Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Brentford 1 Liverpool 2 in the 2026-2027 Premier League at the Gtech Community Stadium…
They deserve it. They deserve the win. They deserve all three points.
Today is a great day for remembering that your favourite Liverpool player is all sixteen of them. Your favourite Liverpool manager is the current one. Your favourite Liverpool stance is “no backwards steps”.
Brentford only lost three times at home last season. They haven’t lost at home since February. They take some serious beating. Liverpool have, in their last two league away games, beaten sides that take some serious beating.
Today Brentford deserve a point. The game is slippery and horrible like that. You have days where you come away from the match and the logic that kills is you didn’t get what you deserved but the opposition did. And today that happens to Brentford. It is possible to play a game and you deserve one while your opponent deserves three. The very worst is when you both deserve three.
The Reds deserve all three points. We deserve the lot of them but I want to separate us, albeit briefly.
The Reds deserve it because there are no airs and graces from them from minute one. They accept the battle, accept the strife. On our Friday Night show before the match John Gibbons urged Liverpool to treat Brentford as what they were before kick off “a top four team”. Liverpool manage that and then some. Liverpool see everything as being about winning the right to play and Liverpool are keyed up to do it.
Up until the point where Victor Munoz goes down injured Liverpool are first to everything and through Bradley Barcola ought to have opened the scoring. Brentford can’t live with The Reds. Liverpool are much the better side in every phase. Florian Wirtz is bright, Alexis Mac Allister is backing play up brilliantly. Brentford aren’t quite chasing shadows but they look the poorer relation.
My god, they have a good manager. He shifts them about while Munoz is down and then Dom Szoboszlai – who had started well – has to go off injured and Liverpool’s wobbliest period of the game ensues. Nothing major happens right up until the point where Alexis Mac Allister clears badly and then doesn’t close Igor Thiago and suddenly he delivers a lovely ball and Keane Lewis-Potter compliments it with a splendid header and Brentford are ahead.
Brentford had been second best but they were never ever puddings and should never be described as such. They ought not be ahead by the time the break comes but they show opportunism and grab it.
Liverpool though don’t let perfect be the enemy of good and keep showing for one another. The red card obviously helps but it isn’t a panacea. Everything is not immediately fine however Andoni Iraola makes a forward looking change at the break and then doubles down after Jeremie Frimpong breaks down.
This is enormous for me; a manager rejecting the idea of backtracking. He has a massive choice to make and he chooses to risk everything to win. He suddenly has Victor Munoz at right-back, has a right hand side without a ton of experience, without even Dom Szoboszlai but he backs the boys, backs the moment, is prepared to look a fool if he loses to have the moment that we all win.
When The Reds Win We All Win. But today Andoni Iraola gets to win the most. He is the biggest and best winner. He staked so much on Liverpool getting the points.
Liverpool staked over £120m on Alexander Isak getting the points. That’s his job. There he was to do it. Today is a great day of seeing these things – Alexander Isak does three very good things a game and it results in at least one goal; Florian Wirtz does three very good things a game and it can result in nothing. But Wirtz did eight good things and it resulted in one goal. If Bradley Barcola has ten performances like he does today it probably results in eight goals. So much of this is throwing it at the wall and it will stick.
Liverpool see it out by virtue of being stout and eager. They wanted it and deserved it. They deserved it. It’s one hell of a win.
I end all this thinking “I’ve seen two excellent sides there today”. There’s a current desire to talk a lot of Premier League players down. The biggest issue that many of them have isn’t that they aren’t good players – it’s that there are a lot of good players. Today is a great example of it. Some of Brentford’s first touch in and out football is excellent. Some of Liverpool’s high tempo work is splendid. Part of why Liverpool win today is that they respect their opponents and this matters.
Basically – don’t be a prick. Sixteen players play today for both sides and thirty of them do themselves and their club proud. Jeremie Frimpong doesn’t have time and Yehor Yarmolyuk should give a penalty away and gets himself sent off like a divvy.
This is the sort of result you build on. Liverpool now haven’t lost an away game all season. You build on that too. The positives are everywhere. And today they are all my favourites. They should be yours too.
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Great write up thanks Neil. Good to hear your observations around stoutness and battlling mentality. The team has been missing this for some time.