THERE are many perfect football matches.
Football matches where you wouldn’t change a thing, not a jot. Football matches you’d relive at the drop of a hat, have every detail be the same. The groundhog match.
Some of those matches are because The Reds are just too good, too special. Five-one v Arsenal. Five-nil v Nottingham Forest. One-four v Manchester City. Irresistible.
But others are perfect because of the imperfections, the lumps and bumps, perfect because they are exactly what they should be. The purest test passed in the purest way.
In the pissing rain, the driving rain, the seemingly endless rain, Liverpool beat Burnley 1-2. They beat Burnley in the most perfect way to beat Burnley. They outfought Burnley, they faced down the pissing rain and the pissing referee and pissing Burnley and stood tall. They showed the sort of attitude which you need in the pissing rain and the freezing cold in January.
They scored the perfect goal at the perfect time in the perfect way.
And my god did it go off, did it go off perfectly. My god were there the wildest scenes of jubilation. My god was the Liverpool end limbs and roars and screams. I have no idea how the players celebrated, none whatsoever. They were none of our business. We were our business, because perfection had just occurred and we needed to celebrate it.
Ashley Barnes walloping Liverpool players for 90. Perfection. Dominic Solanke toiling away. Perfection. Roger East stinking the gaff out. Perfection. Ben Mee scrapping for everything. Perfection. Joe Gomez knocking off. Perfection. Perfection.
Liverpool turned up knowing what the job was. Knowing what Burnley do and how they do it and what that means for the way the game would play out. They were a side selected to scrap, and scrap is exactly what they did.
They all had their lumps and bumps. None more so than Sadio Mane but Sadio got his glorious moment, a fantastic strike I didn’t see through being in the toilet. Perfection.
There was no fluency from The Reds but Burnley set up to allow no fluency. Their shape is very impressive, players perfectly positioned to stop a side from playing, to limit options over and over again. It’s an achievement, you know. It doesn’t look or feel great but it is worthy of huge respect, and Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool showed that respect. It isn’t passive football, it’s a football of constant repeated engagement. It must be exhausting to do, must be exhausting to play against.
Every Liverpool player should be on a coach back to Anfield feeling magnificent among their exhaustion. They were over to the away end at the end and they looked overjoyed. And so they should. Ten points from 12. The last three should be on the mantlepiece of the centre halves especially, not just because of the winner but because they go home black and blue. They won a million balls and then won two more that mattered the world at the end.
Let me have it again and again. Ninety minutes of graft and drudgery. Ninety minutes of winning the right to do the thing in this thing that matters. To make it perfect. Have it all again to have that end again.
Emre Can buys yards and yards as Steven Defour nibbles at him. Dejan Lovren rises. There is Ragnar Klavan and everything is perfect and nothing hurts and The Reds are resplendent and 2018 has begun and we are never going home.
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Wasn’t there. Fucking wish I had been.
These last 2 games show this team has moved up a notch. A notch on the character ladder. We still need to move up a couple more, but the reds are coming up that hill boys.
yea la
Muttering under my breath and resigning myself to a point then it was 3 fh!!! three fucking points Klavan ? really ? super perfection
I already commented on the lads performance on another article so just want to make a comment about the ref today and recent refereeing in general.
In the run up to the free kick that lead to the winner, Defour takes two hacks at Can to take him down but can’t then some Burnley shithouse just takes him out of it after he passes it, for me, both instances were clear bookings, you could even make a weak argument for a red to Defour such was his lack of intent on playing the ball.
At Anfield in particular in December, maybe I’m crazy here, I’ve noticed that refs seem to be taking the attitude not to be seen to be favouring the home side to the point that we don’t get frees, penos we should and opposition players are allowed get away with murder. A case in point, in the first half against Leicester Salah had a one-on-one with Maguire where the defender clearly has his arm across Salah’s throat which allows him to get back and make a goal saving challenge, and if he’d been booked then would have seen red for the kerfuffle with Can later on.
We’re also constantly being told by commentators and pundits that penos we don’t get for behaviour far more severe and obvious than Lovren’s “foul” against Everton is because it would be harsh, but a foul’s, a foul is a foul regardless of where it occurs.
Plus, how many kicks to the head have we seen red cards for this season besides Mane? Personally, I think he should have been sent off but there have been multiple incidents since then with nary a free kick, let alone a booking or god forbid a red card. Is it too much to ask for consistency in these instances?
My favourite win of the season … A glorious fight and SUCH a huge 3 points.
FANTASTIC!
yea man
I’d take winning like that over winning 8-0 any day. The reds showed desire and determination and a never say die attitude. Who said this team was gutless?? Klopp and his boys are on the move. Get in!!!
Also a quick mention to you guys at TAW, well done, keep up the good work, great content as usual. Up the reds.
Have to turn off when it gets to 85 and we’re 1 up these days. The inevitable goal is inevitable. I check my phone again on 93 mins.. fuck sake. Check on 94, yes Ragnar. Yes a million times.
Great article Neil, catching the spirit of the game for those of us who don’t get there (and no doubt for those that do).
