Liverpool 3 Norwich City 1
Thiago and Henderson inspire the comeback that keeps the Reds in the Title Race.
Thiago and Henderson inspire the comeback that keeps the Reds in the Title Race.
After an hour’s play from today’s scrappy and stop/start encounter, the visitors from Norwich City were in the process of making a mockery of past and present history. With the Reds on a 7 game winning streak in all competitions and the Yellows (or “Canaries”) from Carrow Road, Norwich, having not won at Anfield in a generation, their 1–0 lead threatened to rip up that famed and cliched formbook as well as putting a huge spoke into the Liverpool chasing wheel for the League Title. Goal scorer Milot Rashica and his skipper Grant Hanley didn’t deserve to be on the losing side today. Hanley was imperious and tenacious in defence for his Norwich City team that through Rashica’s 48th minute deflected goal were just under half an hour away from a much needed victory in their battle against relegation. But a much changed Liverpool team were changed once more, this time via the substitutions of Divock Origi and Thiago for the woeful Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita, and 2 goals in just over 2 minutes from Sadio Mane and Mo Salah turned the game completely on it’s head and kept the Reds as the only viable challengers to Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.
3–1 seems and sounds comprehensive enough, and Luis Diaz’s brilliant goal on 81 minutes via a sublime pass from his skipper, and Man of the Match performing Jordan Henderson, ended the game as a contest, but it was never always thus. Henderson, a much maligned figure at Anfield and incredibly unfairly so, dragged his team to a much needed comeback win, aided and abetted by a wonderful substitute’s cameo from Thiago who simply sprayed and splayed the football around in a 30 minute display that slowly and surely opened up the game. The 2 goals in as many minutes from Mane and Salah reversed the 0–1 score line but the game was as heavily influenced by Henderson and Thiago as it was by Kostas Tsimikas’ assist for Mane’s bicycle kick equaliser or Alisson Becker’s incredible assist for Salah that put the Reds 2–1 up. Henderson’s curling and fizzing pass was inch perfect for Luis Diaz’s first Liverpool goal and at 3–1, thankfully, the game was over as a contest.
Liverpool were much changed today and Oxlade-Chamberlain and Keita particularly poor and deserving of their early substitutions. Other changes were far more impressive: Kostas Tsimikas replicated the runs down the left wing of Andy Robertson and Joe Gomez similarly so as he replaced Trent Alexander-Arnold at right back in a starting XI that needs both Robertson and Alexander-Arnold starting.
But it’s the silliest of silly seasons and the Reds have 2 huge games in 8 February days upcoming and Jurgen Klopp has to play his best available team in both games as there’s a vital 3 league points on offer and a trophy to be contested for against Chelsea at Wembley. How he will manage to field his strongest team for 2 games in a week is best left to the great man himself, for the Reds will then continue on the 2 games a week merry-go-round until the end of the season. That’s the price to pay for still being in all 4 competitions they entered at the start of the season.
And what a glorious sentence that is to write week after week.
Thanks for reading. A briefer than usual match report. There are many more within my archives and I’ve linked a selection of my various writings on Liverpool below should any take your sporting fancy:
7 European trips following the Mighty Reds of Liverpool
Volume 2: Paris St Germain, Semi-Final, 1st Leg of the 1996/97 European Cup Winners Cup, 9th to 11th April 1997.medium.com
Burnley 0 Liverpool 1
Through the wind and rain, the Reds grind out an old school win to stay in the Title Race.medium.com
Everton 0 Liverpool 5 — November 6th 1982
“Ian Rush is leading Everton a merry dance” and according to song writing legend, through a Red River Valley too. A…medium.com
A stroll through Scrapbook Lane and around the Fields of Anfield Road — Part 8
Liverpool FC Season 1994–95. A resumption in the collection of footballing silverware, and the Spice Boys are beginning…medium.com