Titanic Tyneside Tussle with The Toon!
Newcastle United 3 Liverpool 3, 4th December 2024
NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Isak 35, Gordon 62, Schär 90)
LIVERPOOL 3 (Jones 50, Salah 68 and 83)
Where on earth do we begin in describing such a magnificent game or second half of football in truth, and which ended in a draw that felt like a defeat even after trailing twice in a game Liverpool didn’t compete in for 45 minutes and which ultimately, when all is said and done over the rainbow of midweek fixtures, sees the Reds lead at the top of the Premier League cut from 9 points to 7?
Where indeed.
Shall we start with some effusive praise for Mo Salah whose sublime outside of his left foot assist provided the perfect pass for a running Curtis Jones to smash a 50th minute equaliser into the roof of the Newcastle net before only the crossbar denied him a 15 minute hat-trick as he dragged his team from trailing once more, this time 1–2, and into a 3–2 lead with just 7 rain filled minutes remaining? Internet sages confidently state the Egyptian King is mere days away from being presented with the long term deal he craves to stay at Liverpool for the rest of his career and if his second half performance last evening, let alone his 15 goals and 10 assists so far and so early in this season don’t shake FSG into the action every Liverpool fan (and Mo Salah) desperately wants, then nothing will.
Talking of contract negotiations, again, then perhaps we must turn to Trent Alexander-Arnold next. The Reds number 66, appropriately, entered the field of play as a second half substitute in the 66th minute and within 2 minutes was the recipient of a loose ball otherwise pinballing around the centre of the St James’ Park pitch before trying to feed a running Mo Salah in the penalty area. At first denied, he tried again and from an impossible angle the Egyptian King squared matters again at 2–2 and from this first assist the Liverpudlian was also involved with the final pass before Salah scorched the Newcastle crossbar and then again with his pinpoint pass for the Egyptian to send Liverpool into the lead for the first time on the night. A hat-tick for Salah would have also meant a trio of assists for Alexander-Arnold and quite the cameo substitute appearance, a compliment sent in the direction of Dominik Szoboszlai too who was involved in the build-up to the Reds final 2 goals last evening as well as an impressive half an hour fresh from the substitutes bench.
There were obvious and glaring negatives last evening and hardly surprising when conceding 3 goals for the first time this season. Jarell Quansah had a first half to forget in a hurry. Joe Gomez made uncharacteristic errors. Darwin Núñez cut an angry figure desperate to be included in Andy Madley’s little black refereeing book and eventually succeeded but he wasn’t alone, and the referee (I NEVER talk about referees) was utterly dreadful all game long. Then, with barely any time left in an end-to-end titanic tussle reminiscent of their Anfield encounters from the early to late 1990’s, Caoimhin Kelleher made the costliest mistake of all gifting Fabian Schär a last gasp equaliser. But the giant Irishman in the Reds goal has a LOT of credit in the footballing bank and the team in front of him didn’t play, at all, for the first 45 minutes, were awful and defensively open time and time again, so let’s end not on the negatives of an incredible 3–3 draw but on the remarkable turnaround Arne Slot inspired in his team at half-time and with the grace and wisdom to acknowledge his team were outplayed and beaten at 0–1, trailing once more at 1–2 and although a heartbreaking end to the game, this cannot be seen as 2 points dropped but rather a point gained.
Results went against the Reds in every corner of the Premier League last evening but through the wind and rain of Tyneside, and after 14 league games of the season, Liverpool still hold a healthy 7 point advantage over the best of the rest.
7 points dropped all season.
11 wins from 14 league games.
Best goal difference in the league.
Second highest goal scoring tally in the league.
Unbeaten away from Anfield.
Still in all 4 competitions they entered in August.
Perspective everyone. Grab it with both hands while it’s still free.
Arne’s Afterword
“I’ve said many times already to the other media there were moments in the game where you thought if we could come away from here with a draw it would be a good result, but those moments were mainly in the first half. In the second half, especially after we scored for 1–1, I thought we were really impressive. We created so many opportunities, good chances. Then, one minute before the end being 3–2 up, it feels like a disappointment to drop two points”.
“I think Mo had a massive impact on the game. Dom came in really well, Lucho also, but I think in general in the second half we played much, much better than the first half. In the first half we had a lot of problems with their intensity, aggressive playing style without the ball — aggressive in a good way. We tried to cope with it, but every time we touched them we got a yellow and that doesn’t really help for us to be intense then as well. But we give credit to them, they were more intense than us. They forced us into too many mistakes. It wasn’t that difficult for us to be better in the second half with the ball and that’s what we were. Maybe it was difficult for them to keep the intensity of the first 45 minutes going and as a result of that, or of all of these things, we dominated the second half”.
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
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.
I saw "The Toon" and my eyes bugged out a bit. In North America, "Toon" has long been a term used to describe animated cartoon characters, both in a pejorative sense and not. But I suspect the meaning here in different...