You can’t restrict him like that without the whole team playing its part but if the centre backs aren’t switched on then Vardy is going to get away at some point. The one sighting of goal he had came late on when Alisson forced him wide and he could only find the side netting from a near impossible angle. Other than that, he was not a factor.
I don’t know exactly how we did it as I’m not a coach, but we didn’t allow Leicester to do anything that they usually do and that meant they couldn’t get Vardy going down the channels. Vardy has destroyed some good teams over the years but he needs the ball in space to be able to do it. We never let him have it, despite playing with a high line (not as high as we’re used to, but still higher than most). Klopp will have had a plan to stop Leicester doing what they do and the players must have carried it out almost perfectly.
They closed Maddison down immediately any time he had the ball and I don’t think I even saw Tielemans all night. Tactically we bossed it and we had so many great individual displays. The pick of the first half for me was Milner, who bossed the game from right back. His passing was brilliant and he kept getting us on the front foot by finding the forwards (especially Jota) early and in space.
Jota is just fucking quality. He tormented Leicester and just looks so direct and confident. He’s linking up with his team-mates better and better each week and this was probably his best showing yet on that front. Some of the slick interplay between him, Milner, Firmino and Jones on that right side was lovely to watch.
It’s in and around the box when he really comes to life though. He could easily have had three or four again. He’s fucking dynamite. He may even end up as our top scorer this season, which was pretty much unthinkable when he signed.
He went close early on when he was denied by Schmeichel. It was great awareness from Jota as initially it looked as though he should play Sadio in, but Diogo quickly realised that Mané would have been offside so he shifted it and had a go himself.
That right flank was a productive outlet for us. We didn’t miss Salah at all, which is high praise indeed for the job Jota did. He gave Fuchs a torrid time right from the off and it looked like we deliberately targeted him as Jota was looking to get down the line at every opportunity. He wasn’t too bothered about coming inside, he played very wide in that first half and it worked.
He created an early opening for Keita when he collected a lovely pass by Milner, beat Fuchs and the picked out Sadio in the box. He had his back to goal so laid it back to Naby but his shot was deflected wide for a corner. From that corner Sadio headed into the side netting.
Funny thing, any time we got a corner I was thinking “yeah nothing’s happening from this” because we’ve got no Virgil now. Yet we scored from two of them. Much of that is down to how bad Leicester were in dealing with them.
It felt like we had loads of corners and a lot of them were shite. We had some belters as well though. As I said, Sadio went close from one and Matip had a decent effort from another one. Some of the football we played to win those corners was exceptional. We just looked really sharp and Schmeichel was busy throughout.
He made a save to deny Jones after a lovely break that was initiated by another perfect Milner pass into the feet of Curtis. His initial ball to Bobby wasn’t great but he did well to find Keita who rolled it back to Jones, and his low shot was saved by the feet of the keeper. Terrific football though.
The corner that we took the lead from came about from yet another great ball from Milner to pick out a run in behind by Jota. Evans just about dealt with it and got the ball behind for a corner, which he promptly headed into his own net as he was too pre-occupied with trying to wrestle Sadio.
Funny story. I was watching different bits of analysis of the game on Youtube afterwards as I generally like to do. Usually there’s Ian Wright and Alan Shearer on one of the overseas broadcasts, and there’s one from the Premier League’s TV channel. When we win I like to soak up as much of it as possible. So I’m going through it all, and it’s wall to wall praise of how well we played and generally it’s all good.
Then I came to BeIn Sports. Keyes, Gray and De Jong. The latter two were fine. Keyes though. Fuck me. What an absolute weapon. According to the old hairy handed sex pest, that first goal shouldn’t have counted because, get this, Evans was fouled by Mané. Honestly, that’s what he said.
Keyes: "Shouldn't he (Evans) get the benefit of the doubt there?"
Gray: "No. We want to see goals."
Keyes: "But only if they're legal".
Embarrassing. You’d struggle to even find a Leicester fan complaining about that goal. He then said “I'll guarantee you there wasn't one Liverpool fan when they signed Jota who said 'that's great business' and 'I'm really looking forward to seeing him. Where did that come from? None of us saw that".
What an absolute cock. When we signed Jota, virtually every Red I know reacted in the same way, which was pretty much "yeah that makes sense, can't believe I hadn't thought of it myself". I don't remember seeing/hearing/reading ANY dissenting voices. I'd go back and check the forum thread only I can't be arsed because I know Keyes is talking through his far hairy arse again.
Anyway, Leicester’s best chance of the game came almost immediately after we’d taken the lead. That’s often the way. You score and lose a little focus for a minute or two, while the opponent is stung from conceding and immediately tries to hit back. You see it all the time.
