Last year we missed out on the title in large part due to only taking one point against City, so this win was huge. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but what needed to happen happened, and while the rest of the nation bleats about phantom penalties and pro-Liverpool conspiracies, we can just laugh it off and celebrate another great win that puts us eight points clear at the top, and nine clear of City.
While Pep Guardiola desperately tried to ensure the narrative was City being screwed by the officials again (he did the same thing when we spanked them in Europe too), the real story of this game was the tactical masterclass by Klopp that allowed us to keep them at arms length for most of the day while completely ripping them to shreds at the other end.
Apparently XG showed that City had more ‘expected goals’. Whatever. My eyes told me that every single time we attacked we looked like we’d score. It might not have always led to a clear chance, but it always looked like it could do.
City were dangerous and played some lovely football around the box, but we defended them as well as it’s possible to do while also ensuring we never got pinned back by them and were always able to spring counter attacks.
Klopp’s assessment was that you can’t beat City by playing like they do, because they’re the best at playing that way. He’s dead right. They’re sensational at what they do, but what they do at one end does leave them wide open at the other, and we took full advantage of that.
It was a strange start to the game as for the first few minutes we just couldn’t get the ball. City got on top of us immediately and forced some early corners. Everything seemed to be going through Bernardo on the right in the early stages, but we were doubling up nicely on both him and Sterling on the opposite side.
City had a lot of the ball but our shape was good, and it soon became clear that any time City didn’t have the ball they were in big trouble. It genuinely felt as though we’d score every single time we attacked. They were wide open and I’m surprised we only scored three to be honest, especially as two of them came so early.
And how good were those goals? Just beautiful. City can bleat all they want about the first one, I don’t care. Irrespective of what happened in the box, the way we worked it from back to front so quickly was ruthlessly efficient and a sign of things to come.
Sadio had stayed forward in “the half space” as Klopp likes to say, and Robbo sent him clear with a pass out of defence. Mané drove at the defence, waited for support to arrive in the middle and then tried to pick out Bobby. City were scrambling back and managed to intercept it, but Mo closed down so quickly that Gundogan’s clearance went only to Fabinho, who just fucking leathered it in from 25 yards.
The keeper had no chance of saving that as it was such a sweet strike. It went like an arrow and when you look at the still photo of it you can see the perfect form of Fabinho. Head down, just striking right through the ball. Glorious. He should do that more often really, shouldn’t he?
Although if he added goals to what he already does then that’s genuinely not fair on the rest of the league and maybe some sort of handicap would need to be introduced. I don’t know, maybe have him carry a dead weight around the field with him or something. After all, that’s what Gerrard had to do for half of the time he played with us.
Fab’s goal was a lot like the one Ox got against them in the Champions League, only it wasn’t at the Kop end, which was a shame as that would have been amazing. Most of us went mental celebrating it but Klopp was quite reserved because he knew there would be a VAR review over what happened in the box. That never even entered my head, I had no idea what was happening or why the City players were surrounding the ref. It was only afterwards I discovered what their complaint was, and frankly it’s all I’ve heard since.
You’d think this was one of the worst decisions of all time the way some people are going on. It’s genuinely baffling to me.
Tell you what was great about all that nonsense though. The way Gini was right in the middle telling the City players to pipe down and explaining what had happened. You can see him telling Fernandinho and (I think) Aguero that their player handled first and to shut their pieholes. Gotta love Gini and his game intelligence. He’s always one or two moves ahead of everyone else.
I don’t even want to waste time talking about the so called handball. I’ve heard so much shit about it that it’s actually quite funny. Shearer and Crouch both said penalty on MOTD, while this morning I heard Mario Melchiot and Trevor Sinclair on the radio both saying the same. It’s not just them either.
Logic would tell you that it can’t be a penalty because the ball hits Bernardo’s arm first and therefore City would have gained an advantage from it. MOTD claimed that the referees spokesman told them that Bernardo’s handball wouldn’t have counted because it didn’t directly lead to a goal. So a penalty isn’t a goalscoring opportunity now then? Just fuck off with that hypocritical nonsense. I'm not buying that at all and I don't think that's what the rule says.
