Honours even in the “chaos” of Anfield
Liverpool 1 Manchester City 1, 10th March 2024.
LIVERPOOL 1 (Mac Allister 50)
MANCHESTER CITY 1 (Stones 23)
I couldn’t be more proud of the team of my Red Liverpool heart this evening. Thoroughly outplayed for 45 minutes, the Reds then swept aside the Club World Champions of Manchester City in a second half of supreme dominance that saw Liverpool, roared on by a bear pit of an Anfield atmosphere, play their era rivals off the park to such an extent as to rattle them into submission, to an unrecognisable ragtag mess of a team happy for a drawn point and relieved to be departing for the East Lancs Road only a point behind in a 3 team shoot-out for the premier prize in English football.
I dislike using the cliché of a “game of two halves” but it seems fitting and highly appropriate on this occasion. For 45 minutes Manchester City were exceptional, fully deserving of the lead granted them by the genius thinking of Kevin De Bruyne and completely outplaying Liverpool at their own game of press/counter press. Under Pep Guardiola, Manchester City typically play in the same manner as Liverpool under the guidance of Jürgen Klopp: A high defensive line compressing and condensing the game into a 2/3rd’s size pitch and controlling the game with the ball whilst seeking rapier and rapid counter-attacks when gaining custody of the ball after being without it. Today, City were more than happy for Liverpool to attack them in the first half as they could exploit the gaps left behind on the counter-attack, especially so through an empty midfield largely dominated by Kevin De Bruyne but more importantly in the wide areas. Here they also dominated the match-ups between Phil Foden (the best player on the park in the first half) as he relentlessly attacked Reds emergency left-back Joe Gomez and on the other flank, Julián Álvarez often roamed free into the empty space vacated by the attacking intent and desires of Conor Bradley.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - Available via Amazon
Manchester City thoroughly deserved their half-time lead and at the break I mused aloud in the madhouse of Twitter that Liverpool needed to hang in the game and take every goal scoring chance they create as well as taking advantage of every mistake their visitors made for even in a half of football of such dominance, City were still often profligate when in possession of the ball. The Reds did more than simply hang in the game in the second half they bossed it from start to finish (except for the nerve shredding moment when Jérémy Doku rattled the inside of a post on 88 minutes), they snapped up the mistake from Nathan Aké that led to the 50th minute penalty and equalising goal and, had Luis Díaz scored when one-on-one with substitute goalkeeper Stefan Ortega on 62 minutes or any number of the half-chances created in such a dominating second 45 minutes of football, they could have taken and deserved all 3 Premier League points.
Reds captain Virgil van Dijk was awarded the TV “Man of the Match” and whilst he was of course immense as he marshalled yet another makeshift defence of emergency left-back Joe Gomez (brilliant but a little wasteful in possession) 21 year old Jarell Quansah (incredible faultless display) and 20 year old Conor Bradley (the kid looked a little tired today after trying to help in attack in the first half), the captain was surrounded by displays in a Red shirt that were all frankly incredible and all in their own uniquely individual ways.
Caoimhin Kelleher once again proved an able deputy for the greatest goalkeeper in the world Alisson Becker with some fairly rudimentary first half saves but especially a brilliant smothering save to deny Phil Foden at his near post on 57 minutes. The genial Irishman with the greatest of Cup Final winning smiles continues to impress big time. Dominik Szoboszlai has another 60+ minutes of game time under his belt on his recovery road from injury, Harvey Elliott was supreme in yet another performance and poke in the eye to his internet age detractors who will never fully appreciate his worth to this team and Darwin Núñez caused his usual array of chaos magic by getting caught offside far too often, being a constant menace in and around the penalty area and by winning the penalty that led to the Reds equaliser.
Pipping their captain to the “Man of the Match” honours was a triumvirate of stellar performances from the unrequited love of my Liverpool supporting life Wataru Endō who was everywhere and anywhere, and all at the same energetic time. Alexis Mac Allister was every right thinking fan’s “Man of the Match” in his best ever display in a Red Liverpool shirt and if you inspected his football boots this evening you’ll discover mud and grass from every single inch of the Anfield pitch and what can you say about the display of Colombian magician Luis Díaz? He was out on his feet in the final 10 minutes of a game he was utterly majestic in and had he scored on 62 minutes who knows where the game and destiny of those precious Premier League points would have headed in?
Alas, the weekend’s biggest winners were of course Arsenal and their late winning goal against Brentford sending them top of the Premier League on goal difference. Whenever Arsenal are in with a shout of winning anything a dirty feeling washes over me. I still haven’t forgiven Charlie George for his winning goal in the 1971 FA Cup Final and I wasn’t even born! I certainly haven’t forgiven Charlie Nicholas for breaking my heart at Wembley in 1987 either and I’ve only partially forgiven Michael Thomas “charging through the midfield” in 1989 to break my heart on a Friday night when I was supposed to be babysitting for my sister and brother-in-law and instead sat on the front porch of their home and cried.
Silly game football.
10 games to go.
3 horse race.
And it’s “up for grabs now”.
A final word from The Boss
“I would have loved to have used one of the massive chances we created; yes, we were lucky when Doku hit the post, but we played an exceptional football game. For us, besides the result, the most important information is we are right there. We go the distance, let’s see what we get for it, but the boys fought so hard for absolutely everything to be there. Arsenal in the moment are firing on all cylinders. Last night, yes, it was a bit late but they still played an incredible game. City is City, so for us it is probably a little bit like how did we get through all that and we are still there? It’s crazy. All these games we had with the squad situation we had. Today I saw the best 53 minutes we had against Manchester City, it was exceptional how we played. That’s important as well, that we learned that about ourselves, that we can do that. Now let’s keep going”.
“I am so happy about the way we played today. The result is the only thing and if we win this game today then we are four points ahead of City, that is not a distance where you should just fall asleep. And maybe two points ahead of Arsenal; the way they play, they will not stop. For us it is important that after all the different ways we found, not always the greatest performance, just highest-intense fights to get the result like Nottingham Forest or whatever, that we can play like this as well. That’s the information we need, that we can create something like this today. Our situation is still awful. We have so many players not available it is crazy. I would say you can play that game with only the players who are not available today and that would be a good one as well”.
“We have 10 games to play, so obviously nothing is decided. There are plenty of games. The next one in the league is Brighton at home, traditionally it is not our favourite opponent. It is not that we think, ‘Thank God it’s Brighton.’ They play really good football and that is a tough game for us. At one point we play Tottenham here, we have to go to Aston Villa and stuff like this. City play Arsenal, play Tottenham and Aston Villa as well. So many teams are fighting, so much quality. The only thing I need for the moment, I would prefer to have 30 points between us and all the other things, but the realistic thing is are we really in that race from a performance point of view? Today I saw a team that is in the right position, so now let’s see what we can do”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game with well over 180 articles past and present filling my “Liverpool FC” library here. Alternatively, here are my three most recently published articles on the team I adore:
"All I Want For Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit"
"The chaos magic of Darwin Núñez strikes again!"
"Klopp’s Kids march on in the FA Cup"