Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Burnley 0 Liverpool 2 in the 2023-2024 Premier League season…
LIVERPOOL get in the way of their own comfortable 0-4 win.
The officiating gets in the way of Liverpool’s comfortable 0-4 win.
James Trafford gets in the way of Liverpool’s comfortable 0-4 win.
But Liverpool still win. Still they win, still they have only lost once this season, still they have only deserved to lose one in my eyes, just a different one to the one they did lose (Crystal Palace away if you are keeping count, which was also one of the best days of my life).
Now they sit top, at least until Arsenal play West Ham United. Over and over we’ve been waiting for them to cut loose, to play better, to go to the next level we can see they have. Yet here we are — 19 into this season, 28 since the start of The Big Nine and they have only lost once. Once.
Entertain this: This is a very, very hard team to beat. This is a very, very hard team to outplay for 90 minutes. Or 100 minutes. Entertain this — they aren’t going anywhere, you know. They believe, you know.
They believe and I believe. Do you believe?
After five minutes of the second half, I wanted only one thing: for the next goal to be scored by the hour mark.
It never came. It should have for us. I hate the VAR decision because I both believe that offside is digital and I also think that errors need to be clear and obvious; what the variance of the interfering with play aspect does is create a grey area.
The truth is that Mo Salah was shoved, the keeper committed and Harvey Elliott’s shot was heavy and unerring. The decision isn’t clear and obvious wherever on the planet Mo Salah is and yet it is chalked off and it is a game-changing decision.
It should stand. It should stand and it doesn’t and then it is a tonic to Turf Moor’s troops and the game becomes difficult. The game is changed.
To Liverpool’s eventual credit, it isn’t a result-changing decision.
The Cody Gakpo disallowed goal is the opposite in a way. On the pitch, the referee makes a decision which is sort of fair enough in real time and then you see the video and very much think the opposite. But is it clear and obvious?
It is a season where thresholds, protocols and passing fancies have been discussed forever and a day and I don’t want to push through again. We need the whole thing to just be better, added to the Martin Odegaard thing and Bukayo Saka not walking, you are just left living in the gap between right spiritually and right by virtue of the protocol.
Liverpool though, top of the league, can easily be better. They should cut loose, should make it two, shouldn’t fall to Burnley’s level first half. Had they stayed on it, they would have gone two or three ahead by the break.
There are a number of things this side needs to do. A number of ways they can improve. They need to be crisper and more clinical in the final third. They need to press home their advantage. They need to get injured players back. And they need to do all of this from top of the league after 19 games.
They believe and I believe. Do you believe?
I don’t know, but I believe.
We’ll get another day together.
Harvey Elliott plays well. Ryan Gravenberch can play better. Darwin Nunez’s whole performance is a curate’s egg. When he opens the scoring, I think he will get three. When he doesn’t shoot but backheels minutes later, I think he may not get three goals ever again. It’s so, so strange. He is capable of everything in front of goal. And I mean everything.
Diogo Jota adds to his mystique. He has been the missing man and then he just settles the argument as the best version of himself. I love him, adore him, king of Europe.
Gakpo has hard lines. Mo Salah is himself. Trent Alexander-Arnold is taken for granted. Virgil van Dijk is the best one, as previously discussed, and all of this is the rub.
Liverpool get in the way of their own comfortable 0-4 win. Which is also the rub.
Currently, I want to hug them and shake them and tell them it doesn’t need to be so hard. And yet I love them for digging deep when it is.
They are not nearly finished but have lost the fewest games in the top flight. They need to win more games comfortably, but have the best goal difference. They need to carve out better chances, but need to take more straightforward ones.
They are a mess of contradictions, but have had more hard lines than easy ones and sit top of the pile.
Long live the enigmatic Reds. One more big push, one more win and we can call it a successful December (yes I know when the game is, my god do I know when the game is) while not being perfect.
Perfect is often the enemy of good. This is my reflection on:
a) Life
b) Football
c) Christmas
I came home on Christmas Eve at 3.30pm and immediately Samantha said: “The trifle has collapsed. Go to Iceland and get the best dessert you can,” and I thought: “Excellent news this. Because perfect is the enemy of good and sometimes you need to cut your losses and do your best under the circumstances and we have an early example here.”
Cut your losses, hang in there, wait for your moment, wait for the magic to come and have a plan to win regardless if it doesn’t.
James Trafford gets in the way of Liverpool’s comfortable 0-4 win.
The officiating gets in the way of Liverpool’s comfortable 0-4 win.
Liverpool get in the way of their own comfortable 0-4 win.
They believe and I believe. Do you believe?
I don’t know, but I believe
We’ll get another day together.
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https://twitter.com/TheAnfieldWrap/status/1739740819488198937
Yes!!! Well said. Merry Christmas lads, here’s to the best 2024!
Great stuff Neil. Enjoyably we seem to have threat and goal potential all over the pitch. 19 games in and we have really only found third gear. Often, together, we appear to be too much for anything that is put in our way. Together…..we overcome. We laugh and swat away the digital nuisances.Together anything is possible. It feels like the engine is gradually being primed to purr. We can tighten things up, together. We can appreciate how good these guys are. We can appreciate how committed they all are and how much they want this for themselves and all of us, together.