Thankfully Barnes wasted the chance after being well picked out by Vardy. That all came about because Keita twice failed to win the ball in the middle of the park. The first one was especially bad, but he could have recovered from that and had the chance to win it back or at the very least make a smart foul. He did neither, which was ironic as he had no trouble giving away fouls in other moments of that half.
He was doing my head in, but I’m fairly certain that I’m being harsh and he wasn’t as bad as it felt like at the time. He just frustrates me. Even when he’s good he’s not what I thought we were getting and that causes me to judge him unfairly at times.
I’ve said countless times in the past that when he plays we often look wide open in midfield. I’m not even saying it’s his fault specifically, but it’s often been the way. When he’s in there, we’d see runners piling forward at our defence. That never happened in this game and given that I’ve already said how well the team as a whole did to keep Leicester quiet, Keita must have been doing his bit too and therefore I accept that I’m being harsh.
He just leaves me so underwhelmed though, and then of course he gets injured again which does absolutely nothing to make me think he’s ever going to be the player we all wanted him to. It’s not going to happen for him. This is his third season and it’s going exactly the same way of the previous two. He hasn’t progressed at all and he’s always fucking injured.
And by the way, whatever Gini wants just fucking pay the man. He’s been underpaid for five years so if we overpay him now for a few more then we’re still coming out of it on top. As much as I love our other senior midfielders, every one of them (bar Milner) misses time through injury and the one constant we’ve had over the last few years in Gini.
Hendo, Fabinho, Ox, Keita, even Shaq is seen as a midfield option now. Before them we had Lallana. All of them missed plenty of games but when we’ve been short handed the one thing we’ve always been able to depend on is that Wijnaldum will be there, doing whatever job he’s needed to do and doing it to a fucking high standard.
Availability is fucking massive and he’s been our most reliable player. Hopefully I haven’t jinxed him, but I feel that needs saying as I’ll be honest, I’m pretty fucking angry that he hasn’t been given the deal he deserves. I’ve gotten a little sidetracked but I feel better having got that off my chest.
Back to the game and our second goal, which was fucking glorious. 30 passes apparently, although I don’t remember anything before Curtis knocking a cross field ball to Robbo. It was a decent ball but it floated a little bit which meant Albrighton was able to close Robbo down immediately. That actually worked against Leicester because Robbo did brilliantly to control the ball, lure Albrighton in and then skip away from him. Absolutely sensational.
The cross was even better. He put it into a perfect area for Jota to attack and head the ball past Schmeichel. Fuchs was getting some criticism for that and it’s easy to say “look at the old man unable to keep up” but I’m telling you now that 90% of defenders aren’t doing any better than he did there. Fuchs is marking Bobby initially. Jota isn’t even his man but he spots the run and goes with it. He can’t get in front of him because Jota has the run on him. That’s just a great goal and any criticism of Fuchs or anyone other than Albrighton really is unfair.
I forgot to mention that Leicester had a penalty shout early on. It was never a pen in a million years but because the game is so fucked up these days and we’ve seen some absolutely scandalous handball decisions given, I can understand why they might feel a little hard done by. The ball hits Matip on the hand so based on other pens we’ve seen given this season, that could have been awarded.
Thankfully some common sense seems to have been applied on this occasion, or perhaps there’s been a relaxation on how these things are interpreted after the two ridiculous ones given a couple of weeks ago against Gomez and the Wolves lad.
So 2-0 at half time and I was buzzing about that first half. I thought we were fantastic all things considered. And the second half was more of the same. Leicester improved after the break but how we never scored two or three more than we did was bordering on a miracle. I don’t know how the ball stayed out at times.
When Keita went down with a hamstring, Milner was moved into midfield as Klopp elected to send on Neco at right back. He could have brought Minamino into midfield or even handed a debut to Leighton Clarkson. That would have made sense as Milner was doing so well at right back, but Neco got the nod and within seconds Milner was splitting the defence to send Mané clear.
He shifted it onto his right foot as we’ve seen so many times before as he looked to bend it in the top corner. It was too close to Schmeichel though and he was able to palm the ball up into the air. Jota looked like he would get there and it was also possible that the ball would drop under the bar before he even reached it. Fuchs got there first and somehow managed to head it over the bar.
A huge let off for Leicester but that was only the start. Next up we had Jota skinning his man in the box and forcing Schmeichel into a smart stop low down on his near post. Jota then picked up the rebound and crossed low for Bobby who was also denied by Schmeichel. The ball looped up into the air and just as Bobby looked like he was going to nod it in, Evans arrived and headed against his own post before they managed to get the ball clear.
