Leaderboard

I’ll be honest, after an hour or so of this I was thinking that this might finally be the game where the streak ends. Not necessarily the unbeaten streak (although that did cross my mind), but the 17 game winning run felt as though it was in real danger. It just had the stench of ‘one of those games’ about it. We were below par, the opposition were performing well above themselves and it was a cold, windy horrible night. With the title already wrapped up barring the formalities, the stakes weren’t especially high and if we had dropped points it would have made no difference to the outcome of the title race. And yet it felt horrible. The idea of us dropping any points, let alone losing a game, was horrifying. Games shouldn’t be stressful when you’re this far ahead, but they are. It’s almost as stressful as watching us during us last year’s title run in. The feeling when watching our games is exactly the same. The only difference is this time we don’t have to suffer through City’s games as well. Doesn’t matter what they do now, they’re an irrelevance. It’s just about us now. Some of you reading this will say you’re not bothered about going unbeaten. Some will argue that once the title is won we should be resting players for Champions League games (assuming we get past Atletico) and even the FA Cup. My head can go along with that, but my heart is a different matter. I don’t just want to go unbeaten, I don’t even want to draw any games. It’s greedy, unreasonable, perhaps even unrealistic. But there it is. That’s how I feel. Irrational as it might sound, a draw would feel like the end of the world at the moment. You know whats great though? As much as I feel like that, it’s nothing to how the players themselves feel. Take how I feel about us dropping any points and magnify it by a hundred and you still won’t match how the players feel. None of them will say it of course, because it would sound cocky and be seen as disrespectful to the other teams we face. That’s how they feel though. They don’t have to say it because it shows in how they approach every game. So many times this season they could have settled for a draw or even accepted a defeat, knowing that it’s “not a big deal” given how far ahead they are. They never do though. They’re desperate to win every game and I bet you that in their quieter moments some of them look back at that draw at Old Trafford and fucking fume about it. It’s that relentless drive that keeps seeing us through when things get hairy. It’s a cliché but this is a game we’d have lost a few years ago. The last game we lost at Anfield was 2-1 against Palace and there were a lot of similarities with this game. The big difference was this time we found a way to win it. That’s what we do now. I actually feel a little guilty for doubting them. I sat there at 1-2 with mixed thoughts. The over-riding one was that this just had the feel of a game that wasn’t going to go our way, but then there was the voice inside telling me “show a little fucking faith in them you shithouse”. We’d come through much worse situations than this after all. So why did it feel like this was going to be the one that finally tripped us up? After all, it had started well enough and we’d taken an early lead through Wijnaldum’s header from a stunning cross by Trent. West Ham’s equaliser just seemed to knock everyone for six, not least because it came from a corner and they looked like scoring every time they had one. Defensively we looked unsettled all night while it wasn’t clicking at the other end. The law of averages suggests that we can’t just keep winning every single game regardless of performance, yet these lads keep finding a way to defy that law of averages. Klopp’s assessment afterwards was that West Ham’s best hope of troubling us was second balls and set-pieces and that we were not good enough on either. He’s right, but on the set-piece issue I think you have to look to what West Ham did well rather than what we were doing badly. The delivery from Snodgrass was sensational. It’s really hard to defend balls like that, especially when West Ham have so much height in there. I looked in the box and saw Diop, Ogbonna, Rice, Antonio and that Czech lad. All big bastards. We had only Virg and Fabinho who stood comparison. So it’s not easy. The main problem for me was we gave them so many corners. I didn’t think they’d be able to get forward as often as they did and with the numbers they did. I under-estimated them because Moyes is normally such a fucking coward. I expected them to come here and just try and keep the score down, like they did at City last week. Instead they had a go and it seemed to take us by surprise. I didn’t even feel like either of their goals came out of the blue. I wouldn’t say they had been coming but they weren’t a total shock either. Their equaliser came after a little flurry of corners. They went close with the second one and I think it was from the third that Diop scored. Alisson maybe could have done better on that, although I think he saw it late. They had a couple more corners after that and I had flashbacks to when my arse would be twitching any time the opponent had a set-piece. I don’t miss those days one little bit. So anyway, level