Liverpool continue to leave it late to find winning goals. We should always enjoy a win regardless of how it comes – even more so against rivals…
IN A WEEK of absurdities when Kash Patel decided to wear a Liverpool FC embroidered tie to a US Senate Hearing and Diego Simeone offered someone out in the Main Stand, at least you can rely on the one consistent of our daily lives to reappear.
Liverpool scoring injury time winners is a gift from above.
So much so that opposing teams are too expectant to object and opposition supporters are too expectant to fume.
There’s something in the psychology of what this does to a game. Arne Slot mentioned Liverpool’s fitness twice post the Atletico Madrid win, but his side are killing more than legs.
The mental advantages of being a team that never stops and always seems to find a way will be present in every upcoming opponent. It will linger with every goal, substitution and key moment of matches.
Kismet fate ensures our bitterest rivals and self-fulfilling prophecy seekers visit Anfield on Saturday. Everton have borne the brunt of deep-seated Merseyside derby humiliation time and again in recent times.
This goes back to my teenage years, from seeing us buy Nick Barmby and watching him score against the Blues in hilarious fashion.
Since then, we’ve had Gary McAllister, Sadio Mane, Divock Origi and countless moments where ‘the Devil’s club’ moniker has been justified.
Derby’s can be horribly attritional and tense. So rarely are Liverpool able to exert their superiority over mostly average-to-poor Everton sides. I might be tempting fate with such crowing, but there would need to be a decade of Evertonian dominance to even out what I’ve witnessed in this fixture.
This Everton side has improved over the summer. Jack Grealish and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall have offered a creative hand to the solitary Iliman Ndiaye.
But as we saw on Wednesday, Liverpool have so much class and an abundance of gears to go up. Alexander Isak gave one of the most impressive debuts as a number 9 I’ve seen when taking into consideration his fitness and situation.
This was the equivalent of Isak versus Preston North End or behind closed doors against Stoke City in July. Yet he was astute, technically brilliant and displayed a myriad of ways in which he will help this team going forward.
He’ll be back on the bench for Saturday, I would imagine.
Wherever you look, Liverpool have quality. Ryan Gravenberch is looking increasingly statesmanlike. Jeremy Frimpong’s pace is going to be such an asset. Florian Wirtz, Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo have much more to give.
The Reds had to rely on a late winner for the fifth time this season. You felt that going 2-0 so early meant there was always a chance Atletico might come back into it. The game ultimately swings on the Mohamed Salah chance that should’ve put us 3-1 up. From then you always felt drama was likely.
Virgil van Dijk was the saviour on this occasion, Rio Ngumoha, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa and Salah before him. Men and boys for the occasion. Not one of the 60-70 outfield opponents we’ve come up against who wanted it as bad.
This won’t last forever. It’s important to say this. To use a Jürgen Klopp-ism, Liverpool are currently in a ‘moment’ of winning late. It’s a habit some seem desperate to navigate away from. I understand this from a law of averages perspective.
Yet the odds suggest that Liverpool carry on winning and eventually find easier ways to do so as opposed to uncovering flaws which will lead to our demise.
People say form goes out the window in a derby. There’s every chance it breaks the mould of recent games.
It’s absurd Liverpool are playing 12:30pm on a Saturday after a Champions League game on Wednesday. But we trust them to prepare. Trust them to turn up. Trust them to find a way.
Finding a way is important against these. To me, it remains more important than any other league fixture. I want to beat Everton like you can’t believe, all the time. I don’t care how we do it, I’d be ecstatic if it was keeping with recent fashion.
Savour all of this. Liverpool are top of the tree. We’re watching the Globetrotters morph into mentality monsters, operating as the Champions.
These are the Liverpool-supporting days we craved. Breathe them in.
