Men against (Tractor) Boys as the Reds of Liverpool win again
Liverpool 4 Ipswich Town 1, 25th January 2025
LIVERPOOL 4 (Szoboszlai 11, Salah 35, Gakpo 44 and 66)
IPSWICH TOWN 1 (Greaves 90)
Men against Boys. Attack versus Defence. Never out of 2nd Gear. Not much more than a practice match. One way traffic. You can throw a blanket over any number of footballing cliches and seemingly unfair comparisons today, but there will be more than a little grain of truth in any or all of them as this was as easy as it gets in the Premier League and the Reds will end another weekend top of England’s elite football division and still 6 points clear of the best of the rest with a game in hand too. The “Tractor Boys” of Ipswich came with a defensive plan of being solid at the back, a tight midfield of five bodies closing the gaps between the lines and frankly, little to no support for their lone striker Liam Delap. But their hope for a Premier League point in their fight against relegation disappeared as quickly as the incisive through balls from Ibrahima Konaté and Ryan Gravenberch that carved them open on 11 and 35 minutes and 3–0 down at half-time could have been double that from a dominant Liverpool led by Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister who chased and harried them out of possession and crucially, out of position too, and the visitors game was up way before Cody Gakpo scored on his 7th consecutive Anfield start to make it 3–0 before the break.
Mo Salah’s 35th minute strike saw him leapfrogging Thierry Henry into 7th position on the all-time Premier League goal scorers list and the Egyptian King now needs just 2 goals to eclipse Frank Lampard in 6th and a further 12 total goals to climb over both Sergio Agüero and Andrew Cole into 4th position and as we all know, Salah sure enjoys breaking records! Today’s goal was his 100th all-time at Anfield too. All rather otherworldly and remarkable.
Skipper Virgil van Dijk’s 300th Liverpool appearance.
Cody Gakpo can’t stop scoring.
Mo Salah can’t stop breaking or setting records.
The boss fielded (as near as damn it) his first choice starting XI.
He called today “almost a perfect performance” too.
I bet Ipswich’s 90th minute goal irritated him immensely!
Let’s see what he thought of today.
Arne’s Afterword
“In the end, we are all a bit disappointed with conceding from a corner — the first one this season — but for 85 minutes it was almost a perfect performance, against a team that goes to such a low block. That’s not always easy then, but the way we did it for 85 minutes was really good”.
“If I have to make a list of what Virgil brings to this team then we can just go to the next press conference on Tuesday evening against PSV because he brings so many positives to this team. Bringing the ball out from the back, defending, his composure, he’s definitely a leader. As a manager, I haven’t worked with a lot of players that can say they are a leader, but Virgil is definitely a leader. Not only on the pitch, but also on the training ground. The moment we start the training, he is the loudest one and always leads by example. He is having a fantastic season, but I think he has already seven, eight fantastic seasons as well”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon