A new low as desperate Reds held by Sunderland
Liverpool 1 Sunderland 1, 3rd December 2025
LIVERPOOL 1 (Mukiele (own goal) 81)
SUNDERLAND 1 (Talbi 67)
Half-Time Ramblings
Dire stuff from the Reds. Slow. Ponderous. Nothingness. Who has Hugo Ekitike pissed off to not get a start in this team? Sunderland superb. Organised. Almost the home team. Xhaka controlling the game. Hume impressive. Brobbery a pain up front.
Full-Time Musings
A new low. A worrying new low. A better team would have ripped the Reds to pieces (that’s not to say that Sunderland weren’t magnificent, because they were) but Wirtz and Szoboszlai apart, this was dreadful. A new low.
A worrying new low.
(My Ramblings and Musings within the madhouses of both Twitter and Blue Sky)
At this exact point in the season 12 months ago, I penned the following as a concluding paragraph after Liverpool’s 2–0 Anfield demolition of Manchester City:
I continue to be staggered at how Arne Slot has arrived at Liverpool Football Club, made just one addition to the squad he inherited (an almost constantly injured addition too) and taken Jürgen Klopp’s team on an almost perfect run of 18 wins, 1 draw and just 1 defeat in his first 20 games in all competitions.
What an amazing time this is to be a Liverpool fan.
Again.
Apparently, a week is a long time in politics, but a year in football has seen the English champions tumble off a cliff and into arguably the most turbulent waters since a King was replaced by a “Champagne Charlie” and his best mate couldn’t stop the slide into the bottom half of the league, a flirtation with the relegation zone and a malaise and rot at the heart of the club that saw off both Graeme Souness and Roy Evans and Liverpool an underachieving mess for the vast majority of the 1990’s. Am I suggesting this will happen to Arne Slot’s team of champions? No. But I’ve no idea where the team who beat Manchester City and Real Madrid 2–0 in back-to-back games this time last year has gone, and in 8th place in the Premier League and a lowly 13th in the Champions League, the signs are particularly worrying and a long term fix is nowhere in sight.
Wednesday night was a particularly tough watch if you’re lucky enough to be a Liverpool Red. I was almost an ever present during the Souness/Evans years (and the mistake that was Roy Hodgson too) but Wednesday was dreadful, abysmal even, and had Wilson Isidor scored in the fourth minute of game ending injury time after rounding Becker in the Reds goal (and Federico Chiesa not chased back to hack clear from the goal line), it could well have been far worse for the Reds, as well as a fully deserved victory for the “Mackems” from Sunderland. Absent a win at Anfield since 1983, Brian Brobbey was a real and constant menace up front, Granit Xhaka controlled the game from midfield and defenders (yes, defenders……) Omar Alderete and Trai Hume had a trio of chances in a 5 minute spell in the first half as the visitors threatened a first away win in 42 years at Anfield. Chemsdine Talbi’s 67th minute goal was a true reward for a Sunderland team bossing the game, and now in sight of that vaunted away win, they retreated in time honoured fashion by stacking 10 men behind the ball and tried to protect a valuable 3 points that was only thwarted by the industry of Florian Wirtz and a deflected goal from the unlucky Nordi Mukiele that prevented Wirtz from his first goal for the Reds.
9 minutes, plus a bunch of injury time minutes remained, and Liverpool, with Mo Salah introduced at half-time as a substitute and the more impressive introductions of both Hugo Ekitike and Curtis Jones, created absolutely nothing worthy of any note whatsoever, and Sunderland departed from Anfield with a thoroughly deserved Premier League point.
Arne’s Afterword
“So, I knew before the game, when you play Sunderland, from the 14 games they have played now they have only conceded four times more than one goal, and in these four games they’ve only conceded two. So, it’s a hard team to score against, it’s a hard team to create your chances against, because they either go really aggressive in a high press or they have 11 players — 10 outfield players and a goalkeeper — who defend their box with their lives. That’s why it’s so difficult to create. So, in that aspect, I was hoping for more — although I knew how difficult it is to create against them”.
“Again, we’ve hardly conceded. The first big chance of them — I don’t count the shot that hit the bar because that was not a chance — but the first serious chance was from a set-piece that hit the post. And then their goal is, in my opinion, not even a chance. If that is a chance, we’ve probably had 20 chances tonight. But, unfortunately, a deflection led to going 1–0 down. Then, recently in our games we’ve found it really hard to get the equaliser, although we had our chances every time. Today, we had a little bit of luck with scoring the 1–1 because that was also a deflection. For me, different, because that’s a shot from eight, nine, 10 yards, so that’s at least a serious chance. Where a shot from 20 yards isn’t a serious chance — an opportunity, but not a serious chance”.
Thanks for reading. With Christmas around the corner…can I tempt you with a recent book or three?
"Alone with Everybody" - Link to Amazon
"Fear and Loathing at the World Series" - Link to Amazon
Not much hope for Liverpool making the post-season now, is there?