Not really what I was expecting or hoping for but getting the three points is always the most important thing when you’re trying to keep pace with Man City. There is very little margin for error so you just have to win. If you can win well, all the better.
3-1 is fine though, especially under the circumstances as there was an ‘Atletico Madrid 2020’ feel about this with all the Covid stuff going on right now.
I thought we would win well because Newcastle are shite and we’re in fine form. We weren’t helped by Virgil and Fabinho testing positive on the day of the game meaning Klopp had to make a couple of late changes. Not a big deal as we’re bringing in good players to replace them and we were only playing Newcastle.
Going behind early didn’t help but it didn’t hurt too much either as we were playing well before the goal and we continued to play well after it. Just a bump in the road as we got caught after a mistake, which can happen. Good strike by Shelvey to be fair. Initially I thought Alisson should have done better but having seen the replay from behind the ball I don’t think it’s saveable. He seemed to be wrong footed and may have thought it was going in the other corner.
The blame lies with Thiago really who rushed his clearance when there was no need. That’s so not like him. Usually it would be the opposite and you worry about him taking too much time and losing the ball that way, or just playing a careless pass. He did that a bit later and needed Alisson to bail him out. Sometimes when you’re that good you take the basics for granted and don’t pay them the attention you should. He spent the next five minutes apologising to everybody after that though, and I don’t think he gave it away again all night.
The Newcastle goal wasn’t exactly a wake up call as we weren’t asleep. We were looking sharp and playing some great stuff. It was only a matter of time before we equalised but when it came there was definitely an element of luck about it. More often than not the referee stops the game before the cross comes in for Jota to score at the second attempt.
I’d be pissed off if one of our players was down with a head injury and the game wasn’t stopped, so I get Newcastle’s complaints. It’s difficult though because if you start stopping the game every time a player goes down holding his head, you’ll just get players constantly going down holding their heads after an initial set-piece has been cleared, as that means no second phase of play goals.
That’s the problem here; players and managers are - as a general rule - cheating cunts who will look to gain an advantage however they can. Let’s take the Villa game last weekend for example. We saw all that time wasting and gamesmanship from them, so it’s naive to think they wouldn’t resort to going down holding their heads to get the game stopped any time there’s potential danger.
So it’s easy to blame Mike Dean for that but he did see that the player was down so the logical conclusion here is he thought it wasn’t a genuine head injury. Eddie Howe says the player was “hazy for five minutes afterwards”. Either he’s lying or he’s completely ignoring concussion protocols by not subbing him. Not sure which is worse really.
Personally I don’t think it was a head injury. Dean said he thought Murphy was holding his back and that certainly looks like where the impact was. I don’t have a perfect solution here as I don’t think there is one. If you blow up every time then a lot of players will cheat because that’s what they do. They’ll call it gamesmanship though. Like faking an injury late in the game to break up the flow and relieve pressure on a beleaguered defence.
And because of this mistrust referees rightly have of players, there will inevitably be a situation when a player has a bad injury and play goes on, but instead of blaming refs for this people need to realise the problem is the players themselves, who have been feigning injury and trying to con referees for decades now.
If that goal hadn’t have stood it was only a matter of time before we scored anyway, and Eddie Howe is kidding himself if he thinks otherwise. Mo added a second when Shelvey’s blind backless went straight to Sadio, who was fouled as he entered the box. He battled to stay on his feet but as he stumbled his shot was saved by the keeper. Pretty sure it would have been a foul and a red card if Mo hadn’t pounced to bury the rebound. Goal number 22.
It should have been 23 when Ox’s brilliant first time volleyed through ball sent him racing clear. It was on his right foot but you still expect him to bury that. Instead it rolled wide. Still, plenty of time for him to add to it as he’d get more chances, right? Wrong.cAll the things were did well in the first half, we stopped doing in the second. But before I get to that I want to emphasise the good things I saw from us before the break, and indeed for the past several weeks.
We’re doing things a bit differently at the moment. There are things I’m seeing that seem like they’re new wrinkles in how we play. Firstly, the midfield dynamic has changed. It’s not one six and two eights anymore. It’s two sixes and then the other one (Ox in this game, but usually Hendo) is pushed much higher up. Ste Warnock highlighted this on MOTD and I also read an interesting piece on it last week, on This is Anfield I think. It’s a definite evolution in our play and it’s probably the plan Klopp had when he brought in Thiago.
The other thing that struck me - in the first half especially, but also over recent weeks - is that we really seem to be doing something I’ve been wanting to see us focus on for years. Man City have been doing it to great effect and I always felt like its an area that we should be concentrating on more. You know what I’m talking about. Those overloads out wide, the little triangles to get players to the byline and in areas where they can just drill a low ball in for tap ins. It’s been City’s go to move against packed defences but it’s an area we’ve neglected I think.
Not now. We’re doing it more and more. Whether it’s the Hendo / Mo / Trent axis on the right or just Sadio and Robbo doing their thing on the other side, it looks like this has been a point of emphasis for us and we’re doing it really well. In the first half of this game we were constantly looking to get in those areas and Newcastle were usually at full stretch to stop it. An outstretched boot here, a last ditch header there, it was all very desperate and our football was brilliant.
