Crystal Palace 1 Liverpool 3
A vital win in London but are Reds on Social Media still conceding the Title to Manchester City?
A vital win in London but are Reds on Social Media still conceding the Title to Manchester City?
I was reminiscing the other day and sucking a thoughtful tooth as to my many adventures to Selhurst Park over my match going years, but I was snapped out of this reverie by my newly appointed Current Affairs Editor at Sports Unillustrated as he had a prediction he wished to share. You see, “Horseman” is, like me, biased when it comes to football predictions as he’s rather fond of the “Eagles” of Crystal Palace and perhaps even on a par with my own utter devotion, but to another bird, a Liverbird that resides upon the chest of my footballing heroes from Liverpool. My Current Affairs Editor didn’t want to hear my tales of May Bank Holiday shenanigans in the 1980’s and watching the Blues of my hometown Portsmouth losing out on promotion and deciding that fisticuffs with the locals was the best course of action to remedy this grave footballing error. Nor did he want to hear how I was locked out of Selhurst Park on the day Michael Owen vaulted into the footballing consciousness, or the dreadful games in the mid 1990’s against the “Wombles” of Wimbledon as they ground shared their way out of existence.
He certainly didn’t want me to rehash the old story of being in a crowd of just over 9,000 at Selhurst Park when Liverpool were ignominiously dumped out of the League Cup by Wimbledon in a bitingly cold 2nd Round tie under the stewardship of a “Champagne Charlie” or two goals from someone with the middle name “Ivanhoe” in a 2–1 victory 22 years ago. Who has time for that kind of mumbo jumbo?
Clearly not my Editor, who with great relish and self describing it as the “Shock of the Day!” predicted his Eagles of Crystal Palace would defeat my own birds of Liverpool 2–1. My beautiful son and as disinterested about football as turkeys are for Christmas Carols predicted a 4–2 victory for the Reds of Liverpool and without knowledge of my own prediction, a more slender 3–2 victory. So the predictions were in, the votes were being counted, the chads were still hanging and I was still wistfully thinking of all those night time games at Selhurst Park, frozen to the bone with the chill rolling across that exposed “Away End” and the sound that only match going football fans will appreciate who follow their team away from home: that guttural and spirit shocking sound as three quarters of the ground around you celebrate a goal. If our collective predictions come true, we’re guaranteed 3 goals through to 5 or even 6. Time, as ever, will tell.
And time did tell and we had 4 goals squarely in the middle of our collective predictions and Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker was “Man of the Match” by an absolute country mile, a surreal fact perfectly encapsulating an utterly schizophrenic and bizarre game. For 35 minutes the Reds in their change colours of cream and black were outstanding, one and two touch football spraying the ball around almost entirely on the green grass of Selhurst Park and in the process jumping into a fully deserving 2–0 lead. Statistics at this stage of the game showed 10 shots from Liverpool and zero from their hosts, and a Crystal Palace team that had barely ventured into the Liverpool half of the field, barely even a touch of the ball and barely out of a neutral gear that was screaming at them to engage the sporting clutch.
Their only chance in these opening 35 minutes of play came courtesy of a through ball from Joel Ward that saw a rasping shot from Mateta draw an utterly, if inconsequential, wonderful save from Liverpool’s Brazilian goalkeeper, and eventual Man of the Match, Alisson Becker. It was a brilliant instinctive save and the first of many but Mateta was adjudged offside and the effort on goal, as well as the magnificent save, would not trouble the footballing statisticians. However, a Liverpool team playing in a calm and controlled third gear suddenly faltered as half time approached, first Joel Matip lazily gave away the ball, and presented an easy chance that Michael Olise simply had to score but found the huge body of Alisson Becker instead and just before the half time whistle the impressive Mateta flashed a cross shot across the Liverpool goal which flicked goalkeeper Alison on the way to safety.
