Bit of a strange one. For long spells I thought we looked really flat and lifeless, but we had enough quality to get the job done easily enough despite the early scare. All things considered, this was probably as good as we could have expected and there were plenty of positives to come from it.
The young lads did well, Fabinho, Virgil and Konate got a run out which will help them with their sharpness, Bobby and Taki are back just at the right time, and of course we’re in the hat for the next round. So I’m happy enough overall.
The team selection was odd to say the least but I think we all expected it was going to look a bit mad because of the crazy week we’d had. The training ground closed, loads of players reportedly testing positive, an u18 game cancelled because we were going to need some of those players for this game. We didn’t know who had COVID and who didn’t so predicting the line up was hard.
I assumed Virgil, Curtis and Fabinho would play as they’ve recently had it so should be fine. I also thought Alisson, Bobby and Joel would be back. Two of them were in the squad but no Alisson. Hopefully that’s just because he’s excused FA Cup duty and not because he’s still suffering. Other than that though it was anyone’s guess. There had even been rumours that Karius was going to play, but Kelleher and Adrian were both available so we were spared that. In a way I kind of wanted him to play as it would have been nice for him to not have the Madrid game as his final match for us.
As it turned out we were strong at the back but really inexperienced up top. The worry you have when playing lower league sides is if they go alehouse and rough you up a bit. Some play like that but these days it’s becoming increasingly rare and a lot of them want to play football, which lessens the chances of an upset. Even when we play a load of kids I’d still back us to beat any lower league side that wants to play football. If they’re big and physical, that’s when we might have problems.
Not when Konate and Van Dijk are at the back though and Fabinho is shielding them. Shrewsbury’s attacking players must have been a bit deflated when they saw the team sheet. The defenders will have been relieved though. A front three of Jones, Woltman and Gordon isn’t going to strike fear into any experienced back line, while our midfield was also largely inexperienced, with Morton and Dixon-Bonner flanking Fabinho.
The thing with us now though, regardless of who the names are you’ll still know it’s Liverpool because we’ll always play our football. The style is the same, the patterns of play, the movement, the way we’ll move the ball up the pitch and the areas we’ll do it in, none of that changes regardless of who the players are. So we were able to dominate possession and control the game, but we weren’t really creating anything because we didn’t have that thrust up front that you have when Salah, Mané, Bobby, Jota… even Div are playing.
I did wonder where the goals were going to come from so when we fell behind I can’t deny that I was thinking we were in trouble. Such a bad goal too. Two minutes earlier we’d had a scare when they got down the left and flashed a ball across the face of goal. Nobody was on the end of that, but when the same thing happened soon after, this time they had someone arriving for a tap in.
Bradley needs to stop the cross coming in, but the bigger problem for me was Konate at the near post. That’s your area. Your job is to be in position to cut that ball out. It’s basic stuff. He was just standing and watching it, and then his mistake was magnified because Van Dijk wasn’t marking the lad in the middle. It was just really sloppy and not what you expect from the strongest area of the team.
Great moment for the Shrewsbury fans though. Even though they lost easily they had that experience of taking the lead and holding onto it for six minutes or whatever it was. The day before we saw Chesterfield fans going mental after scoring a consolation when five down at Chelsea. I’m not big on the whole ‘magic of the FA Cup’ thing but these are moments that will live long in the memory for lower league fans.
I don’t begrudge them that, but fuck me some of them were scummy weren’t they? I’m sure you’ve all seen the video of the drunken pricks in town singing “fuck the 96” but I can’t be tarring the Shrewsbury fans with that same shitty brush. It’s literally a handful of cunts. You can’t judge a fanbase on such a tiny minority as everyone has that. This isn’t an entire away end singing “always the victim” or “the sun was right”.
They were very much what you’d expect though. Lower league banter merchants singing about shit support, libraries and even Demba Ba. I mean fucking hell, really? You’re in League One, why are you singing about Steven Gerrard slipping over? Stay in your lane.
The “fuck the 96” thing though, I’m not holding that against Shrewsbury fans because loads of them have come out and condemned it and even one of their players tweeted about it and called for them to be identified and banned. So fair play for all that. Hopefully they do get identified and banned. And battered too, ideally. Cunts.
Anyway, yeah. 1-0 to Shrewsbury and that’s the thing about cup games against lower league sides; it feels weird when they score. It’s just a different vibe, partly because they have the whole end behind the goal, but also because it means so much to them and it’s almost totally expected. Any time these teams even get into our half there’s a big roar from the away end and it definitely feels different to league games.
I was a little concerned because I hadn’t banked on us conceding given how strong we were in defence. Where would the goals come from? Now we needed at least two. Jones would have been my pick as I really felt like he’d take this game by the scruff of the neck and just dominate. He saw a lot of the ball but just wasn’t able to do anything with it and he seemed to be a little frustrated with himself.
This will do him good though. He’s hardly played in months and needs games. Getting 90 minutes under his belt will help with that massively and we need to get him into a rhythm now as his season has been very much stop-start. But with him not really doing much creatively it was going to fall to someone else to get us back in the game.
Enter Conor Bradley. Yes, the goal was scored by Kaide Gordon, and a quality goal it was too, but Bradley was our most creative outlet all game and ended up with two assists and a star man award. I like him a lot. He’s definitely got something about him and I can see why Klopp talks him up so much.