at half time and I’m relaxed about the whole thing even though we didn’t look like ourselves. Let the analyst nerds do their thing and show the lads what they’re doing wrong and we’ll be fine. Then after ten minutes we go behind. That wasn’t part of the plan. Shitty goal to concede as well. Just a hopeful cross in, and Fornels had somehow found himself in a few yards of space. He scuffed his volley but it went right in the corner and Alisson had no chance. As soon as that went in Klopp signalled to Ox to get ready. I think we all knew who would be the one to make way. There were only two options really and it was never going to be Gini. So off went Keita and on came Ox, and immediately we began looking more like ourselves. Whether it was Ox that was the catalyst or merely the fact we’d fallen behind, it’s impossible to tell. The game changed from that moment though and the crowd came alive. West Ham had some incredible escapes and the thought was niggling away that this would be the night when nothing fell for us. We’ve made our own luck but we have had luck during this amazing run. You can’t have a run like this without catching some breaks along the way, and we undoubtedly have done. And we did again. It’s incredible really. We benefitted greatly from a rare, almost inexplicable off night from one of the league’s best goalkeepers, but even if Fabianksi hadn’t fumbled that one in from Mo I still think we’d have won the game. It’s almost force of will at times. The boys just pushed and pushed until eventually West Ham cracked. I keep saying it, but it must be an absolute nightmare to play against us. You need to be at your absolute best and you need several of our players to have an off night. And you need luck. Even then it isn’t always enough. Just ask West Ham. It was far from vintage from us but we still put together some great moves and created clear chances. The Hammers goal led a charmed life at times. I still don’t know how the ball didn’t go in when Salah’s shot deflected off Fabianski’s boot and Bobby headed against the post from about an inch out. It’s not happening for him at Anfield at all at the moment. He put a shot over at the beginning of the second half, he headed over from a corner, he had that one against the post and even on the winning goal for Mané the ball just went over Bobby’s head when he would have had an empty net to put it into. I thought the catalyst for the win was the two full backs. They made all three goals and they provided a stream of dangerous deliveries into the box. Trent especially seemed to be at the heart of everything. Not all of his crosses were perfect, but enough of them were. Robbo did brilliantly for the equaliser too. It was a great ball by Ox to hit him in stride, but the way Robbo surged past his man and then got his head up to pick out Mo was fantastic. I was a little surprised later on to hear Carra talking about how many world class players we have and not mention Robbo (or Fabinho for that matter). If Robbo isn’t a world class left back then who is? I’d say it was fairly obvious that we missed Hendo though. Not just because his replacement didn’t set the world alight, but you could just tell that Henderson wasn’t there. A lot of what he does is almost unnoticed, but it was noticeable in this game because he wasn’t there doing it. Teams can’t usually counter attack against us because he’s always there picking up second balls, covering spaces and generally just filling in whatever gaps appear. He does this regardless of whether he’s playing the ‘six’ or the ‘eight’. Without him, there were gaps everywhere and a better team than West Ham might have exploited them more. We missed him with the ball too. His passing is massively under-rated, especially those long diagonals in behind to Salah and (especially) Mané. Then there’s his leadership and the urgency he brings. I thought it was quite glaring how he missed all of the things he brings. Still, we should be able to beat teams like West Ham without him and in the end we did. It took the introduction of Ox to inject some life and urgency into us though. As I say, Keita wasn’t especially bad but he just didn’t do enough. He’s a nice little player, he floats around with his little give and go’s and he’s sneakily good at winning the ball back when we lose it. Not with crunching tackles, but he seems to be able to just get a toe in here and there and nick the ball away. So I’m not bashing Keita, but this was a chance for him to stake a claim with Hendo out for a little while, and he didn’t do it. The difference when Ox replaced him was immediate. We’ve seen that before from Ox. Sometimes he’ll just come on and he’s immediately like “give me the fucking ball and I’ll show you how it’s done”. I love that about him. He brings instant tempo and he gets the crowd going too. Sometimes that’s all it needs. Just one player to show some thrust and urgency, and all of a sudden the fans are like “yeah, that’s more like it, let’s fucking do these”. Ox came on, he picked the ball up and he ran forward at pace and had a shot. And that changed everything. It led to a spell of relentless pressure where it felt like we forced a dozen corners in about five minutes. West Ham were hanging on desperately but you knew they were eventually going to crack because the pressure being applied to them was relentless. They did eventually crack. Well, Fabianksi did anyway. He will probably never do that again for the rest of his career. That’s how it goes sometimes. Mo had a brilliant effort in the first half that deserved a goal but was brilliantly saved by Fabianski. And then he lets one in like that from the same player. It’s a tough life being a keeper. There was loads of time left for us to get the winner and at that stage I was fairly confident that we’d do it. In the back of my mind though I always felt that West Ham had another goal in them. We just didn’t look secure and the threat of Antonio loomed almost as large as the shadow he cast. I swear that lad gets wider every time I see him. He’s fucking massive. We’d gotten lucky with the equaliser and the winning goal was somewhat fortunate too. Trent did very well to loft the ball in for Sadio at the back post but he was only able to get in behind in the first place because a speculative shot by Gomez looped up off a defender into his path. What Joe thought he was doing shooting with his left foot from 30 yards only he knows, but it paid off. Shades of Big Virg there on the Origi derby winner. You can understand why fans of rival clubs are doing they nuts and calling us all the spawn twats under the sun. Shit, we did it with United for years. It is luck, but it’s also sheer force of will and a refusal to accept anything less than a victory. United had that for years and we’ve got it now. If you keep pushing, and keep believing, eventually you’ll make something happen. And because of that it’s a self fulfilling prophesy. It’s not a co-incidence that rival players (especially keepers) are making errors. It’s the psychological pressure of playing against an opponent this relentless. Normally you’d think “game over” once we’d turned it around like that. Not this time. Not me anyway. I still thought West Ham had another goal in them. Moyes had introduced Haller up front and switched Antonio to the left. And after that, literally the only thing they did was play the ball to him and hope he could make something happen. I like him. He’s a good player and if he could stay fit for an entire season West Ham wouldn’t ever be in relegation trouble. He’s so important to them and they’re a completely different proposition when he plays. Take him away and what do they have? Seriously, just imagine if he hadn’t played in this game. I don’t think they’d have even been able to get out of their own half. He’s such a handful that any hopeful ball played up the pitch has a chance of finding him (and not just because he takes up half the width of the field). He chases everything, he’s lightning quick and he’s hard to shake off the ball. Don’t get me wrong, he’s nowhere near as terrifying as Adama Traore, but you always have to be wary of him. There is nobody else at West Ham who would have posed us any threat, even though I thought they played well as a team. I’ve watched a fair bit of them this season and they’re usually fucking terrible. The defence is a joke and going forward they’re not much better. So I didn’t think they had a performance like this in them. They defended really well and they were intelligent in how they broke. And when they did break they got plenty of men forward. Fair play to them, they were miles better than I expected them to be and if they’d gotten a draw I couldn’t have begrudged them it. That’s not to say we didn’t deserve to win, as we clearly did. If we hadn’t won though we could have had no complaints as the Hammers gave it all they had, and they’d have snatched a point late on but for the brilliance of Alisson. What was the five minutes of stoppage time all about by the way? You never get five minutes unless something out of the ordinary happens, and nothing out of the ordinary happened so how did they get five minutes? Of course, Jon Moss actually played even more than five minutes, the bum. He was poor, as usual. I thought we had two good penalty shouts for handball waved away by him but VAR wasn’t interested either. The worst decision of the game was when a raking pass by Trent to Robbo was headed into touch by a West Ham player and Moss gave them the throw in. I don’t blame him for that though as he wouldn’t have seen that clearly. The linesman on the Main Stand side saw it though. I know he saw it because he had the same sight line as me and it was glaringly obvious. I hate that. So many times you see it now, where the linesman has a clear view of something but gives nothing because presumably he’s under instructions from the ref not to. Winds me right up. Also, can I just say that I hated the Matip for Mané substitution in stoppage time. I understand the logic behind it, but I hated it. I always hate it when Klopp does that because I always fear it’s going to backfire. It nearly did, as Matip gave away a late free-kick that might have cost us. It’s really hard to come into a game that late and immediately pick up the intensity of the game. Matip comes on cold and is immediately having to deal with a rampaging Antonio. That’s a tough task. Like I say, I understand the thinking behind it as it’s an