If the game were to be stopped it could only be for a free-kick to us. Oliver didn’t give that and he didn’t penalise Trent, because he either didn’t see them or he felt that both handballs were unintentional. We then went up the other end and scored, so what do people want the VAR ref to do? He can’t give a penalty, so he can only pull it back to give us a free-kick, and why would he do that when we scored? Really, it’s no different to a ref seeing a foul but playing the advantage.
There’s nothing to see here, people should move along but for whatever reason they can’t. I don’t remember this level of debate and outrage when that bulb headed cunt Kompany took out Mo with a wild two footed lunge when he was clean through on goal at the Etihad last season.
Never forget that City players were singing about that incident when they won the league, and Kompany has been a right fucking smug, smart arse twat about it ever since. So hearing him complaining about decisions that went against them in this game is just music to my ears. Vincent Kompany is a twat, I’ve been telling you that for ages. If you haven’t realised it yourself yet, don’t worry, you will. I’m never wrong on shit like this. I can spot them a mile off.
Still, he’s a former City captain and only left a few months ago so he’s entitled to be biased. Some of the shit I’ve heard from other ex players though just boggles the mind.
I’ve already said more than I wanted to do about it, so for the other handball shout they had in the second half I’ll just say this; fuck off.
I genuinely think the only reason these decisions are being talked about so much is because that fucking egghead threw a hissy fit on the touchline. If those decisions are against Brendan Rodgers or Eddie Howe for example no-one bats an eyelid because they wouldn’t have caused an embarrassing scene.
Anyway, enough of that for now. It’s 1-0 and then within no time we scored again. This is what I was hoping for prior to the game. I’d said to a few people that it would either be a stalemate or we’d absolutely smash them. And for us to smash them, the most likely scenario would be to score one and then blow them away in a short space of time afterwards.
We’ve done that before; one goal quickly leads to another and then another as the players ride the wave of emotion from the crowd and the opposition are just overwhelmed. We’ve done it City twice and that’s how I hoped it would go this time. So when we got the second so quickly I was thinking we might add one or two more and win the game there and then.
That didn’t happen, but oh boy, what a goal that second one was. I’ll never tire of watching that, it was like the lads were doing one of those “recreate a famous goal from the past” videos and they’d been told to copy the Terry Mac header against Spurs. So similar.
It was just incredible and only we could have scored a goal like that. We’re unique in world football right now because nobody else has full backs doing the kind of amazing shit we’re seeing from Trent and Robbo virtually every week.
Freeze the shot and look at where we are when Trent picks up the ball. It’s almost impossible to imagine that within a few seconds and with only four touches of the ball we’d have scored. It’s genuinely amazing to see. Savour this, because what we’re being treated to currently is as good as anything that any Liverpool fan has ever been privileged enough to witness. It won’t always be like this, so enjoy it.
Trent’s switch of play with his left foot is world class. Robbo takes one touch to get it out of his feet and into the space, and then he delivers an inch perfect cross into the box that Mo meets with a brilliantly controlled header. I don’t think the finish is getting the credit it deserves because we’re all talking about the brilliance of Trent and Robbo, but that was a great header on the run.
Some are trying to claim it’s offside and I even saw some crank claiming that VAR wasn’t working but that they’re trying to keep that quiet. Hilarious. Even better was a tweet I saw from some virgin who had used his iPhone camera app to prove it was offside. Should have seen how many retweets it got too. People are so desperate to think we’re cheating and being favoured by officials. It’s utterly batshit mental, but at the same time it’s great that there are so many knobheads having their lives ruined by the Reds being top of the league.
So anyway, City had all of the ball but just like that, they trail 2-0. You actually can’t stop that second goal unless you’re playing ultra defensively and haven’t committed players forward. That’s not City’s style though so they were always going to leave spaces. Most teams aren’t good enough to take advantage of that but we obviously are and we did.
Guardiola said afterwards how proud he was of his team and that their performance was brilliant. Some have laughed at that but I agree with him up to a point. With the ball they’re terrific and we had to be fully committed and switched on to keep them at bay. Yes, they were wide open for counter attacks but that’s a result of how he demands they play, it’s not really down to his players performing badly so he can’t be too critical of that.
