Lions mauled by Jürgen’s “boys” in the Coliseum
Liverpool 4 Chelsea 1, 31st January 2024.
LIVERPOOL 4 (Jota 23, Bradley 39, Szoboszlai 65, Díaz 79)
CHELSEA 1 (Nkunku 71)
Under the stewardship of Jürgen Klopp, his “boys” have played a perfect half of football, “PlayStation Football” if you will, on a number of occasions, and never perhaps more memorably than when his footballing machine in all red dismantled Manchester City in the April sunshine of Wembley Stadium before pulling their city neighbours of Manchester United to pieces three nights later, and under the floodlights of their very own celebratory coliseum. His “boys” were very different on those incredible sporting days of nearly two years ago to those who thoroughly demolished an organised if hopelessly passive Chelsea this evening, but on days to come I’d wager tonight’s performance for 70 minutes will rank alongside those heady April days of 2022 as his boys chased the impossible.
And here we are again.
My goodness what a performance!
Taking a brief step back, how do you or I or even of course the man in question Jürgen Klopp, define a “perfect” half of football? Jürgen himself described the first half at Wembley against Manchester City as “the best we ever played” and whilst this evening wasn’t quite as stratospheric as that performance, it runs it damn close. It was a perfect half of football in which Liverpool grabbed the early initiative, and constantly the ball, and never wanted to be without it. It was a performance full of real sporting aggression and desire for that damned football, to be two yards ahead of your opponent, front foot “full court press”, and press, press, press. Complete control of the game, the ball at your feet, an opponent penned firmly in their half of the field where you have possession of the ball. Counter press. Extravagant cross field passes that break open a rigid defence. Pace running in behind to stretch the game further. Relentless pursuit of the ball, pass and move, and press, press, press.
My goodness what a performance. The Reds had 28 shots on goal, testing Blues goalkeeper Đorđe Petrović on an eye watering 13 occasions. 13 attempts on target! All faintly ridiculous. As was Darwin Núñez who contributed 11 of those shots on goal, 3 of which crashed into either the post or the crossbar and missing a penalty along the way, with the genial Ally McCoist speaking for the football connoisseur once more on TV co-commentary duties as he gushed that Núñez was “some watch!” and “I can’t take my eyes off Núñez this evening”. The Uruguayan didn’t score but his chaos creates magic, so aptly demonstrated by his brute strength at the start of his assist for the Reds fourth and final goal from Luis Díaz, and his run and curling cross brilliantly bundled home at the far post by his Colombian brother in arms. Núñez was indeed “some watch!” and the spearhead of a statement win that keeps the Reds 5 points clear at the top of the Premier League.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles"
One could easily extinguish my knowledge of superlatives from hereon in, so I’ll stay on the relatively safe ground in describing the Reds first goal from Diogo Jota as a result of sheer bloody minded persistence. Conor Bradley gets the assist for a wonderful tackle on the touchline before a perfect pass into the running stride of Jota. Faced by two defenders, the Portuguese striker burrows his way through the small gap between them and getting a hard worked bounce of the ball in his favour before easily scoring past a helpless Đorđe Petrović in the Blues goal. It was a template goal for the three that would follow: tough in the tackle and desire for the ball, incisive pass, stretch the play, move the game quickly, and be clinical in front of goal.
Conor Bradley’s boyhood “dream” became an Anfield reality on 39 minutes and his first goal for Liverpool Football Club was again a result of fighting for the ball in midfield, a swift interchange of passes, the body strength to hold off an opponent and make space for an incisive pass for a stunning strike on goal. This in no way does justice to the quick passes between Alex Mac Allister and Luis Díaz that sees the Colombian wizard then hold off the challenge of Argentinian Enzo Fernández before wriggling free to curl a perfect pass into the running stride of 20 year old Irishman Conor Bradley who takes a purposeful steadying touch, before rifling a footballing beauty of a goal into the far corner of the Chelsea net. Bradley was rightly accorded the game’s “Man of the Match” and this kid, this fresh faced cherub from Castlederg, is “some watch!” too.
The Reds third goal on 65 minutes arguably epitomised my patent pending description of some of their football as being of the unreal PlayStation variety as first Virgil van Dijk imperiously raked a cross field pass to Conor Bradley who immediately sprinted at pace toward the corner of the Chelsea penalty before fizzing a fantastic cross for a marauding Dominik Szoboszlai to head powerfully home. 7–8 seconds, from van Dijk’s change of play to Bradley’s powerful run forward and Szoboszlai’s unstoppable header.
Poetry in motion.
When you consider Núñez could have scored any number of goals, the least of which being a hat-trick, and Petrović brilliantly denied Curtis Jones a first half goal with a full length flying save before second half saves kept Luis Díaz, Harvey Elliott and Cody Gakpo from the score sheet, this was some performance indeed from Jürgen Klopp and his “boys”, and a team sitting top of the Premier League as we tiptoe into February.
Onto Arsenal on Sunday!
Postscript
As is customary, the Boss fist-pumped toward The Kop with his usual brio and gusto but my goodness, the roars that rebounded from the faithful raised the hairs on this curmudgeonly old football fan’s arms.
It’s going to be a hell of an end to the season.
And we’ve only just got started.
A final word from The Boss
“The performance, nothing else to say. Standouts… start, really good, super-important….You always try — we don’t do it always but we try — to give a game a direction. This direction was clear and obvious in the beginning. We have chances, we miss them, we score goals, we should have scored more, we miss a penalty. Go in half-time and can show the boys when Chelsea came out, when Chelsea played through us, why and where and how we can do that even better”.
“It’s not about that you get through this super-convincing and with no problems, the opponents are too good for that. That’s why I’m super-happy with the performance, just because we had problems, we overcame them and had a lot of good moments”.
“Now the next game is coming in four days and I have no idea who can play again because they looked quite knackered when I had a look in the dressing room! Little back here, Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] on the knee — knee on knee — stuff like this. Nothing major, at least nobody told me that yet. So it’s all fine. We need them all — and it’s not a phrase, it’s exactly how it is. And I’m happy for them they all could perform the way they performed. The next massive game is coming up already, at Arsenal, and let’s recover and go again”.
Thanks for reading. Should you have stumbled here via the vagaries and witchcraft of The Matrix for the first time, welcome, and I always reciprocate the kindness of a follow.
This is what I meant about the really engaging style you have: “It was a performance full of real sporting aggression and desire for that damned football, to be two yards ahead of your opponent, front foot “full court press”, and press, press, press.” It really moves the narrative along and raises the heart rate. Great job!