Liverpool 4 Leeds United 3 (Sep 12 2020)

Not really sure what to think about this. First and foremost I’m relieved we won and contrary to what many seem to be saying, it was completely, totally, 100% deserved. We were by far the better team and created a shitload more chances than Leeds did. We made it unnecessarily hard for ourselves but as this team so often does, they came through to take the points.

So that’s a good thing. The ability to just ‘find a way’ is great and that’s what separated us from Man City last year. When the going gets tough, they lose matches whereas we win them. It would be nice if we didn’t make it so hard for ourselves so often though, and just what the fuck has happened to the defence? 

We’ve gone from being by far the tightest unit in the league to looking like Brendan’s 2014 vintage. Since lockdown the amount of goals we’ve shipped has been alarming. At the back end of last season we could put it down to the lack of intensity after winning the league, but what’s the excuse for this one? 

Rustiness maybe, but I think it’s deeper than that. We’re conceding loads of goals since fans were no longer allowed in to stadiums. It’s hurting us more than anyone and I don’t just mean the ‘Anfield atmosphere’ thing either. Even having a hostile crowd helps with focus, intensity and concentration.

With no fans these games look like training sessions at times and as a result we’re making stupid mistakes and generally not being as switched on as we normally would. That edge that everyone has when playing in front of a packed stadium isn’t there and it’s causing a casualness and lack of focus. 

The lack of intensity in games also doesn’t help us. We’re great when we’re full throttle but when we drop off a touch we’re not as good with or without the ball. I just don’t think this game plays out like this in front of a full house, but there’s no way of proving that one way or the other I guess.

In fairness to Leeds, two of their goals were excellently worked. I can pick holes in how we defended them but it was nice football by them. One of their goals was a gift though, an absolute disgrace in fact. There’s been a real stench of complacency about our defensive play since football returned a couple of months ago. I’m not sure if that’s going to go away until fans are back, but hopefully this serves as the kick up the arse that we need, 

The back four looked ropey for all of the first half and parts of the second. It wasn’t just because of them though. Leeds players seemed to be picking the ball up in space between our midfield and defence much too easily. There were gaps everywhere and the absence of Fabinho was noticeable. Why that was I can’t say. Maybe Hendo was a little rusty or maybe it was because Naby was in the midfield three? 

Fabinho not being selected didn’t surprise me at all. Normally it would, but as I wrote in the diary this week, Klopp had a right go at him last week against Blackpool and subbed him at half time. I wondered if there was something to that, and him not starting this game tells me there was and that a message was being sent. 

The message might have been more effective if we hadn’t had to send him an SOS to go on and shore up the midfield, but hopefully whatever issue there may have been has been sorted, because we’re a better team with both him and Hendo playing rather than just the one of them. 

Fab was belatedly brought on to replace Keita. I was a little surprised by that, more so because I didn’t expect Hendo to last as long as he did. Naby could have no complaints.

This was one of those games where both factions in the “Keita wars” saw the game completely differently. I saw people outraged that he was subbed and I saw others who couldn’t believe he lasted as long as he did. I don’t really know where I stand on this, because I didn’t think he had a bad game as such, but it does concern me that whenever he plays we seem to be wide open and the opposition finds all sorts of space in front of our defence.

He’s really good at winning the ball high up the pitch and did it a few times in this game. They would have led to chances too if the forwards had made better decisions (mostly Bobby). Yet there always seem to be gaps when Keita is on the pitch. Maybe I’m imagining that and it’s more how I perceive it than it is reality, but that’s how it feels. 

I can see plenty of positive things with him but I don’t get how his fanboys can be so vociferous about how great he is. The jury is still well and truly out and if we had to lose one midfielder to make room for Thiago I’d rather it was Keita than Wijnaldum. I’m not saying I’d sell him, by the way, just that he’s the one I’m least convinced by.

Anyway, I’ve gotten a little sidetracked. So let’s get back to the game and go through the goals. We drew first blood from the penalty spot. Amazing that there are people disputing that decision as it’s just blatant. 

I’m one who generally gives the defender the benefit on handball decisions, but when the arm is outstretched like that, away from the body, then it’s just a pen all day. So what if it hit his knee first? His arm is still needless out well away from his side. Apparently they’ve changed that law anyway so this was undoubtedly a pen.