What it comes down to for me is that he brought his team here to take the game to us and with an attitude of “may the best team win”. And the best team did win. His team played well, our team played well, but we won because we put the ball in the net more times than they did, but mostly because we defend better than they do. It’s that simple really.
They had chances to score in the first half but the closest they came was when Angelino’s effort was deflected onto the outside of the post by Van Dijk. They always looked dangerous but it’s not as though Alisson was over-worked. We were often at full stretch to stop them and for that you have to give great credit to our defence and midfield. So disciplined, so switched on, so hard working.
For all of City’s possession, Bravo was the busier of the keepers. He needed to make a save to deny Firmino and then another to keep out Mo’s curling 20 yarder. Both of those chances came after some sexy as fuck attacking play. Bobby’s effort was the result of an incredible driving run from Trent. The way he plucked the ball out of the air and then carried it 40 yards was Gerrard-like. Mind you, a lot of what he does is Gerrard-like.
As I say, I thought we looked like we were going to score every single time we attacked in that first half, and it continued after the break. It wasn’t long before it was 3-0. Hendo picked the ball up on the touchline, and with everyone expecting him to pass the ball inside he just put his head down and drove to the byline before delivering a worldy cross to the back post where Sadio had stolen a yard on Walker to head the ball in.
It was as good a cross as you’ll see, just absolutely inch perfect from the skipper. And there was a glorious irony about the way Mané scored. “Sometimes he’s diving” indeed, eh Pep?
Bravo is being blamed for that but that’s a little harsh to me. He had no chance of dealing with the cross and although he got his hands to Sadio’s header, it’s from close range and he could only push it into the net. Still, I don’t really care if he could have saved it or not. The only thing that matters is he didn’t, and we were three goals up.
At this point I genuinely thought we’d score a couple more and really send a message to them, but a fourth didn’t come and the longer the game went the more City began to get on top. A big contributing factor in that for me was Hendo being subbed. I don’t have a problem with the decision because he’d been ill earlier in the week and Klopp obviously didn’t think he could last the full game. There’s no way he’d have been taken off for any other reason as he was fucking brilliant.
The last twenty minutes were stressful. City began to get on top and we couldn’t really get out. The counter attacks dried up and we became less and less of a threat, which allowed them to really turn the screw on us. They only scored one but they had chances to get more. Aguero missed an absolute sitter. He was eventually subbed for Jesus and his record at Anfield is so bad he should change his name to Everton.
It was Sterling causing all the problems though. All of a sudden he came into the game and we were really struggling to contain him. Virtually every attack they had came down that side of the field and we were really hanging on. Bernardo pulled one back with a powerful low shot that went in off the post and all of a sudden I’m having flashbacks to that game two years ago when we ended up hanging on for grim death despite having led 4-0.
This team is more resilient than that one, and it’s not just because we’ve got Van Dijk. Alisson and Fabinho obviously help, but it’s more a collective mentality now. There’s a maturity and composure about them now and they can see games out.
Klopp was doing his nut at the City goal because he’d been trying to make a sub for a couple of minutes but Oliver ignored the signal from his linesman and allowed City to restart the game from a throw in. The lino clearly had the flag raised above his head to signal a substitution and Oliver should have stopped the game.
We needed to make a change because we were really under the cosh, so Klopp had every right to be angry about that. I’m not sure what happened because I thought that any time a linesman raises his flag there’s a signal that goes straight to the ref, so I don’t know why he didn’t let us make that change.
It was the right move to get Ox on there in place of Bobby, as we couldn’t get out of our own half and clearly a lot of players were beginning to tire. That definitely contributed to City getting on top, but as I say, I felt as though Henderson going off was a real turning point.
It might not show up on the stat sheet (I saw some stat nerd on Twitter mocking his defensive contribution on the basis that he only had one tackle) but Henderson’s influence on this game was massive, and it was all the more noticeable when he went off.
Sterling had looked lively all day but he hadn’t been able to have much of an influence until Hendo went off. After that he was running wild. Part of that if because as a team we became tired and City were allowed to get on top of us, but the absence of Henderson was huge because all of a sudden Sterling was picking the ball up and he was isolated one v one with Trent.
