Liverpool troppo forte per Rossoblu
Liverpool 2 Bologna 0, 2nd October 2024
LIVERPOOL 2 (Mac Allister 11, Salah 75)
BOLOGNA 0
Football seasons may come and the seasons of life may go, but Mo Salah will still be scoring outrageously beautiful goals in the Mighty Red shirt of Liverpool. Subject to a hotly awaited new contract, obviously. The three biggest signings, arguably in the Premier League era or even deeper within the club’s storied history, all reside in-house, with skipper Virgil van Dijk and the “Scouser in our Team” Trent Alexander-Arnold joining the Egyptian King on every Reds fan fantasy wish list to be offered and then quickly sign a long term, career defining contract. I’d add Alisson Becker to the list too but with Giorgi Mamardashvili arriving in the summer it would seem the Reds are heading in a different goalkeeping direction, and with internet discussion constantly swirling around the signing of a “Number 6” (insert player’s name here) Salah and van Dijk will be signing for life and Alexander-Arnold for the middle third of a club career that could threaten to eclipse all before him.
Subject to Contract. Terms and Conditions apply.
Which is all for the future and a brief journey into the past will bring us all back into the present and via the left footed otherworldly genius that is Mo Salah. By no means identical, but this evening’s beautiful curling goal on 75 minutes reminded me of his wonder strike 5 years ago against Chelsea and into the same top corner of the Kop End goal of Anfield. Then it was all his own creation: one touch control with his left foot before another touch with left, then his right and all while cutting in from the touchline and running at speed, he unleashed a thunderbolt from the footballing Gods screaming into the Chelsea net. Now, and this evening, it was a lucky 7 touches with his left foot and with Trent Alexander-Arnold making an overlapping run and taking the attention of two Bologna defenders with him, Salah curled a majestic beauty beyond the despairing dive of “Rossoblu” goalkeeper Łukasz Skorupski and a seal was set on another fairly straight forward victory in the Champions League, a maximum 6 points from 6 and another comfortable and deserved defensive clean sheet.
Writing this immediately after the final whistle and before the release of Arne Slot’s official after-match thoughts (as is customary here) through my twisted blend of passionate Reds fan and football observer I’d suggest the Reds boss is happy and blooming within his continued honeymoon period yet frustrated his team squandered such a dominating and brilliant first 30 minutes of football before the cut and thrust of an even if ugly and scrappy hour that followed it. For 5 first half minutes his team dissolved into a defensive mess that allowed Bologna into a game they weren’t part of for half-an-hour and Dan Ndoye managed to hit both the crossbar and near post of the Liverpool goal in the space of 3 hectic minutes. Though supreme control of the game had been lost and the second half continued in the same scrappy vein of the end of the first, only Riccardo Orsolini truly threatened the Reds goal when on 55 minutes he forced Alisson Becker into a sharp, instinctive save. Slot’s team were ahead and never likely to lose the game, but for 40 minutes they relinquished their grip on a game that for the opening half-an-hour they pressed and pressed and continued to press the life out of their opponents and thus play the game the way the new boss demands: controlled, patient dominance of the ball before incisive attacks through the lines of midfield when your team’s dominance pulls apart huge holes in their opponents.
It would be churlish to criticise and I’m not. For 30 minutes Liverpool were majestic and for 60 minutes they managed a 1–0 lead into a 2–0 victory oh, and the Egyptian King provided a delicious assist before an even more pleasing goal of his own. Tougher challenges await in this season’s Champions League but the Reds have a 100% record and they’ve returned to the top table of European football if not with a bang, certainly with a couple of statements of intent.
Arne’s Afterword
“The thing is, you will probably never reach perfection. You are always aiming for perfection, but you will never reach this. We can improve, we have to improve, that’s clear, but there are also a lot of positives to take from tonight and also from the other games. There was a spell in the game where we didn’t control and they were threatening us more than I would like to see, but again this is normal. I saw a lot of games yesterday, I saw some games before we played, in the Champions League it is never that only one team plays — there are always two teams playing. I think for most parts of the game we controlled, we had more ball possession, but they threatened us, especially in the last phase of the first half a few times”.
“What can I say about Mo? What you saw today is what you get. If you bring him often enough in positions like this, he can score a goal. He had a great assist as well. I think the second goal, if you look at the way he scored it I can understand everybody is talking about the finish because it was a fantastic finish. He had almost the same one just before, but it wouldn’t do justice to Virgil, to Diogo, to Dom and to Trent if we only talk about the great finish because Virgil played a fantastic ball through, Diogo dropped, turned, Dom was again involved — he was involved in the first goal as well — and Trent made a crucial overlapping run because that opened up the space on the inside for Mo to do what Mo always does”.
Thanks for reading. I often lament that despite my hundreds of articles here I rarely if ever make contact with genuine Liverpool fans so, if that is you, please say a hearty hello and, whilst you’re here, can I interest you in these spectacularly good self-published books on the Mighty Reds?
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
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.