Harvey Elliott sublime as Reds return to winning ways
Liverpool 4 Tottenham 2, 5th May 2024
LIVERPOOL 4 (Salah 16, Robertson 45, Gakpo 50, Elliott 59)
TOTTENHAM 2 (Richarlison 72, Heung-min 77)
Sunday 5th May 2024 was a mighty fine day to be a fan of Liverpool Football Club and a reason to be both cheerful and thankful to have been bathed in the Mighty Red of “The Unbearables” from the sunshine fields of Anfield Road. “Flag Day”, a 30 year anniversary for the Reds second independently created event to mark the final ever game in front of a standing Kop, turned that old terrace and now modernised all seater stand into a flowing mass of banners and flags, old and new, as a memorable and loud rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” swept around all four sides of Liverpool’s very own coliseum, bathed in beautiful early May sunshine. Whisper it, but even the Boss looked a little glassy eyed pre kick-off.
Between the 10th and 70th minute, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool were back and a perfect 60 minutes of football to rival the periods of dominance in the Carabao League Cup Final, their demolition of Chelsea in the Premier League and the second 45 minutes against Manchester City. Spurs edged an exciting opening 10 minutes before Wataru Endō started winning tackles, spraying passes and settling the game into the press/counter press so beloved of his manager. Harvey Elliott began linking play, Cody Gakpo too, and when not attacking the Tottenham defensive left through the pesky partnership of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mo Salah, the team in Mighty Red around them swarmed all over their match-up opponents until with the ball won and the game pattern set once more, incisive passes from Alexis Mac Allister or Wataru Endō released Gakpo or the beautiful Colombian magician Luis Díaz, and Spurs simply weren’t given an opportunity to play.
In this hour of almost perfect football Wataru Endō (heading a long list of unrequited loves of my life) never gave the ball away, barely lost a tackle and please don’t overlook his delicious midfield pass that lead to Cody Gakpo’s beautiful cross for Mo Salah to score. The Egyptian King had a smile on his face and a determination to fight for his team today, as did anyone you care to name across the defensive back four (sterling display once more from Jarell Quansah) and then there’s the impish Harvey Elliott who at 21 years old is still a kid and still poking his internet detractors squarely in both eyes. Energy and desire for the ball or to run into space to spread the play around him was in abundance from yet another top quality display from the kid, and so firmly demonstrated in the Reds final two goals as he hunted down Emerson Royal (who had a stinker today!) for a contested ball before curling a perfect cross for Cody Gakpo to score the Reds third before, well, the kid scored a goal from the footballing Gods.
Trent Alexander-Arnold raked a cross field pass perfectly onto the left foot of his wing back partner Andy Robertson who delivered a searching ball into the Tottenham penalty area that was barely cleared, before Mo Salah rolled an inviting pass into Harvey Elliott’s path and after skipping past a defensive lunge from Rodrigo Bentancur, the kid curled a wonder goal of the very highest quality acclaimed as a “diamond of a goal” by Sky TV commentator Peter Jury before suggesting he “frame it” and “put it on the mantelpiece of his life”.
Quite.
Well played kid.
Keep proving those doubters wrong kid.
Midway through the first half The Kop released “I’m so glad, that Jürgen is a Red” and triumphantly so as not only was it the first of many, many renditions to come at home to Wolves in two weeks time, this version was a defiant and winning one. The team in all Red were playing football in the demanding image of their manager, and everyone in Red inside Anfield could see and feel it. On 50 minutes The Kop joyously sang “Show Them The Way To Go Home”, the ultimate song of triumph and sporting dismissal, and Tottenham still had 20 minutes of almost perfect football from a rampant Liverpool ahead of them yet.
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Self indulgent postscript
I went to a lot of games in the 1993/1994 season as well as the many seasons before and after so I was one of the countless thousands who can proudly declare “I was there!” for “The Kop’s Last Stand” on 30th April 1994. I stood on that famous terrace with my old travelling companion “Steve The Taxi Driver” and The Kop was full WAY before kick-off. The video and photographic proof of that day, that beautiful April day full of sunshine three long decades ago can never do the justice of actually being on The Kop that glorious day. Jeremy Goss scored a footballing “screamer” to defeat a bedraggled and woeful Liverpool but this was a day about The Kop, a celebration of the ever changing family of Liverpool Reds who have willed their teams to victory, to “suck” the ball into the net to use an oft used cliche. Songs of praise were sung, repeatedly, with old chants dusted off for the lengthening list of legendary players as well as Joe Fagan, flanked by the wives of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley before stopping mid-pitch to appreciate fully the “Shankly, Shankly, Shankly” chant rolling from the massed banks of The Kop.
Then Kenny Dalglish was introduced and I’ll take the ROAR that greeted The King to the great beyond.
My goodness.
Race for the Title
Arsenal P 36 W 26 D 5 L 5 GD 60 Points 83
Manchester City P 35 W 25 D 7 L 3 GD 54 Points 82
LIVERPOOL P 36 W 23 D 9 L 4 GD 43 Points 78
Well The Reds can still win the League, mathematically speaking anyway!
With Arsenal putting 3 past a competitive Bournemouth and Manchester City grabbing a nap hand of goals against a woeful Wolves, neither team look remotely like losing and with a game in hand, Manchester City remain favourites to retain their Title.
A final word from The Boss
“Did I expect us to be 4–0 up? No. Did I expect us to be at 4–2 and Ali has to make two more worldie saves? No. But when you think about it, it’s really not unlikely because before the game Aston Villa lost and it means for Tottenham, if they win, they are fully back in the fight for the Champions League. For us, it means we are third — we cannot change that probably anymore in either direction. We spoke before the game about it that for high-performance sports, you need to be motivated. Actually, three points should be enough but it’s not always. For the boys, it was today, I loved that”.
“But then you are 4–0 up, play a really good game and we lost a bit of organisation — that’s now human, it’s not great but it’s human. What you saw as well, Tottenham are Tottenham, they are really good and when you let them [play] then they are especially good, so that’s what happened. We were outstanding until we were not good, until we were alright again and then in that moment then we could obviously score the fifth and sixth, didn’t do that but that’s all fine”.
“I really like the way the boys played, I liked the individual performances, how we played together — so many good things today. Yes, conceding two, ask Ali — he is really not happy about that. But it was a really good football game, and I think that’s what everybody should expect from us — results as well. We delivered both. And the moments, how I said, I think they are a little bit explainable, should not happen anyway, but didn’t count really today”.
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.