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This fixture was originally scheduled for Boxing Day but an Omicron outbreak amongst the Leeds playing and coaching staff (plus a few injuries) meant that the game had to be postponed. I don’t doubt that Leeds had cases, and they were certainly hampered by injuries at the time, but they also took advantage of the lack of clarity and consistency with the Premier League’s rules over the impact of the coronavirus and its new variant. The Premier League had stated that each club’s request for postponement would be judged on its individual merits but some clubs almost certainly took the piss. Postponing games due to Covid and injuries in order to buy time and buy reinforcements in the January window so that by the time the rearranged fixtures come round, you’ve had time to regroup and strengthen? You would not put it past the clubs, such is the amoral money-grabbing ethos the Premier League has allowed to fester. Anyway: Crispness. Accuracy. Rhythm. Effort. Luck. Effervescence. Speed. Skill. Heart. Audacity. Nous. Drive. Spark. I don’t ask for much. Last season’s corresponding fixture took place on the opening day of the season with Liverpool as defending league champions. A game of attacking intensity and defensive slackness from both sides saw Leeds eventually succumb to a late penalty from Mo that enabled him to complete his hat-trick. Leeds had given a good account of themselves and the game was a microcosm of their season as a whole. They could be electric or slapdash. There wasn’t much middle ground. New Years Day 1991 saw this fixture take place at noon. Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds had been promoted back to the top flight the previous summer, and a good group of players would comfortably finish in the top half of the table in 1990/91. They’d go and claim the title itself the following year, the last one before the advent of the Premier League. For now though, they were visiting the defending league champions, who themselves were going toe to toe with Arsenal. Leeds were no match for the Reds, with an early goal from Barnesy with a shot from a narrow angle being added to before half time by the Israeli Milan Baros, Ronny Rosenthal, somewhat fortuitously after his shot from the edge of the area cannoned off the far post and bounced into the net of the diving John Lukic. Rushie added the icing on the cake late in the second half with a third goal (thanks to a serious turn of pace from Rosenthal), and Liverpool (with Kenny as manager) were doing well. The goals are just after the 46-minute mark in this video. The big box office smash on New Year’s Day 1991 is one of the best Christmas movies of all time. Home Alone made Macaulay Culkin a star and showed Joe Pesci could do roles that weren’t a tough guy character in a Scorsese picture. Pesci and Daniel Stern are an absolute revelation as the hapless ‘Wed Bandits’ burglary duo, thwarted by a kid protecting his own home by turning it into a torture device that probably inspired Jigsaw. Increasingly elaborate and painful traps are set for Harry and Marv as they try to get the better of the pesky kid. Marv’s scream when the tarantula is on his face is cinematic gold! Culkin’s Kevin McAllister still gets time to shine as the kid enjoying junk food, aping noir crime capers to prank pizza delivery guys, having a run in with after shave, and overcoming his fear of his basement and his next door neighbour. Just being a kid enjoying total freedom, basically. There plenty of Christmas message to be shared, about the importance of family etc. The McAllister family generally treat Kevin like the runt of the litter, and don’t realise in their haste that they forgotten about him completely when dashing to the airport for the family holiday to Paris. To be fair to Kevin’s mother, played by Catherine O’Hara, she does a great job of playing the mother desperate to get home and make sure her son is safe and well. We even get a cameo from the late great John Candy. The sequel was pretty good and upped the ante when it came to elaborate traps for the newly named ‘Sticky Bandits’, but it relied a little too much on the preposterous notion of a kid easily able to turn both a room in a 5-star New York hotel, plus some random brownstone in the middle of an extensive renovation, into places where he could both enjoy the high life and mess around with Harry and Marv. This game has the potential to be a banana skin as it’s just a few days before the League Cup final. Klopp and his staff, plus the players, have generally been very good at keeping focussed on the job at hand, and that is what they need to do here. It’s not about closing the gap to City at the top, and it’s not about protection yourself ahead of the Wembley showpiece. It’s about the right attitude and application to claim 3 more points. That’s all any league game should be about. Do the right things, have belief and claim 3 points. Full focus is the key to that.