That finish from Gordon though. Such composure. Not many players would have the coolness in the box, but to have it at 17 bodes well for his future. He’s a massive talent but as Klopp pointed out afterwards there’s a lot he still needs to learn and work on. I think his words were “he finishes like an adult but in the rest of his game you can see he’s a kid”. He referenced him not getting involved in the game enough and too often just standing out wide waiting for the ball. These are not big things though, it’s easy to learn that. You can’t coach the talent he has though.
The equaliser was a relief because it came so quickly after we had conceded. You don’t want these things to drag out because that’s when the crowd gets edgy and the players can start to panic, especially with so many young lads out there. So getting back level so quickly was big, and it wasn’t long before we were ahead.
What a stupid thing to do though. There’s jumping with an arm in the air, and then there’s soaring like Hakeem Olajuwon swatting away a lay up. What the fuck was that lad thinking doing that? Did he say “Get that shit outta here” as he pawed it off Virgil’s head? I hadn’t noticed but apparently he’d almost done the same thing a little earlier when Virgil headed one over the bar, only he just missed it. He got all of this one and David Coote didn’t need VAR to tell him.
With all of the regular penalty takers out the responsibility fell to Fabinho and he buried it with aplomb. He was a penalty specialist at Monaco but never gets a look in here. I’d completely forgotten that he was so good at pens but with Mo away for a while he might get other opportunities.
So 2-1 and we were back in control of the tie but after a bright start to the second half we got stuck in a bit of a rut. Dixon-Bonner had almost made it 3-1 when he arrived in the box to get on the end of Robbo’s cut back but the keeper made a sensational save to deny him.
After that we didn’t really create much despite having all of the ball. We weren’t in any danger at the back other than from our own complacency. Virgil under-hit a back pass that needed Kelleher to race off his line and just about clear ahead of the forward, while Kelleher himself almost tripped over the ball on his own six yard line before recovering to avert potential embarrassment.
Other than that we were solid but until you get the third goal there’s always a worry that you reach 80 minutes and then the opponent will start to throw everything at you and then anything can happen. So I wanted the third goal to kill it but there wasn’t much intensity in our play. Understandable, training had been disrupted, some players hadn’t played for a while and it was an unfamiliar line up.
Thankfully we were able to get Bobby on and he made it safe with a typically impudent Bobby goal. Again, Bradley was the creator even though he won’t officially get the assist. Fabinho’s ball to him was good but looked like it would just run out of play. Bradley chased it down and cut it back to Konate who looked like he would score, only for his shot to be blocked by the defender into the path of Bobby, who controlled and then immediately back heeled it in before the keeper could get set.
That was game over but we added a fourth goal in stoppage time when Fab missed his initial header but then lashed home the rebound from a tight angle. The only negative was that Robbo had to go off injured following a heavy challenge. That was always going to be a possibility as there was a little bit of the “Ole’s” going on with our lads nutmegging them and the likes of Curtis and Bobby bringing out some party tricks. You have to be careful doing that against lower league sides who don’t want the piss taken out of them. Curtis was booted by one of them for the free-kick that led to Fabinho’s goal. He was fine but Robbo wasn’t so lucky.
The foul on him had nothing to do with taking the piss. It was a young substitute who was a bit over eager and dived in recklessly. He caught Robbo with his studs either on the ankle or maybe the top of the foot, but it looked like a really painful one and Robbo had to go off even though we were in stoppage time. Hopefully he’s ok for Arsenal this week.
In theory we should have all of the missing players back for that bar Trent, who actually has COVID. The others were all false positives, which has caused absolute fucking mayhem on other club’s twitter, especially Arsenal. What’s their problem, the absolute fucking weirdos. The idea we’d deliberately look to postpone a game against them is mental. Why would we do that and forfeit home advantage in the second leg?
If they actually believe that ANYONE is scared of them then they’re even more deluded than I suspected them to be. Nobody is scared of Arsenal. Absolutely nobody. Ask Nottingham Forest if they’re scared of Arsenal. Fuck Arsenal, the shower of lightweight, spineless cunts.
If we lose this semi final to the I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Klopp or the players. You can’t lose to them. That’s a team that wilts any time there is any pressure on them so we simply have to beat them, even though our job will obviously be more difficult without the AFCON lads, and possibly the best full back dup in the world. We should still have enough because they’re Arsenal.
Star man is Bradley, just ahead of Morton and Fabinho. Konate was very good too other than for their goal, and I liked what I saw from Dixon-Bonner too. That’s worth mentioning actually. This is a kid who grew up in London as a massive Red. He played for Arsenal but we came in for him and he upped sticks and moved here to follow his dream. For a long time it looked like he’d never play for the first team but this season he’s really kicked on and this was his reward, starting a game at Anfield alongside players like Van Dijk, Fabinho and Robbo.
I’m made up for him, because whatever the future holds he’ll always have this. And he played really well. Just a shame the keeper pulled off an amazing save to deny him a goal. He did himself proud though.
And the other thing is Max Woltman and Tyler Morton starting a first team game together. They’re best mates from when they were tiny kids and they’ve been going the match together for years. Imagine playing in Liverpool’s first team with your best mate. Just such a nice feel good story for them. You could even call it ‘the magic of the FA Cup’……
Team: Kelleher; Bradley, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson (Tsimikas); Fabinho, Morton (Norris), Dixon-Bonner (Firmino); Gordon (Frauendorf), Woltman (Minamino), Jones:
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