Birthday boy Summerville stuns The Kop as an energetic Leeds are far too good for a woeful Reds
Liverpool 1 Leeds United 2, 29th October 2022.
Liverpool 1 Leeds United 2, 29th October 2022.
LIVERPOOL 1 (Salah 14)
LEEDS UNITED 2 (Rodrigo 4, Summerville 89)
With just a minute remaining of a schizophrenic game that veered from chaos to calamity and back again, Leeds United substitute Wilfried Gnonto scrambled for possession of a loose ball on the visitors left wing and with Reds substitutes James Milner as well as fellow replacement Curtis Jones and Joe Gomez for company, the danger of a late winning goal from here seemed limited if not entirely non-existent. However, with no serious pressure on either the ball or the young Italian international, Gnonto squeezed a cross into the Liverpool penalty area that was both hopeful and innocuous and landing at the juggling feet of struggling Leeds striker Patrick Bamford, the game’s winning goal still seemed highly improbable.
Enter birthday boy Crysencio Summerville.
Loyalties aside, I find the struggles of Patrick Bamford troubling and from a long, long way away he appears unable to trust his own body after a litany of injuries that have blighted the career of a goal scoring centre forward of great promise. I’m sure a lack of confidence is blamed or perhaps a lack of match practice too but he simply seems cruelly unable to put his body through the vigour's of the Premier League and just minutes earlier had a gilt edged goal scoring chance when through on goal but conspired to almost fall over his own feet and the chance for a valuable late lead evaporated. Here with just a minute left to play and the ball bouncing around his torso, 20 year old Summerville took control and possession of the ball and with a deft touch and an even more instinctual stabbing shot on goal that left Reds goalkeeper Alisson Becker a fraction underprepared and floundering, the ball nestled in the far corner of the Liverpool goal and the birthday boy gleefully accepted the acclaim from both his overjoyed teammates and the hordes of ecstatic Leeds fans in the “Away End” of an otherwise Anfield stunned into silence.
The 20 year old Dutch born winger is a now a 21 year old young man as I pen these words and in his own post match words “this is the best present I can get” and loyalties again aside combined with an objective reality, the birthday boy’s winning goal was fully deserved for a struggling Leeds United team who’ve climbed out of the relegation zone with this, their first Premier League win since August. The visitors thoroughly deserved their victory for the zest, energy and work rate so lacking in a pedestrian and tired looking hosts. Whereas Summerville the birthday boy would have the joyous last laugh, the performance of the three Reds youngsters last night was emblematic of the team surrounding them. This isn’t a criticism as I’ve written at length that the “kids are alright” and Harvey Elliott has been the Reds one true guiding light all season. But Elliott had a night to forget, Trent Alexander-Arnold faded after a promising first half and substitute Curtis Jones injected immediate energy with his early second half substitute appearance but soon became enveloped in the slowly sinking mire that contained the rest of his teammates and a team looking ragged, two yards off the pace, tired and seemingly at odds with its own self.
Both teams were guilty of glaring early game errors with Joe Gomez’s kamikaze defending presenting the first Leeds goal on a plate for an otherwise ineffective and disappointing Rodrigo. Both teams were guilty too of leaving huge chasms of central space between their defences and midfields, inviting pressure from simple straight through balls between the defensive lines. There’s also an argument to be made that Reds goalkeeper Alisson Becker barely had anything further to do other than scoop the ball out of the back of his net twice whereas Leeds goalkeeper Illan Meslier’s string of second half saves (two from the Reds most dangerous striker Darwin Nunez) rightly earned him the “Man of the Match” award in many post-game quarters.
But the striking difference between the two teams last night centred on the vitality and energy of a Leeds team as opposed to the sluggish and one paced Liverpool team lacking an organisational stability demonstrated in spades by their visitors from Yorkshire. The starkest and most alarming difference and perhaps the greatest of reality checks is that Leeds, driven on by their bullish and typically American manager Jesse Marsch, could see the Reds were there for the taking, there for the beating, and with just a minute left on the game clock, the birthday boy claimed an early and perhaps priceless early present.
So the Reds “Sword of Damocles Season” continues and there’s some bittersweet times ahead. Before last night I couldn’t see any team coming to Anfield and leaving with a victory and I convinced myself that this team could still be a match for anyone in a one-off cup tie and especially so in the Champions League.
Time will tell.
It always does.
But I’m officially worried now.
Thanks for reading. My Liverpool FC archives contain a wealth of articles past, present and often personal, or you can find the three most recently published articles on their season hence far linked below:
Reds ease into the last 16 of the Champions League with an imperious victory in Amsterdam
Ajax 0 Liverpool 3, 26th October 2022.medium.com
Ex Red Awoniyi cuts down a ragged and out of sorts Liverpool
Nottingham Forest 1 Liverpool 0, 22nd October 2022.medium.com
Nunez goal enough to see off powder puff Hammers at Anfield
Liverpool 1 West Ham United 0, 19th October 2022.medium.com