What a result!! Up the mighty piss wet soaked to the bones reds!! What’s up with Phil C? Hope the injury is genuine as I keep hearing rumours !!
Neil. Completely agree about the ref. The ref was reffing like he was at the intimidating nou camp. Gave the home team everything. Solanke just had to breathe and he got blown up! Burnley only got blown for 4 free kicks despite kicking shit out of us all afternoon. Refs have been disgraceful against us all season.
It’s reached a point now where I feel we’re ‘lucky’ when they don’t give a wrong decision against us – e.g. Klavan’s goal not being ruled offside, or that assist from Firmino where the ball looked it had gone out of play but hadn’t.
Was great to get one over these yard dog upstarts in their own ground. Tell Ben Johnno that his predictive text from weeks ago was right all along. He’s known as ‘Raging’ Klavan in ar house now
Happy New Year. Wow, what a match!?!
At 1-1 I wasn’t giving up but shouting at Burnley and the commentators to fuck off with their comebacks, though I had no clue how we would score, but score we did.
Klavan scoring with Lovren assisting, probably the most important goal for him and maybe just maybe for the club to get us going and 3 important points.
The fight is what I have been craving. Even when we lose there used to be lack of fight. Not this time. Something has changed.
So happy to see Lallana in and that vital tackle he made earlier on. Perfectly timed.
Mane might be off but that was a belter to remember. TAA crosses are really incisive better than Henderson at times.
Gomez played well but it felt like he needs help in some way as it looked similar to his lack of awareness in the Arsenal match when Sanchez came running from behind and scored. He is developing and will figure it out I think.
The Ox, Gini, et al did superb in the will to go on and win it, Burnley style!
Anyways on to the next game. Let’s go and give Everton a great game and their due.
Up the Reds!!!
Hi Sash. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones too.
Gomez : I see some hints of Carra in him. His reading of the game has improved this season and it will only get better. He started at left back before serious injury and now our regular right back especially against tougher opponents. And he definitely will follow Carra’s path into CB role sooner or later. (Yes, he had some lapse of concentration this season, but at least he has not scored any own goals yet, unlike Carra did).
Hi Josh. How’s it going? Hope you had a nice holiday break and enjoying the games.
I wonder how VVD’s inclusion will help with Gomez and others improvement with defense. The two lapses in concentration seemed like maybe somebody needs to be more vocal. It’s hard to sometimes defend those but not impossible.
Anyways let’s see what happens in the next game if he plays.
Catch you on here later Josh.
Thought you might be liking that Neil. Happy New Year. Well in Reds. I am smelling 04-05, 13-14 again …. Something is in the air.
Klavan’s celebration was possibly the most earnest and simultaneously joyous celebration I’ve seen in a long time. Was great to see all the lads there together for that one. Not a beautiful goal, not a piece of individual brilliance, just a goal that wins you a game late on. A Tardelli-esque scream might have been nice as well but hopefully Virgil will give us one of those.
I think someone said it about Salah’s pass for Firmino against Swansea but it’s true today as well- this team just wants to score goals, they don’t care who scores them so long as they get the win. Amen to that. At the end of the day it’s nice that Salah is up in the scoring charts, but it’s what those goals contribute to that matters more than anything. Although on an individual level, who couldn’t be made up for Mane today? Well in lad.
Happy new year all!
A last minute winner is great. Of course it is. But we’re still folding under pressure at the back. As soon as we get penned in and our opponents have a decent spell late in a game, we concede. Pretty much every time. I can’t think of a time when we’ve been under severe pressure late in a game and not conceded. It’s 100% gutless and down to a shameful mentality. A gutlessness throughout the team.
We went and got the winner today, but that will happen maybe one time in 200 after you concede an equaliser so late. We just can’t see out a game 1-0 or 2-1 when the other team has a real go and has even the smallest bit about them. We’re fine in winning positions against teams that don’t have a go (Everton aside), who we can dominate with the ball, but we wilt so often when we have to just defend. We capitulate. We wave the white flag. It happened again today, just as it happened at Watford, at home to Chelsea, away to Sevilla. That’s this season. Last season it was away to United, away to Sunderland and home to Bournemouth. These are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more.
This must change.
Hence the bolstering if the defence with VVD. A massive signing in the January window highlighting the importance the club put on strengthening the defence
Ragnar Klavan is often portrayed as the plucky understudy who is not quite good enough for regular selection but if you ignore reputations and just focus on results that doesn’t seem to be the case. The recent return to some kind of stability at the back is not the result of the Lovren/Matip partnership but rather a prolonged run of games with Lovren accompanying Klavan. Van Dijk’s arrival will move Klavan down the pecking order but his role in steadying the ship at a time when our chances of finishing top four were starting to look uncertain should not be forgotten.
On a different note, would rather Achterburg be leaving than Linjders, but it is what it is. A Change in coaching staff when we least need it.
Agree with this.
Pep will be back one day as Liverpool manager. Probably after StevieG’s turn. I think recently returned Michael Beale is shoe in to take over Pep’s role.
from Durban,south Africa….bleeding brilliant Liverpool!!!!!!