Mo stepped up and buried it right down the middle. I’m not a fan of the down the middle pen as generally it’s risky if you do it too often. For example, I reckon I’d save half of Troy Deeney’s pens just by standing still and letting it hit me. 

Mo occasionally goes down the middle but he’s also gone everywhere else too. He mixes them up nicely though and with that wide run up he has it’s almost impossible to read where he’s going. So if a keeper saves a pen from him it’s because he made a lucky guess as there’s no way you can tell from his run up where he’s going.

Leeds levelled when their left sided player got away from Trent, cut inside and then beat Alisson with a low shot. Initially I thought it was weak as fuck from Trent. He should have made a challenge but held off. Then I watched the replay and he only held off because Gomez arrived on the scene and kind of got in his way while not making a challenge either. Needs better communication from them really. Good goal from the lad though.

Virgil then headed in from a Robbo corner to restore our lead. Some nice movement in the box to clear a path for him and the header was so powerful that the keeper caught it on the line and ended up three yards behind it.

Virg then undid that good work with an appalling piece of defending to gift a goal to my boy and fellow Bon Jovi enthusiast Patrick Bamford. I Always hated him until I realised that he was just Misunderstood and that he has the same excellent musical taste as me. Good Guys Don’t Always Wear White, but Patrick does. 

It’s been a Roller Coaster ride for him at Leeds but it hasn’t exactly been a Bed of Roses for him lately with constant speculation about him being replaced. He’s Unbreakable though is Patrick. When he’s feeling like a Monday he tells himself “Someday I’ll be Saturday Night”. This was Saturday night for him and he dished out some Bad Medicine to us. 

There’s not enough patience in football These Days and this could be the Last Chance Train for Bamford, but I can’t help thinking it might be a Breakout season for him if Leeds Keep the Faith. 

Ok ok relax, I’m done with the Bon Jovi references now but I have No Regrets about any of them and I make No Apologies.

Virgil though. Jesus. Talk about over-confidence. I know he’s done shit like this before and it’s come off, and to be fair we all buzz off it when it does, but this was different because he was too close to his own goal and Alisson was completely stranded because of it. Just fucking head it away and stop showing off.

Mo then rifled in a stunner to make it 3-2 before half time. Ridiculously good strike that, right into the top corner. He’d looked dangerous every time he had the ball and you could see how up for it he was. Sadio had some good moments too but he faded the longer the game went on I thought.

Anyway, at 3-2 I just assumed we’d run away with out, especially having had the half time break to sort out the defensive sloppiness and get everyone refocused. If we’d have scored the next goal I think that’s how it would have played out.

The second half was going well. We were creating chances and - especially after the introduction of Fabinho - looked to have taken the sting out Leeds. Then Henderson was replaced by Jones and immediately we conceded. The change had a direct impact on it too as Curtis didn’t track the runner into the box. 

It’s not a strength of his and this is the kind of thing he obviously needs to work on, but he had literally just stepped onto the field so it’s understandable that there may have been confusion as to who should have been picking the guy up. It may have been partly on Gini too, although he had his back to the runner whereas Curtis could see him, so it’s mostly on the kid. As I say though, he had only just come on and it’s difficult to be immediately in tune with everything that’s happening.

He was terrific aside from that. Demanding the ball, showing great confidence and composure and generally being really positive. It was a real vote of confidence in him that he was sent on ahead of Milner and Minamino and he’s got to be very close to getting a start soon. And not just a “let’s give the kid a game and see how he does” type of start. I mean a genuine, “he deserves to be starting ahead of the senior lads” kind of start. He’s getting closer to that with each week now.

Prior to that goal I didn’t think Leeds had really threatened at all, but because we squandered chances to get the fourth goal there is always the risk that something like that could happen. The lad took the goal superbly and one thing Leeds did all day was flood the box when they had the opportunity. They’ll score goals this season but they’ll probably conceded a ton as well.

Had we been sharper in front of goal they’d have been utterly embarrassed in this game. All this talk about how well they played and how unlucky they were. It’s being hugely overblown. Had we been more clinical we’d have put seven or eight past them.

We weren’t clinical though, and we haven’t really been for some time. Is Bobby becoming a problem? No-one wants to really say it because we love him and he still does enough to remind us all of what he’s capable of and how important he can be, but he’s definitely not playing at the level he was.

