Was this our “Aston Villa away” for this season? We won’t know until May but it definitely feels like this might have some significance. It was a day when we never really got going but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. We finished like a runaway train and Fulham were left in a bloodied heap on the tracks.
It will mean nothing if we don’t take advantage of it, but it feels big because we don’t tend to have too many of these games at Anfield, but we found a way to get through it unscathed. Home games are usually easy. We win by two or three goals and don’t have to sweat much over the result.
It’s reached a point where I’m taking these wins for granted and I didn’t see any way Fulham were leaving Anfield with anything. So for us to be staring down the barrel of a defeat with a few minutes left felt like a massive blow. With our away form being somewhat patchy, we absolutely can’t afford to drop points at home to anyone really, let alone bottom half teams. Yet it looked like we would.
Imagine the mood today if we hadn’t turned this around. We wouldn’t be dreaming of a possible title that’s for sure. But we did turn it around and we are still dreaming of it. And wins like this give you that extra spring in your step on a Monday, and I’m sure it gives the players a little extra belief in themselves and what they can achieve. It’s still a long shot, we’re not favourites and nor should we be. But we’ve played 14 games and we’re above Man City. That’s a better situation that any of us expected.
Wins like this help to create belief among the squad and also the fans. The next time we’re in a tight spot we’ll draw from this experience. This is a new team but they’ve had a number of tricky situations to deal with already and they’ve come through all of them really.
They had to play with ten men against Bournemouth and Newcastle but they got the results anyway. They had to play with nine at Spurs and were a last ditch freak own goal away from getting a point, despite having a legitimate goal scandalously not awarded. We lost the day, but it was a test they passed with flying colours.
We went a goal down away at City and came back to get a point and end their 100% home record in 2023. Even Luton, as shit as it was, can be spun into a positive in the sense that they managed to avoid losing the game when it looked like they would suffer a humiliating defeat. The draw was pretty humiliating, but they pulled that one out of the fire late to get a point.
Then there’s this. Conceding late on to fall behind on a freezing day in which the crowd had offered virtually nothing. Everything was flat, we were heading for a result that would have really damaged morale and the faith the fans have in the team, but instead we ended up with a win and one of the most enjoyable five minutes we’ve had at Anfield in a good while. The crowd had barely made a peep for 80 odd minutes, but Anfield was rocking by the end.
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