insurance policy against set-pieces and long balls. West Ham had half a dozen really big lads in the side so it makes sense to get Matip on, but I just never feel confident when we do things like that. It’s a minor gripe though. That’s all we have these days though isn’t it? It’s hard finding anything to moan about. I commented on that before the game to a couple of the lads when I caught myself having a right old fucking whinge about us having two centre backs on the bench while Curtis Jones is banging in a hat-trick for the u23s earlier in the day. I stand by my gripe. Jones is so fucking good and his current form is sensational. He should be on the bench and we should be looking to get him on the field any time we’re a few goals up. We don’t need Lovren and Matip on the bench, especially when Fabinho is on the field to provide extra cover at centre back if needed. It smacks to me of just picking the senior players regardless of position, simply because it’s easier to overlook the kids as they won’t see their arse over it. Even if we disregard Jones for a second, Neco Williams would have been a more sensible choice than having two centre halves on there. So I went off about that big time while walking up to the ground, and that’s when it suddenly hit me. We’re so fucking amazing these days, that THIS is the only thing I have to moan about?? We’ve come such a long way. We might be living through the greatest time in the club’s history depending on how the next couple of years play out. The debate on Sky afterwards was who are the greatest team in English football history. They went with Paisley’s great side of the late 70s. I can’t really be arsed going into it too deeply here as that’s probably an entire article on it’s own for another time (maybe this summer). What I would say though is this current team is doing something nobody else ever has. They’ve taken 109 points from the last 111 available. Over the last two years they’re going to be averaging over a hundred points a season and will have played in two (possibly three) Champions League finals. They’ve matched the record for the most consecutive wins and are closing in on Arsenal’s record for the longest ever unbeaten run. What we’re seeing at the moment hasn’t ever been done before and this team is nowhere near peaking yet either. As I say, what we’re living through right now is something that will be talked about for generations to come. Final word is on the atmosphere. It’s a weird one this because everyone who wasn’t at the game seemed to commenting on how terrible it was. Most seemed to say it was flat, quiet and reeked of complacency. Yet Trent and Klopp both spoke glowingly afterwards about how the fans played their part in getting us over the line and the atmosphere was great. I can’t speak for how it came across on telly but it just felt like a normal league game to me. It wasn’t great in the first half, but it was no quieter than normal either. After we went behind the crowd responded and did what was needed. In an ideal world Anfield would be rocking for ninety minutes every game, but that’s just not realistic. We’re twenty odd points clear so of course there’s going to be an element of complacency there from the crowd. It’s not even complacency so much, it’s just that everyone feels relaxed now. It was only when it looked like we were in danger that the fans showed up, but the same can be said of the team. West Ham fans had some fucking balls on them singing “where’s your famous atmosphere” though. These are the only fans I can ever remember who didn’t even cheer the names of their players when the teams were read out before kick off. I couldn’t believe it. Peter McDowell is reading out the teams and there was utter silence as he went through the Hammers line up. No cheers at all. I’ve never, ever experienced that before. Then it gets to 1-1 and they start singing. Granted, it was funny when they mimicked us with “we’re gonna win the league” (we’d sung that after going 1-0 up) but sorry lads, you don’t get to mock the Anfield atmosphere when you can’t even be arsed cheering the names of your team as they’re read out. I’m a little conflicted when it comes to West Ham. On the one hand I want them to go down because I fucking despise their Tory owners and David Moyes deserves nothing but misery. On the other, I respect Mark Noble for the loyalty and love he’s got for his club (and obviously for his mum, his queen and his country, Gawd bless ‘im), and I feel quite sorry for their fans as they’ve been given a right shitty deal. They lost their home and they’ve been saddled with Moyes so I feel bad wishing any more misery on them, especially as in terms of the London teams they’re probably the least offensive (I don’t mind Palace either), but I’m not gonna lie, if Moyes gets relegated and Sullivan, Gold and Brady all end up massively out of pocket then I’ll enjoy it. Star man is Trent, with honourable mentions to Gini (who stepped it up massively when we needed to up the pace), Robbo and Ox. Also to Alisson for being there when we really needed him at the end. What a fucking man he is. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Keita (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Mané (Matip):