Arne Slot chose a side that featured just two changes from last years league winning side in the same formation. The results were immediate…
WELL, THAT FEELS better.
Sometimes, when the slings and arrows are flying around it’s best to go back to what you know. To return to Factory Settings and begin anew with the original template. Hence, Andrew Robertson at left-back, a right-back at right-back rather than one of your best midfielders, and the same central trio that delivered a league title mere months ago. The Wirtz conundrum was briefly put on hold with Hugo Ekitike and Conor Bradley the only newcomers.
The result? Well, the result. Plus, fervent pressing from the midfield, a tentative return to form of Alexis Mac Allister and a more protected back four. Everyone knew their jobs and gave us the standard 2-0 home win which seemed a lifetime away earlier this season when almost every game won or lost came after the 92nd minute.
Back to basics, business as usual.
And it was needed. The in-fighting has begun again after Brentford and Palace, along with some ludicrous calls to end the manager’s contract.
Anfield had other ideas. A loud and emphatic support for the man in the dugout. It was one of the highlights of the night and I’m sure he appreciated it. He’s a Liverpool league championship winner and we like them here.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t still some issues. I could live with his Palace starting XI but still frowned at his bench in a ‘Come on, mate…give us a chance at least’ fashion.
He’s not the first to do that. Rafa Benitez, who pretty much blew off the FA Cup in his first season, received some pretty direct feedback for it and then dutifully won it the next.
We’re all learning here, and no one was thinking about Palace as they left the ground on Saturday.
Villa are a weird side. The manager’s great, their forwards, tremendous and they were on the back of four wins on the bounce — a run which included a victory over Man City — and yet they took the mad decision to time-waste at 0-0.
I’ll never understand that. Taking time out of the game to get a lead over the line, yes, but not five minutes into the game. It might be my biggest bugbear about the entire game now. At least come out to play. You might get something.
And they hit the post, so it’s not like they couldn’t get out.
Still, thanks for the points and a good night’s sleep for once. This Template Reds thing might have legs.
But you’d expect changes for Real Madrid. Kerkez and Wirtz for Robbo and God knows. Then you’d expect more for City next weekend.
I wonder if Saturday’s team sheet was the manager recognising the benefit to adding players slowly rather than making wholesale changes. Maybe this will see him just making the odd change away from the Championship winning side until he can find the right blend.
That’s difficult to do when you’ve spent so much in the summer and it’d be a brave manager who could tell his paymasters that his £107m attacking midfielder, the sixth most expensive player of all time, will only be getting the odd game and half hour substitute appearance until we can sort something out.
But that’s for the future. This weekend needed a template side to arrest the slide and get Anfield shouting again. The Wirtz/Kerkez conundrum can wait for a bit. In any case, they’ll all get games at some point so no one will be frozen out.
More than anything though, it’s given the Reds a foothold. We’ve already been written off as title contenders in many quarters. Not by me. It’s not something I could ever concede until maths says so. Let’s just get a run going and see where we end up.
It’s nice to feel content again. It’s good to watch muscle memory take shape.
A big week lies ahead. I could go wrong but it might be the start of something wonderful. Imagine that.
Up the back-to-basics Reds.
