Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Liverpool 1 in the 2025-2026 Premier League at Molineux Stadium…
ONE OF THEM. One of them. They scored with their first shot. You get them from time to time.
Stepping on rakes. Finding your own weak spots and making them bleed.
Mismanaging moments. Knocking off. Experienced players falling short.
Fuck all this. Sick of all this.
This is all why there will be no turning of the corner. In 2004/5 there was no turning of the corner. In 2022/23 there was no turning of the corner. In 2002/3 there was no turning of the corner. In 2011/12 there was no turning of the corner. In 2014/15 there was no turning of the corner. I suspect if I had been sufficiently conscious I’d be saying in 1980/81 there was no turning of the corner.
Some of those years had silverware – the greatest of the silverware. Some had nothing but disappointment. What they will have had is moments when you just wondered if Liverpool had left the days of rakes behind, had stopped finding themselves in amongst perfect storms, stopped playing teams at the wrong time.
Nope. Queue in the canteen and get yourself a big bowl of Liverpudlian nope.
In those seasons there were runs and there were moments and there was finding something and then there was losing it again. There was and has been occasionally getting out of the other side unscathed.
Tonight is this screaming into the rear view mirror, a stark reminder. They aren’t good enough, obviously. While the league table often lies it can’t be that wrong. But this is something else; it’s a football team which is predictable in its rhythms and which therefore can be rope-a-doped.
Liverpool, like Arsenal, are happy to have quiet first 30 minutes’, especially on the road. What that can mean though is if I know that – as a gobshite – then the opposition know that too and can plan accordingly. They can create different flavours of cul-de-sac for a Florian Wirtz short Liverpool to wander down and this is how the first-half can be characterised. As a gobshite I am mostly fine with being 0-0 at half-time on the road but today maybe, just maybe, Liverpool need to carry more threat.
Or if they aren’t going to carry more threat then have the more threatening players to bring on from the bench. It is odd to me to be this one-paced for 60 minutes while also having Jeremie Frimpong on the pitch. If we’re going to start noodling through games then start the noodlier players.
Liverpool’s game is pockmarked by odd performances. By Christ does Alexis Mac Allister win it back. By Christ does Alexis Mac Allister lose it cheaply. Mo Salah seems a different player before and after the 60 minute mark but this couldn’t be more wrong. He is the same player; the opponents are different – more tired whereas his conditioning makes him grow into games. Hugo Ekitike does have a performance with a half life – he is managing himself because he knows there is no cavalry coming.
And this is the problem with the noodling. There is no cavalry. Rio Ngumoha does really well for a player of his age but you get to the see “of his age” bits along with the astonishing talent. Then senior players – the legendary goalkeeper, the legendary captain just aren’t good enough in moments that matter most.
The main reason why the corner doesn’t turn in the seasons mentioned above, in seasons where it doesn’t happen, is that the players aren’t there to do it. But what has often happened in those seasons is that managers have driven into the corner in the first place.
Tonight is one of those nights where you can have sympathy with the manager, have questions about the approach and just be downright furious with him given where we find ourselves.
It’s a season which needs getting out of. Tonight was a massive opportunity to take a leap forward in terms of that. It was Truman walking the wall towards the exit door, huge questions about what happens next, yes, but a release and a relief. Instead Liverpool decided to be Truman back amongst the fucking waves with a capricious god screaming to turn it up and all of us battered by the water.
They scored with their first shot. But Liverpool said – why don’t you score with your first shot?
Honestly maddening. Honestly.
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