That did not happen when Henderson was on the field. Klopp alluded to it afterwards without directly mentioning his skipper. He said something along the lines of what a great player Sterling is and how much trouble he gave us in the final 20 minutes, but he also said it shows just what a great job we’d done to keep him quiet until then.
You don’t need to make tackles or interceptions to be effective defensively. You can be influential in all sorts of ways that there are no stats for. Shutting down space, closing off angles, doubling up to help the full back and forcing the winger to go backwards. That’s what Hendo did.
The social media haters won’t see that, but everyone in the ground did and his name was echoing around Anfield as the players left at full time. The midfielders were all sensational and it was nice seeing them get some recognition from Shearer on MOTD.
The midfield is the least heralded part of our side (understandably so) but it’s their unselfish play and incredible work ethic that allows the full backs and forwards to do what they do. Fabinho rightly gets a lot of plaudits but the “workhorses” seem to be the first to get stick when we aren’t at our best and the last to get credit when we are.
Henderson was brilliant but Wijnaldum was even better. What a performance that was from him. He’s always at his best in the big games though so this was no surprise. His ability on the ball in tight spaces is just something else. It’s almost impossible to take the ball off him. He was pinging long passes around too in this game, which you rarely see from him normally. One of the best games I’ve seen him have.
You know who else was ace? Big Dejan. He dealt with Aguero very well, he won loads of important headers and he made a fantastic block to deny Sterling that he celebrated like he’d scored himself. Fucking good for him.
In the summer I seemed to be writing every week in the diary about why we’d be stupid to sell Lovren. This is why. He’s fucking good and he was always going to be needed because we have so many games. I’m not telling you he’s better than Gomez or Matip, but a lot of it is based on form and opportunity. He lost his place through injury, but prior to that he’d been great for six months and was man of the match in Kiev.
Gomez, and then Matip both came in and played well enough to keep their place until they too lost it through injury. Now it’s come full circle and Lovren is back in and will take some shifting now. Matip has been brilliant and had made the position his own but if Lovren continues to perform as he has been then ‘Big Bird’ will need to wait his turn, just as Dejan did. We’ve got four top centre backs when most teams, even the good ones, are lucky if they have one.
This is just a huge win for multiple reasons. Every win is important because every three points we pick up takes us closer to the title. Psychologically this is huge though. City could have narrowed the gap to three points, but instead it’s nine and all the pressure is on them now because having lost three games already they really can’t afford many more slip ups.
It’s perhaps significant that they’ve dropped to fourth too. That has to be a jolt to them as they will have spent all season looking up at us and not behind at Chelsea and Leicester. Now it’s not just us they need to reel in, it’s those two as well. How will they react having had things their own way for so long? They’ve got Chelsea next so well see.
There is no love lost between the two sets of players and there was a bit of needle in the game. Unsurprisingly Robbo was involved in some of it when he gave Walker a naughty little shove as he chased a ball into touch. Walker understandably took exception to it and had words, but Robbo just walked away grinning at him. I love that little bit of edge he has to him in these big games.
It wasn’t just him though. Trent had a little nibble at Sterling in a similar manner, giving him a nudge as he ran towards the Kop. That prompted an angry little exchange between the pair and that was a fiercely contested battle throughout. Trent bossed it for most of the game but in the closing stages Sterling was getting on top and Klopp sensibly brought on Gomez (I’d have done it at least five minutes earlier though), who also ended up getting into it with his England team-mate.
That was smart from Joe as it broke up the play and wasted valuable seconds. It was just handbags, but it was funny the way Gomez just picked him up and moved him out of his space. Loved that.
At full time it continued as Sterling went over to say his piece and Gomez looked like he was just giving it the “whatever bro, I don’t really care, just shake my hand and fuck off while I celebrate”.
Another boss bit of gamesmanship was late in the first half when a miles offside Sadio gave himself up by lashing the ball into the Anny Road rather than just allowing it to run through to the keeper as you normally would. That was so clever. Only a little thing, but it stopped Bravo from just collecting the ball and starting an attack.
