Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool played Como at Anfield, as part of the 26/27 pre-season…
It’s a long day. A game at 11:30am and a game at 6pm,
But for Jeremy Jacquet it is a great half.
Jacquet couldn’t have asked for it to have gone any better. He’s bright on the ball and emphatic off it. He senses danger and looks to love defending but he can clearly play. His goal is a lovely back post tap in that a number 9 would be delighted with.
He looks like he has been worth waiting for. That, allied with Ronald Araujo’s second-half, means that suddenly centre-back looks the least of Liverpool’s concerns. Araujo is all action; he looks to win any loose ball and that eagerness could prove his undoing. But ultimately he just looks like a real boy and I like that. I like a footballer who looks frisky, who loves the battle, and there will be games where that is a huge bonus. It is a weight off. We’d all start Jacquet against Newcastle but if it has to be Araujo, or a burst of Araujo, then brilliant.
It’s funny – Liverpool don’t seem to have signed a bad player for an extended period of time but we have squad concerns. Jeremie Frimpong today reasserts that. He sets up the opener by being direct and confident and playing a marvellous ball and then he defends excellently when the pressure is on for the rest of the first-half. Frimpong is a player about whom there are so many opinions but for me he is just a good attacking right back who actually anticipates danger well. What he can do about the danger from time to time is somewhat up in the air but he isn’t a dope, isn’t a winger, isn’t an oddity.
The man who set Jacquet up for that goal was set up by Frimpong for his own. Cody Gakpo has now had two excellent performances in this pre-season. He looks the part, frankly. We’re in a funny position where Liverpool clearly want an exceptional left winger who – in my view – would prove worth the likely fee. But that doesn’t mean strength in depth should have its nose turned up at it. Gakpo is a proven Premier League winner and today he looked like that.
At times he didn’t last year. But at times loads of them didn’t last year and indeed, at times we forget they are Premier League winners. Premier League winners in goal, at centre-back, in centre-mid and then a Bundesliga winner up top alongside Alexander Isak.
There’s been too much of a desire to forget their class and pedigree. Lots of things don’t look perfect in terms of numbers and in terms of profile. Today there are gaps in the heart of the midfield again at times but when the building is on fire Liverpool at least man the buckets and that helps. Como show the ability to find space and play around corners and a side with more penetration could hurt The Reds.
The truth of the situation is nuanced: Liverpool still don’t look quite ready for the start of an arduous campaign. There remains holes at the base of the midfield, especially when Nyoni isn’t on the pitch, which in and of itself begs questions. They look a top attacker down and look cover attackers down. They look off it at set pieces and they don’t progress the ball as well as you’d like through passing.
But they look vibrant, ready to pose problems and look like they have goals in the them. Plus there is a key facet here – how does everyone else look? Only Arsenal appear to have most things in hand. Everyone else still has question marks somewhere. And it is these teams that we play starting from next weekend.
The thing is, in the short term, we are talking about games. 90 minutes to get the points out of. Last season Liverpool progressively looked like they hated games, the very idea of playing blood and thunder football or coming up against it looked unconscionable to them. It turned their stomach. I’ve been at all the pre-season games (which is weird isn’t it? Should be locked up) and I have seen a Liverpool that wants to play and play.
That starts next weekend and I don’t think we are ready. But I think we fancy it. I think we want it and welcome it. I don’t think our opponents are ready either and while they are at home, we know enough to know how that can be used against a side.
I’m up for it and into it and I back us to score and I back us to hurt a side. Let’s start there. Two games until the window closes. Five games before the first break. Let’s find a path to eleven points. Won’t be easy. Isn’t impossible. Far from it. I’ve been to all five pre-season games and I have seen enough to be able to delude myself, to perhaps even be genuinely hopeful. You start with delusion. You get to hope. Then you can believe. And then you can do it.
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