Accrington Stanley? Who are they? Exactly!
Liverpool 4 Accrington Stanley 0, 11th January 2025
LIVERPOOL 4 (Jota 29, Alexander-Arnold 45, Danns 76, Chiesa 90)
ACCRINGTON STANLEY 0
Forever synonymous with the late 1980’s Milk Marketing Board advertisement and two young Liverpool fans drinking milk because “it’s what Ian Rush drinks” and by drinking milk “when I grow up, I’ll be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley”, well today it was the milk and honey and cliched “Magic of the FA Cup” for the storied Lancashire club and had Liverpool fan Josh Woods’ strike on goal on 56 minutes crept six inches lower rather than rattling the Reds crossbar he may have had a future advertisement all of his own, as well as the bragging rights to hold over his family and friends on The Kop and scattered all around these bitterly cold fields of Anfield Road. The affectionately and simply known “Stanley” were magnificent today. Organised, tenacious in the tackle, willing to press forward when in control of the ball and perhaps most importantly aside from being unwilling to allow themselves to be swept away by the occasion, they were also unwilling to break ranks or be suckered into the Reds game of pulling them forward and out of their rigid shape, thus allowing Liverpool to quickly pass through them in midfield and into attack.
In short, the players were a credit to the club and the sold-out mass of thousands in the Away End in the Anfield Road Stand.
There was much to admire on the Reds side of the football too with 16 year old debutant Rio Ngumoha eager to impress in a first half whereby the kid shone the brightest in a much changed Liverpool team captained by Trent Alexander-Arnold and scorer of a wondrous goal on the cusp of half-time that extinguished any hope the visitors had today of a vaunted FA Cup shock for the ages. Pleasingly for his biggest fan (me) Wataru Endō took over the captaincy following the second half substitution of Alexander-Arnold before he too passed it on his departure to first half goal scorer Diogo Jota and Tyler Morton impressed as always at the head of a pack of teenagers and Jürgen Klopp’s “kids” from previous seasons Conor Bradley, James McConnell, Trey Nyoni and Jayden Danns, a Kop End goal scorer once more during his substitute appearance, and minutes before Federico Chiesa did likewise, thus matching his father Enrico who scored at Anfield for Italy during Euro ’96.
Chiesa looks fit and broke his goal scoring duck, the skipper scored an absolute beauty and whilst Luis Díaz, Alexis Mac Allister and Andy Robertson all watched from the substitutes bench, Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo, Alisson Becker and Ryan Gravenberch were given the day off and presumably watched the match at home!
Anyone fancy a glass of milk?
Arne’s Afterword
“First of all, credit to them the way they showed themselves here today. Of course, before the game starts you watch a few games of them and then you see, ‘Ah, they’re not afraid to press high, not afraid to play one-v-one.’ But then you always wonder, will they do this at Anfield as well? But they definitely did. They were not afraid. Their playing style is also when the goalkeeper has the ball to play it long, so it is not that they stole this from the team we played last week, that’s just their style. They showed up in a very positive way”.
“I think the biggest compliment Trent could get was the reaction of everyone after the United game. Every player around the world, maybe except for a few, have bad games and that’s completely normal. But the moment Trent has a bad game, everybody has an opinion about him. Maybe — maybe — that has to do with the contract situation, I don’t know if that wasn’t there if everybody would have reacted in the same way”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - 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.