Reds humbled on bizarre night by “Les Violets”
Toulouse 3 Liverpool 2, 9th November 2023.
TOULOUSE 3 (Dønnum 36, Dallinga 58, Magri 76)
LIVERPOOL 2 (Cásseres Jr (own goal) 73, Jota 89)
Well what a bizarre night this was!
Currently residing in a lowly 14th place in France’s Ligue 1 table, Toulouse have more nicknames than current league victories this season (three nicknames as opposed to two wins) and I predicted a rather comfortable and easy victory over a team the Reds brushed aside mere weeks ago at Anfield by a thumping 5–1 margin. But whereas the Liverpool Reds failed to find any rhythm or even a semblance of footballing form this evening, “Le Téfécé" or “Les Pitchouns” or the more simply known “Les Violets” were presented with a half-time lead in a tepid non-event of a game before transforming into a magnificent outfit from the start of the second half and could and should have been four or five goals clear before a bizarre own goal finally gave Liverpool a foothold in the game, and only a 2–1 deficit, with 17 minutes remaining.
On any other night one might have expected Liverpool to have thrown everything at their French opponents for an undeserved equaliser, especially considering boss Jürgen Klopp was so worried at half-time as to throw on the cavalry in the shape of Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dominik Szoboszlai. But within 180 seconds Toulouse had carved out yet another goal scoring chance, substitute Frank Magri smashed home a scruffy loose ball from close range, and even a last minute goal from Diogo Jota and even the bizarre spectacle of a 97th minute equalising goal from Jarell Quansah being ruled out by those dystopian killjoys at VAR cannot hide the fact that the Reds got exactly what they deserved this evening in southern France.
In a word, nothing.
My self-published book on Liverpool FC
The Reds may have been much changed from their strongest starting XI with Klopp giving a start to 17 year old Ben Doak, another game for the ever impressive 20 year old Jarell Quansah and veteran Wataru Endō in the centre of midfield, but they trailed 1–0 at half-time due to a sloppy mistake from Kostas Tsimikas in a half of football he’ll want to forget in a hurry as will the team as a whole who only created a singular goal scoring chance of note. Dear old Joe Gomez has never scored a goal in his professional career and on 3 minutes he very nearly did! His flick header from a Cody Gakpo free-kick crashed against the Toulouse crossbar and away to safety but in all Red tinged honesty, this was as close as Liverpool came to scoring a goal, or even the vague threat of one, until 3–1 down late in the game. Their goal came courtesy of the arm of a bemused Cristian Cásseres Jr who bundled the ball into his own net with 17 minutes remaining, but his team were two goals clear and cruising by this point in the game. Had it not been for the disallowing of two further goals on 50 and 65 minutes as well as the chances wasted by Gabriel Suazo and Thijs Dallinga, Toulouse, a team with only two league wins all season remember, could and should have been four, perhaps five goals clear.
A night to forget for all concerned in a Red shirt and for once, just for once, I’m going to let my antipathy toward VAR slide. Liverpool deserved what they received this evening.
Nothing.
They’ll still qualify comfortably from the Group, topping it no doubt, and taking their place in the Last 16 of The Europa League and a competition they must surely be favourites for.
But this was a night to forget. Tougher challenges lie ahead, starting on Sunday at home to Brentford.
A final word from The Boss
“It was well deserved to lose because they won pretty much all the decisive challenges, battles. We have too many situations where we should have won the ball but we didn’t. On top of that we gave the ball away easily at least twice — one was a goal, the other I am not sure if it was an allowed goal or a disallowed goal. Counter-attack, third goal, last line too deep. Defending-wise it was just not good enough.
“When you concede three goals then you need to score a lot of goals to still win it and obviously it nearly happened that we got a point here. That wouldn’t have made the game better, but it would have felt better in the table. But that’s it now, so we have to accept it. As I said, well deserved”.
“I am a bit more concerned about the fact that I would have loved us to have played better, to be honest. That’s my main issue tonight. In a football way more aggressive. They scored five goals, two disallowed, and that is obviously then not good. Yes, the result is the opposite of good, but the performance was just not good enough. I am not concerned, I just see we have to change and we will, definitely”.
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