We’d won the previous six games prior to this but the last five had gone down to the wire. Not since spanking West Ham on opening day have we been able to properly relax for the closing stages of a game, so this was nice. A routine, comfortable win in which the opposition didn’t even manage a shot until the 91st minute. Just what we want.
We weren’t at our best but this team is so good now they rarely need to be. Third gear is usually enough to see off most opponents. This one was over by half time, even though we didn’t even play particularly well and looked a bit disjointed up top.
Klopp had sprung a couple of surprises with his starting line up, with Shaqiri and Matip coming in for Milner and Gomez. I half expected Milner to be given a rest but I assumed Keita would be his replacement, not Shaqiri. More on that shortly though.
Matip coming in was unexpected too. No idea what that was about other than maybe wanting to be careful with Gomez after the injuries he’s had in recent years. Both changes paid off and then some, which bodes well for the weeks ahead.
It wasn’t just the personnel that changed though. The front three were all moved from their usual spots and it didn’t really work. Mo played down the middle, Sadio on the right and Bobby on the left. Don’t know what the thinking was behind that. Might have just been trying to confuse Southampton, but I suspect it was about isolating Mo against those two slow footed giants they had in the middle of the defence.
That Danish lad is fucking huge. At one point I swear I saw King Kong climbing up him and swatting at planes circling around his head. Fair play to him and the other lad, Hoijt, I thought they did ok all things considered. There were loads of times when Mo was running at them and they managed to stand him up and win the tackle. Better players than them will fail to handle that as well this year.
Still, they couldn’t stop us scoring three times in the first half. The first goal was all about Shaqiri, who made a good run in behind, then cut inside and got his shot away. It was blocked but the rebound struck the unfortunate Hoijt who couldn't adjust his feet quick enough and diverted it into his own net,
The second was a great header by Matip. Who saw that coming? He’s normally got a head like a 50 pence piece, but this was a Sami Hyypia special right into the top corner. He’d been hit and miss up to that point. He started a counter attack with a striding run out from the back. That was good. What was not so good was the casual, under-hit pass to Van Dijk that could have cost us a goal if Big Virg hadn’t got back in to make the tackle.
Aside from that Matip did ok, but it’s hard to see him ousting Gomez any time soon.
I loved the third goal but I was a little torn. Mo needed that goal, he’d seen a couple of openings go begging and you could feel the tension building in the stadium. We were all desperate form him to score, so it was a massive relief when he did. Still, it would have been great if Shaqiri’s shot had bounced behind the line rather than in front of it. That free-kick was fucking phenomenal. The pace and dip on it, just beautiful. Deserved a goal. He seemed pleased for Mo though, so that was nice too.
It was the last we saw of him though, which was a little odd. It was clear Milner was coming on because he was warming up on the field at half time. I thought maybe Wijnaldum would go off, not in any way related to how he was playing, but because both he and Miner have played every game so far. I assumed it was a pre-planned sub, but Klopp says it was tactical and he wanted to tighten up the midfield.
I’m a little bemused by that really. I did see a couple of occasions when Shaqiri wasn’t where you’d have expected him to be defensively, but Southampton never looked capable of exploiting that, and surely the best way for him to learn is to be out there with Hendo and Van Dijk in his ear telling him where he needs to be?
It seemed a strange one to me, but he’ll be needed to play 90 minutes on Wednesday so it’s probably no bad thing. At least the front three were back in their normal spots in the second half. They all looked more comfortable I thought. The second half was like a training session at times, yet there were a couple of really positive things I took from it.
Firstly, one of the concerns I have always had about this team is that when we aren’t playing at breakneck speed, harassing the shit out of the other team when they have the ball, we’ve often been vulnerable. When we play that high tempo stuff nobody can get near us, but it’s impossible to maintain that and too often when the pace goes out of games we can be got at.
That’s changed. Even when it looked like we were just cruising and Southampton started to get much more of the ball than they’d had previously, we were never in any danger because we can defend now. The organisation is much better and we’re really tough to play against even when we aren’t all swarming to the ball like angry wasps at a picnic.
The second thing I felt good about was it looked to me like there were signs the front three are getting back on the same page. They didn’t score in the second half and they didn’t really even test the keeper much, but they came close to it a number of times, with little one twos and bits of slick interplay that we haven’t seen that much so far this season.
Southampton were usually able to just about stop those moves but I just felt like the forward lads were getting back in the groove with each other. It’s starting to click again, I can smell it.
Tell you what I loved most about this game though; Klopp starting Shaqiri behind the front three. This is the way forward in home games against teams that have no intention of having a go. If you want to come here and sit back and try to shut down the front three, sound, we’ll just throw Shaqiri in there to wreak havoc behind them.
There were encouraging signs but the experiment was undermined a little by all the switching around of the front three. I’d like to see how the little fella does playing behind the front three in their usual positions. It may have to wait a while though, it’s not something I’d want to see against Chelsea, Napoli or City, but certainly against the park the bus teams at Anfield.
It would have been nice to add a goal or two to help with the goal difference, but it’s a marathon not a sprint and any time we can conserve a little energy that’s useful. We could have done without Van Dijk leaving the field injured like. Thankfully it’s not serious but you could sense the collective “uh-oh” when he went off.
As it turned out, he wasn’t missed. Gomez came on and did a more than passable “Big Virg” impression. He was fucking ace. Completely dominant and composed in everything he did. He was left isolated a few times against Long and Redmond and he just shrugged them aside and came away with the ball. The confidence he’s playing with right now is great to see and long may it continue.
He was only on the field a short time but he was a strong contender for the star man, he was that impressive. Shaqiri was only on for 45 minutes but that was enough for me, I’m giving him the star man because it was his first start and he made a big impact. It must be difficult for Klopp picking a team each week and not having Shaqiri in it. Then again he’s not got Keita in it either and that has to be tough.
We’ll need all of them over the next few weeks, so it’s good to see the fringe players like Sturridge, Shaqiri, Keita and Matip all making an impact this week.
We’ve now got two games with Chelsea and I’d expect to see vastly different line ups for both games. The league game is the priority but it would be a big thing for us to extend the winning run by taking care of business on Wednesday too. Presumably Chelsea will be resting players too so there’s no reason to think we can’t win that game.
It's at home, so that's almost a guarantee of a win these days. When was the last time we even conceded at Anfield? Feels like about three years ago, and we must have scored 150 goals in that time. Long may that continue.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk (Gomez), Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum (Keita), Shaqiri (Milner); Salah, Firmino, Mané:
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