Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 1 Chelsea 1 in the 2025-2026 Premier League at Anfield…
WE score early which feels like a blessing. Feels like a release. If only we could have stopped there.
If only it all could have stopped. Because what happened thereafter left Anfield’s sanity hanging by a thread.
Before the decision to sub Rio Ngumoha, the ground was emphatically behind a fundamentally flawed Liverpool team while still having moments where there were collective howls of disbelief.
Disbelief in the approach, the shape, the choices, the technique. Liverpool – from when they score until half time – make the word “passive” feel inadequate. They made passive feel, well, too fucking passive. Passive needs more heft. Liverpool were inert. But this feels like we are working inert too hard.
It was the most staggering display of being on the back foot. Against a side who turned up off the back of six defeats.
Chelsea score on the 35th. Both teams hit the back of the net; both are thwarted. Neither deserves a point.
Neither deserve a point. Both of these teams will be playing European football next season. Poor Europe.
Today is amongst the worst showings Anfield has ever seen by a Liverpool side that manages not to lose. The saving grace is the opponent. Today is a competition to discover who is the biggest mess.
Second-half Arne Slot makes a mistake that some find really hard to understand. He takes Rio Ngumoha off the pitch – Liverpool’s teenager who desperately needs experience – on the 67th minute.
For me the issue is not taking care of Rio Ngumoha. The issue is more not creating a situation for 15 minutes where both Ngumoha and Isak are on the pitch at the same time.
But the issue at large is not that people don’t agree with the sub. The issue is that people aren’t having the manager.
For weeks walking around the city, speaking to ordinary people, their first question to me is “this isn’t going to continue, is it?” or some variant thereof. These people aren’t necessarily especially online. These people aren’t trying to downplay the manager’s achievement last season. They see that he won our twentieth title and deserves all the love and respect for that. But they say “this can’t continue, Neil?” as though I’d know.
And I, who will always love the manager for what he did last season, say “I just think he has to go. There has to be a change when it is all sorted. And that isn’t fair.” Yes – even in casual conversation, I start sentences with “And”.
These people aren’t to be kidded and they don’t like what they are seeing. You can agree or disagree with that but it is the predominant reality on/in the ground.
Players in the middle look lost as Gravenberch wonders if he is tracking back or pushing forward. Curtis Jones looks like he is trying to play everywhere and is nowhere as a result. He does his moments well, Jones. But so often it seems he is vacating.
Would you have guessed there would be no goals in the second-half? No, me neither. Like I said, so disappointing it is almost boring.
We are missing Wirtz today in a kind of truth that has defined this season of ennui: if a player is a shining light in one game, they will be injured the next. No, Liverpool FC, you cannot have nice things. Wirtz today would make a huge difference. But there is no chance of that.
There is a kind of grief that just gets boring. You get bored of things being shit and just mentally move on. You get bored of your own head. The Reds today as they walk off look like they are turning a corner into this stage of grief. Fed up with themselves.
Not angry, just bored of it. Who knows what moving on means? But we are ready for it. This game against a Chelsea who have been chaotic and rubbish this season has to be the end of something. This football is not enjoyable. It is boring and frustrating to watch these excellent footballers doing their own heads in.
And our heads. Heads in general. I also find myself arguing with people passionately. The manager has been let down. That the gaps, on and off the pitch, aren’t his fault. The passion is the point and the passion is what I feel is missing. If Slot could harness half of what I get then I’d be made up with and for him.
People love this football club. And people love these players. And people will always love this manager for what he did. They will. And if a few won’t then fuck them.
But where does it get us – or more accurately start us? Start us next August. For me the question is almost entirely about who and what is right for what comes next. What has happened has happened. What we cannot have is another season where collective sanity feels a big reach.
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