For so long I have felt that we were a little bit too nice, but we’ve learned and while we’re not exactly kick off merchants, there’s definitely a more streetwise approach in evidence these days and I fucking love it.
You know what else I love? Baldiola losing his shit whenever we beat him. He was pathetic. Embarrassing. What a bad whiny bastard he is any time he doesn’t get his own way. With his bald head and crying face, he looks like a giant fucking baby with stubble.
In fairness I thought he was fine in his post match interviews once he’d calmed down, but during the game his antics were ridiculous. The screaming to the heavens of “TWIIIICE!!!” is something we’ll be seeing memes of for years.
He was even having arguments with random fans in the Main Stand at one point when there was a stoppage in play while Jesus got treatment. It was brilliant and I’d love to know what was being said. At times like that I wish I sat closer to the benches as you know I’d have been pulling out the full repertoire of slaphead put downs.
Then he goes onto the field at full time, shakes the hands of the officials and yells at Oliver “THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU SO MUCH”. All that was missing was for him to turn back and say “In case you didn’t know, Marge, I was being sarcastic”. He actually looks like a slim Homer Simpson when I think about it.
He then says afterwards that he wasn’t being sarcastic. Ok mate, sure you weren’t. Should be charged for that, although we’d probably have to wait until after the reverse fixture for his ban to be enforced. Still no word on Bernardo’s punishment, but I bet it’s announced this week. Farce.
It was annoying to see Guardiola on the pitch mocking the ref because Oliver does not deserve to be the focus of any attention. People should not be talking about the ref after a game like this as he did his job well. There were one or two things I didn’t like but refereeing a game of this magnitude is really difficult and all things considered he was excellent.
That’s what people should be saying, but because of Guardiola’s tantrums all I’m hearing is people discussing Oliver and VAR’s decisions. He stood there stony faced while Guardiola yelled at him, but he must have been thinking “get out of my face you fucking spoilt, self entitled, whiny, sore loser, baldy twat”.
I actually dread to think what would have happened if a lesser referee had taken charge of the game. Oliver really needs to be put in charge of every big game now because who else would you trust? All of the others are terrible, whether it’s with a whistle or a computer.
I actually said to my Dad before the game that we wouldn’t have to worry about VAR because there’s no way Paul Tierney was going to be over-ruling Oliver, and so it proved. It’s ironic really, one of the few games where VAR was not actually a problem and yet it’s still got everyone complaining just because we won. Still, let them all stew in their own boiled piss.
We’ve got a 50 game sample size now and in those 50 games we’ve picked up eight more points than City and we’ve lost just once compared to their seven. So the logical conclusion has to be that we’re now better than them. That might change, but as things stand they should be more worried about us than the other way around, and I think they probably are given the unhealthy obsession they have from top to bottom of that club.
Nine points is a big gap to close, especially given how few games we lose these days, but I’m taking nothing for granted as we were in a similar (although not quite as healthy) situation last year and the big swing came when we lost at the Etihad. That could happen again and if you throw in a few draws suddenly that nine point lead could be gone.
City can reel off 15 wins on the bounce; we know that because they’ve done it in each of the last two years. I expect them to be really strong and to go on a run in the new year, especially when Laporte is back, so it’s a case of making hay while the sun shines.
They have a tough stretch of six games coming up and there are more points to be dropped there. If we can keep churning out wins we can extend that lead to a point where they might almost throw in the towel. Ideally they’ll have to become more pre-occupied about holding off Chelsea and Leicester and allow us to ride off into the sunset, but it’s us, we never have it easy so I’m expecting us to have a little spell when things don’t go our way, possibly around the holiday period when we have so many games to play.
Hopefully we can build a big enough lead before then that any tricky spell won’t be too damaging.
Star man is virtually impossible. It could be virtually anyone. Virg was Virg, the front three worked their socks off and City couldn’t cope with them. Lovren was great, the two full backs were exceptional and the midfield three were magnificent. If you put a gun to my head and make me choose I’d probably go for Wijnaldum though, just over Fabinho.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Milner), Wijnaldum; Salah (Gomez), Firmino (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Mané:
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