Liverpool left the field at half time with a 2–0 lead that was looking more and more shaky as the first 45 minutes wore on and were looking ragged and unsure and so far from the team that stormed into an easy and carefree two goal lead via a powerful header from the supreme Virgil van Dijk on 8 minutes and a deft finish from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 24 minutes later. Andy Robertson, so far the Reds most influential player, had supplied assists for both goals but the sloppiness towards the end of the first half crashed into the opening minutes of the second half and both teams were totally unrecognisable to their first half selves. Liverpool were hesitant and although still hunting in packs, now a yard slower and constantly losing a ball they couldn’t give away for free in the first 35 minutes. Crystal Palace were outstanding after the half time break and should have been level inside two minutes as first Conor Gallagher missed a simple header in front of an open goal and a cheeky backheel from Odsonne Edouard was brilliantly saved at close range by Alisson Becker. Liverpool were rocking. Reds skipper Henderson drew a fine low save from “Eagles” goalkeeper Vicente Guaita but two minutes later his defence was, in the footballing vernacular, “caught square” and high upfield, leaving a simple pass from Mateta stroked home by Edouard and with 35 minutes to go the score was now 1–2 and Palace were deservedly back in the game.
If the first 35 minutes of the game was supreme footballing skill from Liverpool, the final 35 was a muddled morass of a sporting mess as they depended upon their wonderful Brazilian goalkeeper to keep their lead at 2–1 (particularly a thrilling save from Michael Olise) and a deft chip that was bound for the top corner before Alisson brilliantly clawed it away. Crystal Palace were in the ascendency but the game degenerated into a scrappy, niggly affair that finally saw the intervention of Referee Kevin Friend who until this point had had a quiet game with barely a tackle worthy of the name. The game was now a tiring mess full of substitutions and yellow cards and with the Reds of Liverpool now effectively “hanging on” for the 3 points Diogo Jota raced into the Crystal Palace penalty area, overran the ball, colliding with goalkeeper Guaita in the process and the ball harmlessly rolled out of play. However, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) suggested on field Kevin Friend take a second look at the tackle on the pitch side monitor and after several re-watches reversed his original decision and gave a penalty.
It was never a penalty in a cliched “Month of Sundays” and never in a million years either. But thus is modern football and the dastardly intervention of a Referee watching the game from the comfort of a television studio 100 miles away. Utterly ridiculous, absurd and bizarre too. Liverpool’s Brazilian midfielder Fabinho calmly stroked home the undeserved penalty and the Reds were 3–1 to the good and the 3 points, those oh so valuable 3 points, were firmly in the bag.
The Reds now find themselves 9 points behind runaway leaders Manchester City but with a game in hand and a win that would put them 6 points behind with 45 still to play for. Are Reds still conceding the Title on Social Media? Who cares! You simply never concede anything as a Liverpool fan until it’s mathematically impossible, history tell us that much. History will also judge VAR as a resounding success in the coming future, but it won’t be. I have long railed against the staid, static and vapid game that was once described as “The Beautiful Game” but it’s beautiful only when played without American style interference. VAR went in favour of my team today, it will maybe go against them next time, but that isn’t the point.
Football is art, spontaneous, dramatic, instant, poetic, heart breaking, joyously uplifting and whatever other human emotion you wish to throw into the mix. Waiting for a Referee watching the game in a bubble and via a monitor miles away, and then as the on field Referee does the exact same on the side of the pitch where he saw the action with his own two human eyes in the first place, is not. VAR is a con, an energy vampire, a creator of a “perfect” game out of the remnants of glorious immediate imperfection. VAR is a betting company’s dream and a dream for a statistics driven world that swamps the art and opera of live sport.
If you’re under the age of 25 you’ll disagree with all of the above, but then maybe you’re one of those people who concede the Title at the end of December! Manchester City remain overwhelming favourites to win the Title but you don’t dismiss Shankly’s “Bread and Butter” so easily. The great man would have loved the way Liverpool had to scrap for the win in the last third of a game of two halves. He liked idiosyncrasies such as these and I’d wager he’d hate the bureaucratic meddling of a rules official miles away stopping his beautiful game from flowing.
“The Reds are Coming Up the Hill, Boys” but can’t we dump VAR violently and speedily down that particular hill?
and into the nearest Sea?