ON the one hand it’s the stuff dreams are made of. On the other the dreams can be bigger, better, bolder and can be realised this season.
Trent Alexander-Arnold should be delighted with his goal, should go to bed with a smile on his face, should be overjoyed. He should also go to bed dreaming of scoring again for Liverpool this season, of scoring again in the Champions League this season and beyond. There should be no limits to his dreams, his ambitions. And we should say this while we celebrate his achievement.
It’s his free kick which sets Liverpool up for their victory tonight but it is his composure which should be celebrated across the first 60 minutes. For an hour he was Liverpool’s best player without taking unerring 30-yard free kicks into account. Then Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino took over, both doing different bits and sweeping Hoffenheim up in their excitement. Firmino’s ball for James Milner is sumptuous and the deflected goal sweet.
It’s a game to pick a million bones out of across the next few days. These two sides were set up in a manner best described as unorthodox. Liverpool’s flat three in midfield again looked disjointed and looked as if it got the best out of none of its exponents and yet the manager must have something in mind I’m at least yet to see. Hoffenheim’s dreadfully turned out young manager had his side in what looked like 3-3-3-1.
All over the pitch footballers were cheating, not dropping when you would expect, instead posing problems for opponents when the ball is recovered. It was at times a complex game of chicken with chicken’s simple truth at its centre — the game is about bravery and calculated stupidity. It’s so often difficult to work out which is which in that sort of environment.
For a Liverpool supporter brought up on Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan or on Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez it can be difficult to watch at times, Jürgen Klopp and his men matching Hoffenheim’s Mark Zuckerberg and his lads risk for risk. It was a first half to suffer, Liverpool less fluent than we would expect and missing the guile of Phil Coutinho and the press of Adam Lallana. The latter especially currently looks an enormous miss for Klopp’s men.
No one starts the press in quite the same way and pressuring the ball is something which you need to be 100 per cent. Instead Liverpool look that bit hesitant, that bit doubtful when one goes rather than it being a group effort. There is no easy solution to this other than to say that it doesn’t look a barrel of laughs playing anywhere in this Liverpool side with its current setup unless you are in that front three.
But what a front three. Along with Mane and Firmino, Mohamed Salah offers constant threat. He should score but he is always looking to score. He isn’t looking to do bits, instead he is alive to every possible gamble, never sticking on 16, never hanging back. He’s there for the Milner deflection even though he doesn’t need to be, there the whole while. He will miss some chances this season. I will spend a season saying he should score. I will also spend a season watching him score. Already only injury looks like stopping him from hitting double figures in all comps. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see him get 20.
Even then though, he would be unlikely to match the sheer quality of his partners in that front three. Mane looks to be revelling in greater responsibility, to be demanding more from his teammates and himself. He looks to be determined to be Liverpool’s best player. In the absence of Liverpool’s widely-accepted, the best player.
The only limit on Firmino’s season appears to be how often we can get him on the ball. He shows all day, creating room and seeing angles they’ll never see. On his current trajectory he could become Liverpool’s cleverest player in a footballing generation. He sees the attacking shape of the side as his to manipulate as though it was plasticine. But he should score, he really should, and all the cleverness in the world will leave some Reds cold when the clearest chances only elicit straightforward saves. He should be Liverpool’s most joyous footballer, not frustrating.
Alberto Moreno looks surprised when opposition sides kick it in the air but being fair to him it was against him Hoffenheim most looked to double and triple enough. Dejan Lovren looks like he wants anyone at left full back rather than Moreno, but that doesn’t excuse a penalty which should cost The Reds. However his goalkeeper dug both him and Joel Matip out tonight. Simon Mignolet takes this 1-2 victory home with him back across the channel. He can be rightly pleased with his performance.
Remember — Liverpool without European football is like a banquet without fine wine. Or is European football without Liverpool like a banquet without fine wine? I’ve never wholly, properly remembered that quote. I reckon it is the former but I love the chutzpah of the latter. We make this competition better, of course we do. We exist to do that, exist to offer light and love and joy.
We exist so Hoffenheim supporters can come and sample the city next week, but go home disappointed with the result if not the hostelries. We exist to make the group stages, to scare sides to death, to be the draw no one wants. We exist to ask who the fuck you are trying to kid, to put some shows on, to excite and delight. We exist to win.
But we also exist to showcase this city and its ways and its oddness and its lads and girls on and off the pitch and what more can you ask? What more can you want than a lad from West Derby unleashing into the bottom corner to announce the return of the mighty boys in red to the stage? You’ve got the banquet. Alexander-Arnold just opened the fine wine. One more good performance next Wednesday and we can all really enjoy this party.
This thing of ours. RSVP Europe. RSVP. It began tonight and you are all invited.
READ: Hoffenheim 1 Liverpool 2: The Final Whistle
READ: Hoffenheim 1 Liverpool 2: Match Ratings
LISTEN: Hoffenheim 1 Liverpool 2: The Post-Match Show
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
It stills feels like we left something behind tonight. Not quite there in all areas yet but some good things to build on across the pitch.
Beat Palace Saturday and we’ve actually started better than last season.
PS Anyone who hasn’t read Tompkins’ outstanding (free) piece today should try to do so.
Hey @FrankC, would you mind sharing the link to that Tompkin piece you mentioned? tx!
https://tomkinstimes.com/2017/08/football-is-no-fun-anymore/
Spot on observation about Lall, Neil.
Likewise about Salah – goal poachers instinct in abundance. Mane more showy tonight but Bobby equally important to all that was good. Big Si the Mig for the big game eh?
