Football - FA Premier League - Liverpool FC v West Bromwich Albion FC

SION no possible reviews. West Brom 23 different reviews. There’s an awareness watching the game now that there need to be words. They can be words of love or words of anger or words of storytelling or words of analysis but there need to be words.

The match snakes through all of our heads, telling a different story, flashing with potential outcomes and realities, each changing our week, our lives, our smiles.

In every moment everything is possible on a day like today. The wheel spins and the ball can fall in any slot.

Review 1:

Went to Ten Bands, Ten Minutes at the Kaz last night. Could be the last ever one. Definitely the last one ever at the Kaz. Liverpool you bad bastard. How has that happened?

The essence of Ten Bands is everyone gets ten minutes to be boss. Ten minutes to do the business. All you need in life to be boss is ten minutes. All you need in a football match is ten minutes. Ten minutes can change everything.

Liverpool had a big ten minutes first half and scored the goal which led to them going on to win the game, finally enforcing their own superiority on poorer opposition and….

Review 2:

1-2 down at half time and Liverpool are undone. Shoddiness abounds. There is toil, there always is. There is shape. There always is. But there is neither fantasy nor is there sense. There is instead toil. Always toil.

So many plugging away and…

Review 3:

Liverpool have yet again thrown three points away. There is dereliction of duty, a lack of selflessness. Until Liverpool grit their teeth and put everything they have towards one goal — the league title — from top to bottom they will struggle.

I’ve been stewing on the Newcastle performance and both Benteke and Firmino were disgraceful. It’s one thing to not work together, another not to try. I saw one supporter whose opinion I respect cite that one was bought by the former manager and the other by the committee but that does not excuse not taking an interest. It was unacceptable.

And then today the goalkeeper yet again decides to switch his brain off. In key moments this sort of thing is completely unacceptable and…

Review 4:

What a three points. The ground was in torment and the Reds turned it around. The Kop in excelsis deo sucking in the winner. Liverpool forcing the issue with panache.

The call was to attack, the manager was in his element and…

Review 5 – 23

– Yet again Liverpool fail to win after a Europa League game. At some point sense will have to prevail and…

– Lovren’s injury was horrific, knocked the whole side out and…

– At some point footballers have to take responsibility for their own shortcomings. There have been two managers at Liverpool this season and neither can find a way to solve this malaise.

Forget how much they earn, they play for Liverpool. That should mean more than money. That should mean another million questions are answered and need to be solved. The weight of the shirt? Have it weighed and…

Where do you end up? A manager and a team in front of The Kop end saluting them after a 2-2 draw against West Brom? Well I was proud of them. Proud they kept coming, proud of Liverpool’s collective roar. I want that. I want Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool to commune. Not to troop out separately but to commune. What is this thing but something from which people come together? Come together before games, come together after games but come together during games? Come together to get behind this thing?

If it isn’t a collective glorious thing then my mother is right and it is just 22 men kicking a ball around a pitch.

Where does that get us?

Where does that get us?

The manager understands this gets us nowhere. The manager parades the players at the end to tell them this:

– They are you. And they are proud of you. Because you ran till you dropped.

The manager understands this gets us nowhere. The manager parades the players at the end to tell us this:

– They are you. They are imperfect like you are. They are flawed like you are. But they gave themselves for you.

You can have a million different things to say about a football match. You can have interesting things to say, things to notice, talking points. You can learn five things. You can find a million ways to say things about 22 men kicking a ball round around a pitch and I know we are going to on The Anfield Wrap this week.

The final whistle went and I left that match roaring and hoarse. Heart pounding. I left that match sweating and twitching. Prepared to fight the world. The final whistle went and I thought Liverpool. Liverpool.

I left that match seeing a many different possible stories. It’s 2-2 against West Brom. It’s not good enough. It’s nowhere near good. It’s more than everything.

Liverpool you bad bastard. I love you.