“A final word from The Boss” Vol.3
7 goal thriller sees Reds up to 2nd in Premier League
10th December 2023
LIVERPOOL 4 (Leno (own goal) 20, Mac Allister 38, Endō 87, Alexander-Arnold 88)
FULHAM 3 (Wilson 24, Tete 45+3, De Cordova-Reid 80)
Following Thursday night’s mightily impressive performance, albeit against a limp challenge from Austrian team LASK, I lavished both great praise and myopic footballing love for the Reds Japanese midfielder Wataru Endō. A late and some might argue emergency signing from VfB Stuttgart to plug the unforeseen and then almost self-inflicted gaps in Liverpool’s emerging and evolving new midfield, the 30 year old may not have the pace but he sure has the endeavour and “legs” to cover that vital central corridor of the pitch in a role I’ve long admired, that of the football “water carrier”. Endō is fast becoming a favourite Reds player of mine as I can’t but admire his ability and bloody minded determination to force his way into Jürgen Klopp’s starting XI and I joked in the madhouse formerly known as Twitter that should the defensive midfielder ever venture forward and score his first Reds goal I’d probably offer my hand in marriage.
Are those wedding bells I can hear?
For with 3 minutes remaining in a game that had already seen VAR, that ghoulish death knell to our once beautiful game, intervene twice in lengthy delays that saw London visitors Fulham granted and then denied first half goals, Trent Alexander-Arnold score a footballing “worldie” of a free-kick that was overturned by those other ghouls and goblins on the “Dubious Goals Panel”, Argentinian World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister finally open his goals account for the Reds with an absolute stunner of a strike from fully 25 yards out, the visiting “Cottagers” of Fulham had not only equalised twice to leave the field of play level at half-time at 2–2 but with a Liverpool running out of ideas and 10 minutes to go, taken a deserved 3–2 lead through Bobby De Cordova-Reid and were threatening to inflict a second Premier League defeat of the season on a flattering to deceive Liverpool.
Enter my latest Liverpool love, Wataru Endō.
Breaking ranks from the centre of the pitch in search of an equalising goal, Endō receives a cliche ridden “slide-rule” pass and assist from Mo Salah before expertly and perfectly placing a curling side-footed drive into the top left hand corner of the Fulham goal from the edge of the penalty area and far from the despairing reach of visiting goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
From nowhere, arguably, Liverpool were level, and it was all down to my new Reds footballing love.
But this was not all.
Mere seconds later and with an Anfield crowd roaring on a now rampant Liverpool, Cody Gakpo sends a stinging near post drive that Leno can only parry, Darwin Núñez hooks the loose ball across goal, Kostas Tsimikas leaps to head the ball and keep it alive in the Fulham penalty before Trent Alexander-Arnold, cruelly denied one of the goals of the season so far by those killjoys on the “Dubious Goals Panel” who have to get the goal scorer correct (for the benefit of betting companies and not us fans, please don’t be duped), takes a controlling touch on his knee and then smashes home an unstoppable volley before screaming like a wild banshee and diving headlong on the Anfield turf to the adoring masses in that corner of this storied football ground.
1–0 up, 2–1 up, 3–2 down and both a monumental upset on the cards and a second Premier League defeat of the season incoming, to a Wataru Endō gem of an equaliser and a deserved goal from the “Scouser in our team” seconds later.
This season. This evolutionary roll of the sporting dice ahead of the real assault in the seasons to come under Jürgen Klopp, is way ahead of schedule and speeding along at a chaotic pace.
Reds up to 2nd in the Premier League.
A final word from The Boss
“The feeling after the game was exceptional, to be honest. During the game, it was slightly different in moments. I told the boys after the game, the game turned out as the game we saw because we were a bit dumb. We were really strong, we start really well, I liked it a lot, scored a goal. But then we were still playing, but the protection was not that good anymore. We could have won the ball back high up the pitch, didn’t, they passed in the centre, they arrived there. They had the counter-attack when they scored the first one — Harry Wilson — and then the second, the corner should never happen. We should have defended the corner, but in the first place it should never happen”.
“Then they scored the 3–2 and that was not not-deserved as well, you have to say that. Football is sometimes like this. They had not 20 chances but they had enough and were pretty clinical. To concede the 3–2 and then obviously the final period started. It is now easy to say and we will never find out, but in the end the outcome was perfect but I liked the way we played. We changed system a couple of times and that worked out. It is not always the case, but today it worked out and then it ends up in a high-intense, hectic period we have a completely calm situation — the ball to Mo, Mo to Wata and Wata fires into the far corner, completely free. Before that it was not once the case”.
“So, 3–3 and then obviously everybody could see the boys wanted more and because we were a bit lucky today we got it. Outstanding experience, I would say. Everybody who was here, I don’t think anybody would have thought before the game Liverpool v Fulham will be a game you will never forget in your life. But you’re welcome. Whoever was here today will never forget it in their lives”.
“7 goal thriller sees Reds up to 2nd in Premier League” can also be found singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true across pages 166 through 171 and the final chapter in Act 3 of my May 2024 self-published book on the Mighty Reds of Liverpool entitled “A final word from The Boss”.
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.