How good was that? Best performance in months. I have no idea how it was ‘only’ 5-0 because it felt as though it should have been double. It might be our best performance of the entire season all things considered. From one to eleven everybody was excellent.
We’ve been misfiring for much of 2019 but this was the lads back at their very best. Every single one of them played well, with no-one less than an eight out of ten. When you get that, you won’t go far wrong.
The mad thing is we scored five goals and Salah didn’t get any, despite the fact that he tore that poor Watford left back to shreds all night. Javi Gracia seems like a nice guy but he’s clearly got a sadistic side as leaving that lad out there to be savaged by Mo was fucking cruel.
Maybe Gracia thought that Salah would be playing centrally? I know I did. With Bobby not available I assumed Shaqiri would get the start on the right, and even when I saw the line up I never guessed who’d be the number nine.
Worked out pretty well though didn’t it? Makes you wonder why we’ve never seen it before, because Sadio was absolutely terrific and looked right at home in that role.
He was a constant goal threat but his ability to drop off and pick up the ball and keep it was also a feature all night. Basically he just did what Bobby does. It’s only one game and therefore not much of a sample size, but this is all I need to know that any time Firmino isn’t available I’d rather Sadio played in the middle than Mo.
Of course that leaves a vacancy on the left, and in this game it was filled - and filled well, perhaps surprisingly - by Origi. Seeing how this all unfolded just compounds the feeling that sending Sturridge on at Old Trafford was madness. I won’t harp on about it as that game is done and dusted now, but the only situations that we should ever see Sturridge again are when we’re a few goals up and want to let the frontmen have an early dart.
Origi has proved in the limited chances he’s had that he can make a contribution. The drop off to him from the first choice lads is still big, but if Origi is playing with confidence we all know what he can do because we’ve seen it, albeit only in brief spells. I actually came out of this game wondering if maybe he can provide the Ronny Rosenthal spark that got us over the line the last time we won this thing. Crazy, I know.
This is what we needed though. A performance to blow away all the anxiety and fears that had been building. We’ve been really struggling for fluency since the turn of the year. It’s been there on and off but we just seemed to be lacking the energy and vibrancy we have in our attacking play.
Without Firmino I felt as though the best we could hope for would be to just muddle through and get the win whatever way we could. Instead, we got an electric display of fast, attacking, incisive football that left Watford’s players in a complete daze. What must they have thought when they came off that field?
They couldn’t cope with the intensity. It was relentless. It started early and Milner set the tone when he channeled his inner Andy Robbo and set off a wild chase, closing down whichever Watford player had the ball. It ended when he launched himself and blocked Foster’s attempted clearance. The rebound went goal wards but popped up in the air and the keeper was relieved to see it fall into his arms.
What Milner did was replicated throughout the game by all of his team-mates. They chased everything and just bullied Watford. This is what you have to do against these sides who don’t really have a great deal to play for. Teams battling relegation are one thing, they’ll happily just dig in and defend for their lives.
The rest? It’s almost a free hit for them. They aren’t playing under any pressure and they can be dangerous. Smother them with this kind of intensity though and it’s not fun. You can get on top of them. Watford can play if you let them, and even in this game they had their moments, but the stakes aren’t as high for them as they are for us and it showed.
That’s how it needs to be in every game now. High stakes, high intensity. We’re at our best when we run all over teams, but it hasn’t happened as much as we’d like. If this is the game that gets us completely back in the groove then we’ll take some stopping. It’s just one game, so we’ll see.
What a game though!
We got the early goal which always helps, but unlike other recent instances when that’s happened there was no let up. We just kept up the pressure and never stopped. The first goal was great. Trent started the game like a man possessed, he was flying up and down that right flank and causing havoc. His crossing all night was ridiculous too.
The delivery in was impossible to deal with, and Sadio had made a good run to get in between two defenders. His header was fantastic too. I’ve mentioned recently about how great his movement is on set-pieces and how he seems to be able to find space in the box when no-one else can. Playing him centre forward might actually turn out to be more than a short term fix.
His second goal was even better. Again the delivery was from Trent, and with Watford’s defenders appealing for offside Sadio had plenty of time. His first touch was shite and took him away from goal, but with Foster rushing out to close him down he improvised and just back heeled it past him. The beauty of it was he knew he couldn’t just play it along the floor as it would have hit the keeper, so he chopped down on it to bounce it over him. Brilliant.
It’s worth mentioning the part Salah played in the build up too. Fucking hell, that was blistering speed and determination from him. He was like that all night, he looked like a man with a point to prove after his shit show at the weekend. The Watford left back fouled him two or three times and still couldn’t prevent him from reaching the ball first. Mo in full flight like that is a sight to behold.
