Tough
.
When we discussed this outing in our internal chat last Sunday after the Wolves game concluded, my stated opinion was that we would not win this game, but that we would win the one in the Etihad. While the second half of that prediction must wait until Sunday, in theory, I should be satisfied that reality matched expectations. In truth, I am deeply disappointed.
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I’m not sure what particular illness is afflicting our front line, but I sorely missed Cody Gakpo today. Other than Salah, who notched another G+A combo and is just so stupidly consistent it’s borderline unreal, the rest of them supposed producers are, well, not producing. And yeah, Salah gets that man-of-the-match again because he was the only one who actually delivered.
Nunez (who else?) had a couple of serious howlers after he came on. He really should have scored, probably twice, and assisted once. There is a specific pattern to his worst misses. He always appear to be in situations where a controlled tap-in is required, and he just blasts the ball too forcefully instead. Take the pass he got today from Szoboszlai. It was so well cooked, all it needed was that simple lofted pass into an open goal six yards away, but Nunez hit it with so much power it might well have left the stadium.
But it wasn’t just him. Jota did well to assist Salah when he did, because judging by his other shots, there was no way Jota could finish anything himself. In that, Jota was the surprise outlier. We’re used to Darwin’s shocking misses, but Jota is usually such a composed finisher that this series of wild misses was pretty remarkable. When your forwards are misfiring so badly, it’s very hard to win games away against spirited teams like Villa.
It took a good strike from Trent, a defender, and a deflection to get the second past Martinez. But it really didn’t need to be this way. Villa was extremely shaky in the back, giving away serious chances repeatedly. On another day, Liverpool might have run rampant, scoring five or six or more. Instead, the Reds almost gave up a third in the closing minutes. Liverpool had twice as many chances, but Villa showed more quality in finishing.
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The end result was justified by the evidence. Which on the same evidence, sucks, because we should have won it comfortably.
At the same time, Liverpool was the better team, and for most of the game looked hungry. This does leave the question open of whether this is a developing problem, or simply the randomness of a season. Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that our opponents today, playing at home, were one of the eight who qualified straight through to the round of 16 in the Champions League, the primary reason I thought we might not win this match.
This particular series of games, with City next and then Newcastle, is a very tough one. Having a point cushion to absorb some less-than-perfect results is still a nice advantage. We lost a bit of that cushion today, but the manner in which it was done was not as concerning as if we had looked lost and helpless like we did last year in April.
Write at ya Sunday.