Even in this game when he struggled, there was some lovely stuff from him. Not least the graceful turn away in his own half to start a counter attack that would have been a contender for greatest goal ever if Sadio had found the top corner instead of the middle rows of the Kop. Is it enough though? 

I suppose the obvious answer to that is yes it is, because we won the league. When outsiders question him I’m the first to become defensive and dismiss the criticism, yet I do feel like it’s starting to becoming a thing and he needs a few goals just to nip this in the bud.

I know what he brings to the team can’t always be measured by goals, but I don’t think he’s even doing those things especially well of late (by ‘of late’ I’m talking the best part of a year). The one thing I do know is that since the beginning of last season I’ve lost count of the number of games where he’s either been subbed or he was lucky he wasn’t. 

There was a time when you’d never even consider bringing him off, but now it feels as though half the games he plays I’m thinking “Bobby needs hooking” before we even reach the hour mark. Why is that?

Firstly, he’s actually become TOO unselfish. The thing that made him so great is now holding him back because his first instinct in any given situation now seems to be to look for the pass. Shooting is almost a last resort. The early chance when Keita played him in and he tried to square it is a perfect case in point.

Secondly, when he does have clear chances himself he isn’t putting them away with the regularity he did a couple of years ago. I know I go on about this all the time and I’m even boring myself with it now. But the fact is he scored 26 goals in 17/18 while still doing all the things that we love him for.

Bottom line, he needs to sharpen up his finishing. The chance he missed not long before we got the winning penalty was a fucking disgrace. I don’t even think that shot was hitting the target before the defender blocked it. You have to take chances like that, there’s just no getting away from it.

He’s incredibly fortunate that we won the penalty almost immediately, because if we’d dropped points here then that miss would be the big thing people would be looking at.

Thankfully Fabinho forced Rodrigo into a lazy, careless challenge and we were awarded our second penalty of the game. Again, it was blatant and no more than we deserved, especially after Van Dijk had seen a perfectly good goal ruled out for a phantom foul by Jones.

That pissed me right off because it was beautifully crafted by us. Virgil spun away and ran around the back of a pack of players. There was nowhere for the defender to go so he tried to squeeze through a tiny gap between Jones and his marker and tripped over. Fuck all wrong with that.

It didn’t matter in the end because Mo buried another penalty with aplomb (this time putting it in the corner) to give us the points late on. We shouldn’t have to score four goals to win but it’s nice to know we can when it’s needed.

It’s hard not to be at least a little worried about Firmino though, while at the other end Alisson isn’t having his most productive period either. I’m not saying the goals that we’ve conceded since lockdown ended are his fault by any means. 

It might just be a statistical anomaly but he isn’t making many saves. According to a statto I follow on Twitter, he’s saved 17 of the last 35 shots he’s faced, which is really not good. For perspective, there was a period last season when he saved 50/54.

Obviously there are various factors that contribute to this, not least the quality of shot he’s facing. It’s the kind of thing that used to happen all the time under the Mig though. Teams would have three shots on target and two of them would go in. Leeds actually scored three from three in this game.

Were any of them Alisson’s fault? No. Would he normally save at least one of those? Quite possibly, but who knows really? I suspect it’s just one of those weird statistical thing that happen now and again and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s the hero against Chelsea or Arsenal in the coming weeks.

So all in all, I’m made up with the win if not necessarily the way it was achieved. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience at all though. It would have been had I been sat in my seat in the Main Stand. I’d have come out buzzing and the focus would have been on what a thrilling game it was in what would no doubt have been an electric atmosphere. It’s shit that we’re missing out on this.

The first home game of the season is one of the best days of the year. I fucking love it. The sun is always shining, meeting the lads before the game and catching up after the summer, and then there’s the buzz of walking up to the ground. Even better is the buzz of walking up the steps and seeing the immaculate pitch. Then YNWA before kick off. It’s just fucking great, and we’ve been robbed of it this year. And this year would have had an extra edge because it was Leeds.

So yeah there’s a lot of depressing aspects of not being able to go the match, but near the top of it is being subjected to Martin Tyler. He’s the fucking worst, I hate him. He may as well have been wearing a Leeds shirt, a flat cap and had a ferret down his trousers while breeding whippets and racing pigeons. 