He was like that all night. Every time he picked the ball up he torched that full back and ended up in the box. How he didn’t score is a mystery, but on this form he’s virtually unstoppable. The closest he came to that elusive goal number 50 was when he raced onto a ball down the channel from Trent, blew by the defender and then saw his shot deflect onto the post via Foster, who knew nothing about it.
Every time we attacked it looked like we’d score, but the third goal wouldn’t come. Watford had a moment or two of their own and Deeney almost converted a cross from Diverlefeu at the Kop end. More often than not though any time they got into our half they were stopped in their tracks by Fabinho. Fucking hell, he’s good.
Often when it’s a 2-0 game I get a little jittery when the third goal doesn’t come. A flukey goal for the opposition changes everything, but I never really had that sense in this one because we were so hellbent on adding to the two goals we had. There was no easing off at all, it was just relentless pressure and eventually it paid off.
Made up for Divock. It can’t be easy in his situation. He wasn’t wanted. We would have sold him in the summer if anyone had met the asking price. We’d probably have sold him in January if a big enough offer came in too. He’s barely played, yet when he has his attitude has been great. The cup game at Wolves for example. He didn’t play particularly well, but he gave it all he had when others looked like they couldn’t be arsed.
It was a nice goal and it should give him a confidence boost. He put in a great shift all night though, and even with a couple of minutes to go he was chasing back 50 yards to make a tackle in his own half. The kind of attitude he’s shown this season deserves success. Just imagine if he hit a run of form like he did this time three years ago.
The chances kept on coming and Virgil finally arrived at the party when he headed in a delicious cross from Trent. It’s almost inconceivable that it’s been 13 months since his only previous Anfield goal. How can someone who wins every single header in his own box win so few in the opposing one?
Typically, having waited so long for it, another one arrived a minute later. This time the delivery was from the other side, as Robbo claimed his second assist of the game. Trent had the other three, meaning our full backs created all five goals. I wouldn’t swap either of them for any other full backs in world football.
Trent hasn’t been quite as consistent this season due to various factors, but he’s a huge talent and this is as good a performance as I can remember seeing from a full back. The crossing and running stood out, but his touch is sublime too. The way he was effortlessly plucking cross field passes from Big Virg out of the air was ridiculous.
There were shades of young Gerrard about him at times. He might have made all the difference if he’d played at Old Trafford. I get why he didn’t play, but when you see him play like this you realise just how much we’ve missed him when he hasn’t been there.
We had other chances but had to settle for 5-0, a result which pulls back four on City’s goal difference advantage. They won too, albeit far less impressively than we did. Doesn’t really matter, we can only do what we can do. Winning the last ten games will be a tall order but if we do it then we win the title and nothing City do can prevent it.
If we don’t win all ten then we need to hope they don’t win all theirs. I’d say it’s unlikely that we’ll both win all of our games and although it’s still wide open, I’d rather be in our position (with our fixture list) than theirs, and after this performance I feel much better about our chances.
The atmosphere was class too. Obviously it’s easy for the crowd to be bouncing when the players are in this kind of mood, but even so, it was great. Nice to hear Trent getting a song too. Good work whoever came up with that. Now can someone please do something about the second line in the Bobby song, because it doesn’t work and it’s a fucking mess. Just remove ‘his name is’ and it works fine.
It’s the derby next and my feeling is that it’s either going to be one of our toughest remaining games, or we’ll absolutely smash them everywhere. They’re not very good, and they’re no longer the type of team that will just turn it into a scrap and kick us off the park. If we play our game it’ll be easy, but if we’re not at it and give them any encouragement at all then there’s the potential for it to go badly wrong.
The only thing they have left to play for is screwing us over, but then isn’t that the case at the beginning of every season? That’s the sole point of their existence now, to try and finally take some points from us. That makes them dangerous even if their form suggests they aren’t.
As for the star man, I could make a strong case for almost anyone. Even Alisson made a couple of good saves to preserve the clean sheet. Origi played well, Mané was dynamite, Matip was very good, Milner was great, Gigi was Gini, Mo was back to his very best, the full backs were both brilliant, Fabinho is a fucking boss and Virgil is the best player in the whole league.
Trent was the pick of the bunch though and I’m looking forward to seeing what him and Mo can do to the left side of that Everton team on Sunday.
Come on Redmen, let’s fucking do this.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Milner (Henderson), Wijnaldum (Keita); Salah, Mané (Lallana), Origi:
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