238 Minutes Without a Goal?
Southampton 1 – 0 Liverpool – 1/4/2021 – St. Mary’s Stadium
Liverpool have now officially failed to score a goal in the last 238 minutes of Premier League match play. This is not normal for Liverpool under Jürgen Klopp… quite frankly, it has not been “normal” for Liverpool since I started watching way back in 2005. I am sitting here after the loss to Southampton wondering; is something wrong?
Never in my wildest dreams did I think a second-minute goal from Danny Ings would spell the final score line of yesterday’s game. Being that football is a team sport, I never like to place blame too much on one or two people for specifics; however, the Danny Ings goal, in my opinion, if defended properly, was avoidable. To start, I know we have injuries galore, but Jordan Henderson should not be on the back line, love the lad to bits, but he shouldn’t be there. There was a sloppy high line on the free-kick, Trent Alexander-Arnold tried to chest the ball away (instead of correctly heading the ball away), and not for nothing, I think Danny Ings got slightly lucky when hooking that chip over Alisson. With all that said, it was 1-0 Southampton, and then came the most frustrating 88 minutes of football.
Even going back to my playing days, I have always had an aversion for officials, and I think Andre Marriner might be the official that I hate the most (trust me, I got into it with a few when I played). Every other fan base in the Premier League loves to drone on about “LiVARpooL,” but I really do not understand that. I feel like there is a special standard that Liverpool needs to reach to be awarded a penalty through VAR. Andre Marriner was so quick to dismiss Walker-Peters challenge on Sadio Mane in the second half. To not even to give it a look on VAR is ridiculous. I have watched the tackle back at least fifteen times now and it looks like a penalty to me, I mean Mane clearly got clipped and tripped, but what do I know?
It infuriates me to see teams like Manchester United being given questionable penalty after questionable penalty and then to see Liverpool denied a clear one like that. Honestly, sick to my stomach.
In the end, I do not want to drone on about missed penalties and officials, but something seems seriously off with a once-clinical Liverpool team. We are missing chances that should be converted and I’m, starting to get a little worried. Let us all hope that this 238-minute skid does not turn into a larger overture for the rest of the season. The boys need to get back in the goals big time.
Following our second loss of the season, I expect the lads to turn it around and get back in the points because we need it. This season will not be a walk to the title. The Reds will need to fight for it every step of the way.