Unbelievable, but even more madness was to follow. Bobby did brilliantly to turn away from Foffana and then beat Schmeichel at the Kop end. We were all thinking “GOAL” but the ball hit the inside of the fucking post. Fucks sake. The loose ball came back to him and he bundled it goalwards only for it be hacked off the line. It looked in, but I’ll get to that in a sec.
The clearance fell only to Sadio who hooked it goal wards again. It his Schmeichel and then looped up onto the post again and then bounced perfectly into the arms of the keeper. Just staggering. You had to feel for Bobby as he obviously needs a goal desperately and he was playing his nuts off. If anyone deserved a goal it was him, yet he had to go through that torment?
Goal line technology is great and I’m all in favour of it. What I’m not in favour of, and never have been, is this bullshit “the whole of the ball has to be over the line” nonsense. No, what it should be is that if more than half of the ball is over the line then it’s a goal. This is an absolutely stupid rule. Let’s say the goalie is the edge of a cliff and you roll a ball over it. As soon as more than half of the ball is over, it’s gone.
If you roll a ball over a line, once more than half of it has gone over the line, it’s no longer touching the line. It’s past it. They don’t apply this same rule on corners and throw ins. With those, as soon as most of the ball is over the line it’s classed as out, and rightly so. I hate this rule, always have. As far as I’m concerned, that was a goal and all this 10mm bollocks is just that. But it perfectly sums up the state of modern football really.
Poor Bobby. Everyone was gutted for him but then out of nowhere he appeared to gloriously head in a Milner corner. Awful, awful marking from Leicester but who cares? Bobby had his goal and everyone was made up for him. The reaction of all of the players said it all, and Milner said afterwards that if Firmino hadn’t come off the pitch with a goal to his name he’d have been even angrier for him than Bobby himself would have been.
The goal is important, obviously, but the main takeaway I had was that he’d played really well. I was thinking even before he scored that I was going to be praising him in the report because it’s the best he’s played in a good while. It’s easier to give him credit when he’s on the scoresheet but even without that goal he played well and looked more like himself.
I’ve said recently that he should probably be on the bench until his form justifies a spot in the team but Mo getting Covid spared Klopp from having to make what would have been a tricky decision. I don’t think it’s that tricky now after this.
There should be no doubt about him keeping his spot for the next game and to me it’s pretty simple what happens next week at Brighton - Mo should be on the bench. I might play him in Europe simply to rest one of the other three for the weekend, but in terms of the next game that matters, if you like, I’d be benching Mo to teach him a lesson.
He acted irresponsibly, didn’t follow club guidelines and as a result he got Covid and missed this game. You could tell Klopp was steaming about it in Friday’s press conference, and with the front three playing as well as they did there’s an opportunity here to take a stand.
He’s never, ever, left out of the starting eleven unless he’s being rested, and even that hardly ever happens. I’m not saying I’d be leaving him out for long but he shouldn’t walk straight back in. That being said, if he does play in midweek it’d be just like him to score three or four and then make it virtually impossible to leave him out. All things being equal though, I’d be starting the same front three next weekend as they’ve earned it.
So overall, just what we needed and it’s another confidence boosting performance and result. What the lads have done since losing Virgil has been great, especially as they’ve been doing it without other key players too. I mean fucking hell, we just smashed Leicester without four players who would get into any team in the world right now.
No Hendo, no Thiago, no Trent, no Virg… and we still played like this. I just wish we were able to see it in person. It’s really getting me down now seeing the lads playing in front of an empty Anfield. Klopp summed it up beautifully afterwards and I just can’t wait until we can all get back in there. Just imagine how loud the Bobby chant would have been had Anfield been full.
If there’s one silver lining to come from all of this it’s that when we are allowed back in the place is going to be fucking bouncing every game. 12.20 Saturday kick off against Burnly will feel like a Champions League semi. There’ll be no taking anything for granted anymore, when we’re back in there it’s going to be electric.
Hopefully we can get back in before the end of the season and hopefully cheer the lads on to the title we didn’t get to celebrate last time. There’s a long way to go before then and a lot of football to be played, but would you bet against Klopp and this group of players?
Star man is Robbo but it was close. He was incredible (as usual) but Milner and Jota weren’t far behind. Everyone played well though. Special mention to Curtis who was superb in a relatively understated way. He wasn’t flash but he just did everything well and again showed that growing maturity we’ve been seeing from him lately. That lad is a proper player and is going to be a star for us for a long time. Him and Trent will be this generation's Carra and Stevie, and praise doesn't come any higher than that.
Team: Alisson; Milner, Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Keita (N Williams), Jones; Jota (Minamino), Firmino, Mané (Origi):
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