I think JK’s reaction with Buvac told us that it was as more to do with homework than a simply shite peno.
Is it just me or is everyone a little under-cooked? Is it the fallout out from last years kick in the gonads Jan-Feb? Are we aiming for a different timing of peak of fitness this year?
Really concerned with the Deggsy-Albie axis. It looked like normal brainless Moreno service had been resumed to be for large swathes of the match.
Then again I could be wrong having watched most of the game from between my fingers behind the couch.
Up the back where we belong Reds !
Oh shit. We were lucky. Fucking Hoffenhiem (and I’m not googling the spelling,that’s how shit we are).
Champions league? That was a German stoke and we struggle with the English version!
That was a defeat.
You might want to check the rules of the game, mate. The team that scores the most goals during a game is actually the winner.
We beat them at their place – something NO other team managed last season, including Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund.
Seeing how we won, but you think we lost. What exactly would have constituted an adequate victory?
“Mane…He looks to be determined to be Liverpool’s best player. In the absence of Liverpool’s widely-accepted, the best player.”
Was not Mane the Liverpool Player Of The Season last year? Not Coutinho.
Really think if Salah continues on the Right he’ll continue to miss chances. I don’t know why Klopp and Co don’t just try switching Mane and Salah to sides that favor their feet.
It’s only the second game of the season
Salah favours the right wing.
That’s the wing he played off in Roma when he scored all those goals and provided all those assists.
because that forces them on the outside and negates the overlapping full back adding more bodies to the attack.
shambles,
Difficult to stomach that against a very as average opponent. Even more average than us. Take £5-8m for Moreno,or even give him away.
Yes, it feels like we left something behind tonight. Not quite there in all areas yet, but lets hope for the best. But we’ve actually started better than last season and I hope we will get to see best matches this time.
Some crazy comments on here. 2 away goals is sound. Work to be done but calm the fuck down.
Salah will be one of those lads where, in May, we’ll be talking about his season and how we are not fully sure what he brought – then realize he’s got 15 goals and 14 assists. The Milner goal was a case in point of what Salah will do – Salah didnt score but you watch where he was and then watch how many goals he scores simply by using his pace to ghost in at the back post and stick it away…Watford was the same type of move really.
Neil criticising their manager for being dreadfully turned out! Look in a mirror lad.
brilliant analysis of the match as always, you’re so right about how different to the comfortable days of total domination under Paisley, Fagan, early Dalglish era. I remember in 87/88 season standing on the Kop against a lesser team sometimes wanting the other team to score first to see the Reds have to fight-back rather than another 4-0. Klopp’s football feels like watching a game of chess and Russian roulette at the same time!
So right as well about how important these 2 matches are to the City, the club as we try to claw our way back with such a brilliant manager who totally gets it. If only Coutinho could get his head out of the clouds, remember who he is paid handsomely to represent and get his shin pads on ready to go for next Wednesday…..
The team is optimised for profit to the penny. A repeat of last year please Mr Henry. Achieving a profitable top 4th league, possible qualification without wasting any time on worthless cups, all with a mid table team that has a few journey men you can cash in on.
Don’t even know why you comment on this lad. Bore off.
cos its a free world you clown.
mid table clown at that
You don’t half bang a good drum Neil, lad. Pity we have sooo many loons with keyboards, all banging the wrong drum. Poc nails it above, we are where we are and we have the best Manager we’ve had in decades. Trouble is, the loons who hounded Rafa, never went back under their rocks. JK is hell bent on clearing the bloated fat off our books and will not buy more to fill a gap, only to be stuck with the dross for the duration of their contracts. Be brave ya melts, his leaner, fitter squad will do us proud but you need patience and it will come. Along with VvD and Naby
Best manager in decades?
We had Rafa at the helm 10yrs ago where we got to the CL final.
Bloated fat of our books?
We’ve just started the season with Moreno at leftback despite having 2 other players who can play there. This is Morenos 4th season with us! How?
Mane strikes me as having a bit of Suarez in his arrogance around the box, and that same sense that he moves 1.5x faster than everyone else. I think there is a real danger of him moving up several gears this season into a truly elite player. He’s a nightmare in a one-on-one and with a bit more creativity from midfield, the presence of Salah and Firmino to worry defenders, he should find himself with space in plenty of dangerous positions. And, like Suarez, seems to shape himself beautifully for shots even when he is falling down in awkward positions.
For all the transfer noise, we should take a moment to be thankful that the mega-Euro clubs haven’t started fully noticing just yet. Hopefully, that will come after we’ve humbled them all and asserted our place amongst the royalty. Up the royal Reds.
The idea that Hoffenheim are a German version of Stoke is ridiculous. They are a decent side and showed some good football. Stoke finished 13th last season whereas Hofenhiem were 4th and unbeaten at home for 16 months.
What was interesting is the period with about 15 minutes left when they seemed to have decided that they didn’t have the wherewithal to beat us and looked a little dispirited. That is testimony to the way we played them, not about their quality as such. I just don’t get people slagging the side and manager when we have achieved a European away victory with important players unavailable. Yes it wasn’t a swashbuckling, bravura performance but I was pleased and quite proud of the team’s efforts. If we get through against a side nobody in the draw wanted, then job done.
We were so lucky! Our defense is worryingly incompetent. Moreno just has no clue…it’s a farce really that he stills plays for us. He is awful and should be sold without playing another game. Apart from our front three lads, i thought the team was lackluster, almost as if they’ve peaked in preseason. The first two games have been uninspiring but i’m still grateful for the win. I sure hope FSG are working on some signings otherwise the gains of last season would be lost.