Defensive horror show costs Reds on the banks of the River Thames
Fulham 3 Liverpool 2, 6th April 2025
FULHAM 3 (Sessegnon 23, Iwobi 32, Muniz 37)
LIVERPOOL 2 (Mac Allister 14, Díaz 72)
After concluding Wednesday’s match report by suggesting that Arne Slot would have taken the most satisfaction from a hard working and overall team performance in their 1–0 win against local neighbours Everton, I may as well continue in the same vein here and, speaking on behalf of the boss once more, I’d venture the few crumbs of comfort he’ll see in defeat today were the performances of his substitutes, a disinterested Darwin Núñez apart, as his team only really played for 30 second half minutes after the introduction of a goal scoring Luis Díaz, Federico Chiesa forced an injury time save and whilst Conor Bradley shone the brightest of all the second half cameos, Harvey Elliott was also denied in injury time by Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno as well as unluckily rattling his crossbar with the game at 2–3 and with fully 12 minutes still to play. Minor, very minor crumbs of comfort as when all is said and done on today’s woeful overall performance, Liverpool had one shot on target in a first half in which they gifted their hosts 3 goals in 14 chaotic minutes and continue to look a cooked team and out on their feet since succumbing to PSG in the Champions League.
Harsh truths? Crumbs of comfort? After Wednesday’s 1–0 win the Reds had a 12 point cushion at the top of the Premier League with 8 games to go. Following Arsenal’s 1–1 draw yesterday with Everton, the Reds now hold an 11 point lead with 7 games to go. A more substantive crumb of comfort. But a hard and ugly truth would be to state that following Alexis Mac Allister’s wonder goal (and “Goal of the Season” candidate) on 14 minutes, the Reds created absolutely nothing until Diogo Jota forced a close-in save from Bernd Leno in the opening minutes of the second half. In between, Curtis Jones inadvertently and unluckily presented a gift of an equaliser to Ryan Sessegnon on 23 minutes, Andy Robertson had a triple horror show of his own 9 minutes later by first giving the ball away to eventual goal scorer Alex Iwobi, then failing to clear the resultant loose ball before Iwobi’s shot deflected off him and past a stranded Caoimhin Kelleher in the Reds goal, and then Virgil van Dijk proved he does have feet of clay after all by being nudged from an innocuous loose ball on the edge of the penalty area by Rodrigo Muniz who then took a spectacular first touch before burying a third goal past a defenceless Kelleher.
Hyper critical? Perhaps. But the harsh truth is that Andreas Pereira’s cross into the Reds penalty area on 23 minutes should never have resulted in Sessegnon’s goal (and Fulham’s first shot on target all game), Andy Robertson’s risky and thoughtless cross-field pass to Curtis Jones (easily intercepted by Alex Iwobi) led to Fulham’s second goal from their second shot on target, and the skipper should never have been so easily nudged off the ball for the killer third goal 5 minutes later. More obvious hard truths are that this team and paper thin squad are running on empty at times and regardless of the contract negotiations with Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold, a major rebuild is needed in the summer and for a team long heralded as the Champions Elect of England, that is both staggering and a mark of the monumental achievement by Arne Slot in his first season as Reds manager.
First away defeat all season in the Premier League.
First defeat in the Premier League in 27 games.
Only the fourth defeat of any consequence in 49 games.
11 points clear with 7 games to go.
There’s some tangible crumbs of comfort for you and a hard truth? For Arne Slot to have produced this in his first season is damn near a miracle.
Home wins at Anfield wins the Premier League. Simple as that.
Let’s see what the boss thought of it all today.
“I think there is no reason for us to be complacent. We are not number 1 at the moment because we win every game with a margin of three or four goals. I think everyone that has seen our games, it takes us so much effort, so much hard work to win games of football, combined with quality of course. We saw it on Wednesday when we played Everton, it was a close call. Today it was a close call and many times we’ve been on the right side. Today we were on the wrong side, mainly because of the errors we made”.
“Everybody needs to be aware — and they are, so actually I didn’t even need to tell them — that the only way we can win a game of football is by hard work, 90 minutes constant effort. Because I’ve said it a few times now, we are not the team that are leading at half-time with 3–0 or 4–0 with three, four or five acts of brilliance. It is hard work every time we won a game of football this season, except for two or three games”.
"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 trilogy of recently self-published books too. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon