A perfect weekend continued a perfect season as Liverpool managed to win ‘twice’ – victory in the Merseyside Derby as closest rivals draw…
IT’S A RARE weekend where the Champions win twice.
Firstly, there was the Derby and the TNT Sports’ deification of Jack Grealish (whom I like, but Jeeeeesus…) and the game at the Emirates which Liverpool couldn’t lose regardless of the outcome but somehow still managed to gain the best of all results. It was like we’d scripted it; even the late, late goal we seem to be into at the moment. I fully expected to see Arne Slot on the sidelines, celebrating both goals.
We’re only five games in but we’re already in a land where Liverpool are winning not just matches but weekends. Long may it continue.
The Derby was a different and difficult game in so much as the Reds were as much battling their own fatigue as the opposition. We really didn’t need a blood and guts Derby with David Moyes after Burnley and Atletico Madrid, but the lads negotiated it well and kept out the inevitable onslaught, such as it was, when it arrived.
The pundits spoke of the game being won in the first-half, which is a fair point, but it’s the hard yards of the second which will particularly please the manager. Saturday called for calm heads in an environment which was anything but and another test was passed. 15 points from five games. Literally perfect.
Another game done, more much-needed minutes for Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz – one for match sharpness, the other more of an acclimatation to a tougher league, and maybe more of a rest for Alexis Mac Allister who looked goosed by the first goal. All three will hit higher levels, but football management is always a juggling act when it comes to intensity and rest with hardly anyone at the same level. For example, Florian needs more weight training, Alexis more ice creams on Otterspool Prom.
Maybe this is why people are saying that we’re not quite ready yet, not quite firing on all cliches – the whole losing a two goal lead thing. That’s certainly the story of the season.
Incidentally, I loved Virgil’s response to that after the game on Wednesday, when he was asked.
‘Do you have concerns about the defence?’
‘No.’
That was it. ‘No.’ Dead pan. God, I love that man.
He’s right, too. Sometimes the opposition just plays well, sometimes the ref gives a goal when an offside player is shadow-boxing with your goalkeeper and the narrative and momentum changes. It’s just how it goes. Sometimes the wrong goals go in.
What’s important is how you get through it. On Wednesday the captain had had enough of being pegged back and put an end to that nonsense, on Saturday we defended the eighteen yard line with everything we had and hoped that St Jack would find Ibou or Virgil’s head again. Manchester City did the same thing with their own penalty area on Sunday until they went mad and played an offside trap with six centre-backs just as the keeper inexplicably decided to come out for a chat. These are the small margins.
We’re still waiting for Liverpool to be masterful for a full 90+ minutes but in the meantime we’ll just have to make do with maximum points won on muscle memory and courage. That last is vital. It takes a huge amount of fortitude to do what we’ve done so far this season.
It’s easy to say Everton are at a lower level than us, but they always give you a game or, at least, a part of one. Sometimes that part can be too much for us, but we’re fighting so hard that we’re coming through the tests like that.
It’s not easy, this. Football might be the beautiful game, but it’s really, really hard. We’re doing so well, successfully swatting the biplanes away from on top of the league and this weekend we managed to gain further advantage from a game which had nothing, but everything, to do with us.
You win nothing in September but you can set down a marker. I like this sort of marker.
I love this side, and I don’t want to see any of them on Tuesday. Maybe Wirtz and Isak for an hour. Maybe not. Not Mac Allister though. I want to see him at Otterspool with a 99er.
I love it when we win, but it’s better when we somehow manage to win twice.
Enjoy this.
