We’re making these games look routine again now. I didn’t think for one second that we wouldn’t win this, because it’s at Anfield. We’re back in that place now where a home game is almost a guaranteed three points. Had we been playing Forest away then I’d have been open to the possibility we might drop points, but not at Anfield.
We had to do this without Luis Diaz though. Just a truly horrific situation which I’m not going to dwell on because we don’t know how it’s going to play out. Hopefully it all works out but this must have been such a tough day for his team-mates. They have to just get on with it and I dunno, maybe playing the match is a good thing for them because they can focus on something else.
They’ll all be feeling it, especially those he’s closest to. I suppose having a game to play helps them feel like they’re doing something to help. Win the game, send him a message of support and just hope for the best.
We’re lucky in the sense that we have a ready made replacement for him in Jota. Completely different types of player, but Jota is scoring pretty much every time he starts now after that mad drought he had when he came back from injury. The front five are scoring at a ridiculous rate this season, averaging two goals a game. My money is on that going up rather than down as the season progresses. Darwin might average two a game on his own once he gets a proper run of games.
The midfield has been the big plus for us this season though. We knew the forwards would score goals. They scored goals last season even when we were shite. But the midfield was an issue. Not the only issue, but we knew it needed rebuilding and it has been.
For what I think was the first time this season we started with our entirely new midfield. Macca, Dom and Ryan. For all the gnashing of teeth and wailing about our summer activity (some of it certainly justified) we’ve completely rebuilt the midfield and it’s been quite seamless really. No period of transition, we’ve just brought in new, young players, and we’ve immediately been ace. Hell of a job, despite the debacles with Bellingham, Caicedo and Lavia.
The midfield really impressed in this game. Gravenberch was fairly quiet, certainly in comparison to the other night when he was brilliant, but the balance of the midfield looked really good. We’ll have Curtis back now too, so Klopp has a tricky decision to make. It will get even trickier if he adds Andre in January and frees Mac Allister up to play in the role he was bought for. All of a sudden our weakness has become a strength.
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