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Liverpool 5 Watford 0 (Mar 17 2018)

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By tlw content,
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tlw content Grand Master

tlw content

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watfordreport2.jpg

It was important to bounce back after last week and that’s exactly what we did. A 5-0 win without ever coming close to top form provided further evidence of this team’s quality and ability to respond to setbacks.

 

Last week’s loss was a painful one and might ultimately be the difference between finish second or third (or even fourth), but it was vital that the players didn’t allow one setback to undermine the good work they’ve been doing. They needed to respond and they did. Especially Mo, who was arguably the worst of a bad bunch at Old Trafford but produced the performance of the season far in this one. 

 

Part of me couldn’t help thinking “why couldn’t he have done this last week?” I don’t mean score four goals (although that would have been nice), just one or two would have done. I don’t want to come across as ungrateful as I was made up with what he did in this game, it’s just that last week is still bothering me because we let them off the hook.

 

We’re better than them but we just didn’t show up. What makes it even more frustrating is seeing how Sevilla turned them over. That should have been us, but we blew it. 

 

I know I need to let it go and I have for the most part, but it’s hard not to feel frustrated. Against Watford this was the team we’ve been watching most of the season. I don’t know who that was that got turned over at Old Trafford bit let’s hope we don’t see them again for a while. And by a while, I mean ever. I highly doubt we'll ever see Mo that ineffective again. 

 

I know this was 'only' Watford but that doesn’t really matter. There are at least six or seven teams worse than them, probably more actually. So being able to handle them so easily is always cause for optimism as that’s how you challenge for the top places. You have to beat the Watfords of this world and if we hadn’t dropped two points to them on opening day (not to mention the frustrating draws we’ve had with similar level clubs) we wouldn’t be sweating as much on securing a top four spot. 

 

I don’t think we ever got out of third gear and yet we still murdered them. It’s easy to say that was mostly because of Mo, but it wasn’t just him. He got the goals but both Firmino and Mané more than played their part too.

 

I felt sorry for Sadio, he was completely overshadowed by Salah again and Firmino got himself a goal. Mané contributed though. He was directly involved in three of the goals and some of his passing was top drawer. 

 

Mo was just on another level though. The Messi comparisons are hard to ignore but ignore them we should because he’s nowhere near Messi. He is arguably as good as anybody currently playing that isn’t named Messi though, and there’s no doubt that some of the things he does are ‘Messi-like”, but comparing him with probably the greatest footballer of all time (my heart still says 'Diego' but the overwhelming weight of evidence is in Messi's favour) is just silly. 

 

What we can say is that there has been three or four goals he’s scored this season that no-one other than Messi could have scored. Two of them came in this game actually. The first goal was the kind of thing you see Messi do as a matter of routine. The low centre of gravity, quickness while dribbling, subtle changes of direction and a defender ending up flat on his arse watching the ball hit the net. 

 

This is just a teaser, click here to view the full report

 

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G Richards Grand Master

G Richards

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Good report Dave, thanks. I get what you’re saying about Lovren. In the last game Klopp was going ballistic at him during the game and was obviously unimpressed. When I saw the team sheet for Watford, and Klavan on the bench ahead of Lovren, I saw it as the writing on the wall for Lovren. Then someone said he was injured, which adds some plausible deniability, but my take on the situation is this will be his last season at Liverpool. Could be wrong, but we’ll see.

 

Lovren has the ability to really look the part, and when he does we almost think he could be the man to start alongside Van Dijk as we move forward. But just when he starts to convince us again he shows his uncanny ability to lose concentration and spread panic. It’s not what is needed back there.

 

At best he will be a back up next season if we can’t sell, but I think Klopp will sign another centre back this summer. There are a couple of good Bosman’s in that department too, depending on how the budget is spent (a big variable will be whether we stick with Karius as the number one or spend £50M+ on the likes of Alisson).

 

Anyhow, back to the match. Nice to bounce back. Mo was excellent. The team was solid, apart from the short spell you mentioned, and we quickly got back to winning ways. It’s the sign of a good team after a setback.

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