So at half time I felt that we’d score five or six simply because the longer the game goes and the more tired their players get, those last ditch interventions become harder and harder to pull off. You go from just getting a toe on it to just coming up short and all of a sudden Salah or Mané is getting in. That’s how I thought the second half would play out, but it was nothing like that.
We weren’t doing the things that had us so dominant in the first half and the whole thing just fell flat. The atmosphere was shite in the second half and the performance wasn’t much better. It’s easy to say now that it was never in doubt, but I was not comfortable at all watching this from about 70 minutes on. Just because Newcastle didn’t threaten doesn’t mean they couldn’t have, especially late on when jitters would naturally set in.
All it takes is one mistake, or one counter attack, or a set-piece, and that ‘comfortable’ 2-1 becomes 2-2 and you’re staring down the kind of unacceptable result that wrecks a title challenge. Because if this season continues to play out as it has so far, there’s not going to be much between us and City and dropping points in a game like this would be a potential season wrecker.
It didn’t happen because of two key incidents involving Trent. One is the goal, obviously, as that made the game completely safe for us and allowed us to enjoy the closing stages without any kind of nerves. The other was the tackle he made on Fraser that had some pundits (Jenas and Cole to name two) claiming Newcastle should have been awarded a penalty.
I don’t get that at all. Yes, it’s very close to being a penalty and if Trent doesn’t play the ball first then it’s a foul. But we’re in ‘aunty with bollocks’ territory here aren’t we? He DOES play the ball so therefore it’s a good tackle and not a pen. They actually tried to make a comparison with the Coufal challenge at Arsenal the night before, which is a total apples v oranges comparison as the incidents are nothing alike.
What I would say though is that if Trent was a fraction later or if he’d missed the ball and caught Fraser, we could so easily have blown this game and it would have been a direct result of that poor second half. I don’t know if it was fatigue or just a case of us dropping off because Newcastle were shite, but this game could have gone pear shaped for us. Don’t get me wrong, it would have been a complete fluke result, but fluke results happen. For example, while this game was going on Chelsea were somehow being held to a draw by the worst Everton starting eleven I’ve ever seen. It can happen if you don’t put shit teams away.
Thankfully we did eventually put them away and spared ourselves the nervous finale. What a way to do it as well. A fucking rocket by Trent. Usually his goals are curlers where he starts it out wide and bends it back in. This one he just twatted and it was really travelling. I initially thought it was Thiago because that’s the area of the pitch I would have expected him to be. Plus the socks rolled down and I probably glimpsed a ‘6’ on the back of the shirt.
It was only when I saw Thiago standing well away from the celebrations I realised it wasn’t him, and for a second or two I couldn’t think who it was. It’s an age thing that. In my younger days I’d have known instantly who it was and if I hadn’t I’d have figured it out a mili-second later.
I thought the changes Klopp made helped us. While it was surprising to see Mo brought off, Jota looked livelier on the right and it was good to have Bobby back out there. The real difference maker was Keita though who seemed to really enjoy himself in the space in front of the Newcastle defence. He carried the ball forward and was always looking to play little slide rule passes through. He looked sharp. Hopefully he stays that way, at least until his next inevitable muscle pull.
So overall I’m happy enough with the result even though it is a little annoying that we didn’t just go out and smash Newcastle everywhere, especially given how City almost wiped out our goal difference advantage with one hammering of Leeds. We could have done the same to the Geordies, who were ripe for it, but we didn’t. At least we put two more points between us and Chelsea.
I’d be a lot more frustrated about the lack of a hammering if we weren’t in this shitty covid situation, but taking all of that into account I’m just relieved we got the points and that a full house was there to see it.
Who knows, it might be our last game for a while and even if it’s not, will fans still be allowed in? It’s uncertain at the moment so I’m just relieved to get the points because there are bigger things to be worried about.
Star man is Konate who didn’t have loads to do but looked dominant and assured in everything he did. Saint-Maximin had him in some potentially difficult situations but Konate dealt with it with the kind of composure and power we’re used to seeing from Virgil.
No-one played badly but it was a night when very few performed to their best level. We’ll need to step it up against Spurs on Sunday, assuming it even goes ahead of course. Presumably we won’t have Virgil or Fab back so we just have to hope nobody else comes down with it in the meantime. Proper shit this isn’t it?
I was actually uneasy about even going to this game because of what happened to me against Atletico. I’m triple jabbed so I’m not worried about me getting sick, but I’d feel terrible if I caught it at the match again and brought it home to my family like last time. I’m being as careful as possible, wearing a mask the whole time I’m inside Anfield, and I feel as though I’d be more likely to get it at the supermarket or for Adrianna to bring it home from school, but it still feels almost wrong to be going the game and I’m really struggling with the decision to go.
Depending on how this plays out over the next few weeks I might stay away from the next couple of home games. I don’t know yet, but it has to be a consideration. I just don’t want to be responsible for catching it and passing it on again. As I said, proper shit this.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Konate, Robertson; Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Keita), Thiago (Milner); Salah (Firmino), Jota, Mané:
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