Actually, is a ferret down the trousers an actual Yorkshire stereotype or did I just make that one up? Whatever, you get the point. Tyler was rooting for Leeds with every fibre of his being. Which would be fine if he has the same approach when they play City or United, but he won’t. The cunt.

Then there was his constant over pronunciation of “Hhhhhhockkkkkkkkk” just because he didn’t want to say ‘cock’, the fucking cock. He ruined my enjoyment of this game even more than our wretched defending did. The sooner he’s put out top pasture with ‘Motty’ the happier I’ll be.

To be fair he wasn’t the only one going completely overboard about Leeds. You’d think they had stood there and gone toe to toe with us, creating chance after chance and just being desperately unlucky to be beaten by a late penalty. That’s not how it was. Yeah they had a go and played some nice stuff, but they had three chances and scored from all of them. That’s not going to happen very often.

So while I find their style to be refreshing and I actually hope they do alright, I’m not buying the Leeds hype yet. In fact, I won’t be forming any judgement on them for at least another month because I had my fingers burnt last year with Norwich and I won’t be falling into that trap again. 

Yeah, Norwich. Remember them? The newly promoted team that came to Anfield on opening night last year and conceded four, just like Leeds did. Norwich were brilliant that night and created a lot more chances than Leeds did. They didn’t take any of them though. Still, everyone said “well if they play like that against everyone else they’ll do just fine”. How’d that work out for them?

Most newly promoted teams start off like a runaway train because they’ve come from a division in which they’ve been top dogs and are used to playing attacking football. You don’t get promoted by parking the bus, so it stands to reason that when these teams come up they’re going to do what got them to the dance in the first place.

It’s only after a few tonkings they realise that they need to tighten it up a bit. In the case of Fulham two years ago and Norwich last year, they never realised it at all and just kept on entertaining (and losing). So yeah, Leeds looked lively against us but we’ll see how they do when they go to Bramall Lane or how they fare when they have to break down Sean Dyche’s lads.

So anyway, we started with a win and perhaps we’ll benefit from the sloppiness. Maybe it’s a wake up call we needed, because the fixtures over the coming weeks are more difficult than this one and we can’t afford to be so lax in defence against better sides, because we might not be able to score four against them.

Star man is Mo, who was fucking sensational from first minute to last. He looks like a man on a mission to regain the Golden Boot and to put himself back into the Balon d’Or conversation. I’m seeing a lot of talk of him not getting the credit he deserves and how now he’s going to show everyone. I reckon that’s bollocks to be honest. He gets the credit relating to what his performances merit.

The season he scored 44 goals he was the king of the world. He was the name on everyone’s lips and arguably the biggest global star in the game. Since then he’s been scoring around half that amount, so yeah he isn’t being spoken about in the same glowing terms but no-one is saying he isn’t a top player. 

He didn’t make the PFA Team of the Year because he didn’t deserve to. He was probably close and it wouldn’t have been out of line if he had, but he can’t have any complaints about not getting in ahead of the likes of Sadio, Vardy and Aubameyeng.

So let’s put all this “Mo is disrespected” talk on hold shall we. I hope as much as anyone that he goes on another goal rampage this season and hits forty again, but I’m not going to put the cart before the horse just because he scored a hat-trick (including two pens) against Leeds.

I made that mistake late last season when he looked like dynamite against Bournemouth and I said he’d chase down Vardy for the Golden Boot. I don’t think he scored another goal after that. So yeah, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and I’ll need to see him put a consistent run of games together before I start declaring that “King Mo” is back.

This was a great start though as I thought he just looked head and shoulders above everybody else on the pitch. I’m excited by it, I just hope he can keep it up and doesn’t go and miss three one v ones next week at Chelsea. 

As for the rest, some were alright, some were below par and some (Trent and to a lesser extent Hendo) were rustier than a 10 year old patio set that’s been left out in the rain all that time. 

That’s to be expected though really and it might be another month before everyone is fully back in the groove as pre-season was basically a non-event this year.

If we can get through the first five games unscathed then we’ll take some stopping again, but I’d feel a lot more confident about that if the stadiums were full.

Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Matip), Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Jones), Wijnaldum, Keita (Fabinho); Salah, Firmino, Mané: