Blades blunted as Reds march on
Sheffield United 0 Liverpool 2, 6th December 2023.
SHEFFIELD UNITED 0
LIVERPOOL 2 (van Dijk 37, Szoboszlai 90+4)
Ahead of this evening’s encounter with the recently promoted “Blades” of Sheffield United, anything and everything was rolling around my football mad mind. Here a few examples of the multitude of random thoughts that would vex an already unsound and troubled mind:
Tonight’s version of the Reds “away” kit is an abomination to all that is footballing holy isn’t it? I get and understand the colour connection to the city but this all purple concoction is utterly dreadful and even worse than the mid 1990’s inspired green and white quarters they’ll be wearing for their trip to Selhurst Park on Saturday for their duel with Crystal Palace.
Simon Hooper was tonight’s “man in the middle” with the referee’s whistle and fresh from yet another VAR controversy on top of his abject display and VAR inspired dereliction of duty that inflicted the Reds only Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the season. Thankfully for all concerned, especially so Mr Hooper, he had a drab game with a capital D to officiate and there was no need to consult with the killjoys and their red and blue lines of footballing doom.
With the recent sacking of Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom and installation of cult and local hero Chris Wilder in his place, one feared for that cliched and footballing “New Manager Bounce”. Thankfully once more, this was as absent as any interference from VAR this evening.
At over 168 years old, Bramall Lane is one of the oldest football grounds in England still in existence and once famously more commonly known as a venue for the grandest of all games, Test Match cricket. My last visit to this ghost of a footballing and indeed cricketing past was exactly two decades ago for the first leg of a two legged League Cup Semi-Final where an unfamiliar and under par Reds team containing Chris Kirkland in goal, Salif Diao and El Hadji Diouf grabbed a half-time lead through a goal from Neil Mellor before succumbing to two late goals from local hero Michael Tonge. This 2–1 first leg defeat would be avenged weeks later with a 2–0 win, setting up the glorious final defeat of Manchester United by the same 2–0 winning margin at Cardiff on a day I’ll never forget.
My self-published book on Liverpool - Available via Amazon
Why this ramble along memory lane amid the fragments of a splintered mind? Well this evening’s game truly was drab with a capital D and although the Reds in their dreadful all purple away kit led 1–0 at half-time through a somewhat debatable goal from captain Virgil van Dijk on 37 minutes, the home team “Blades” were physical under new manager Chris Wilder and threatened the game’s true goal scoring chances on the counter attack through the wily attacking threat of James McAtee, who forced a fine close in save from Reds goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher on 11 minutes, and the raw pace of Cameron Archer who should have done far better on a fast breakaway on 17 minutes when leaving the Liverpool defence trailing in his wake.
Despite leading at the break as well as every statistic available from ball retention, passes, corners and touches in the opponent’s half of the field, Liverpool were leggy and one paced and although scoring from their seventh corner of a first half that ended with Alexis Mac Allister finally forcing a meaningful save from home team goalkeeper Wes Foderingham, the veteran glove man wasn’t unduly troubled in a similarly drab second half of play that the Reds utterly dominated without truly threatening to score a second and decisive game settling goal.
Until that is 4 minutes into injury time when, with a fantastic sliding tackle, Darwin Núñez wrestled the ball loose from a Sheffield United deep in defence before setting Dominik Szoboszlai free in the penalty area with only Foderingham to beat and the Hungarian captain, who vied with the Japanese national captain Wataru Endō for this evening’s “Man of the Match” award, calmly slotted the game defining goal into the top corner of the “Blades” net.
An entirely forgettable game.
An absolute footballing slog!
Another 3 vital Premier League points.
A final word from The Boss
“I’m really pleased with the result, it’s obviously the perfect result, I’m really pleased with a lot of aspects of the game. I would call it kind of a mature performance — besides a few moments when we gave the ball away in areas where we just should not do it and that’s when the crowd got a bit excited, I would say. Besides that, if you didn’t see the game, you could have heard it because we calmed an atmosphere which was probably ready to go down and didn’t really let it happen, which is really super-important. I don’t want to be overly critical, I know we can play better football, but this time of the year you play, hopefully win, recover and play again. That’s it”.
“The first half I liked a lot, I liked a lot of things, to be honest, but we didn’t create the clear-cut chances but it’s sometimes like that. Then you have to use your set-pieces, defend their set-pieces as well — their throw-ins are exceptional, wow, and really difficult to defend on top. Yeah, we gave the balls away for the counter-attacks and the set-pieces — these were the tricky moments. But there is no game without tricky moments if you don’t put it to bed early and we didn’t do that, so that’s our fault obviously. But in the end when you win 2–0, it’s all fine”.
Thanks for reading. Can I perhaps persuade you to take a peek at that rather lovely book on the Mighty Reds of Liverpool in the centre of this article? It would look rather delightful all wrapped up beneath a loved one’s tree this Christmas!
Oh, you're most welcome. That's why that function was invented....
One could say the Blades "cut" the Reds, but I'm not one to rub salt in wounds.