Lucky 13

You can feel it, can’t you?

Even the most nervous fan – the kind that has known all the heartbreaks, that has developed an exceptional sense of stoicism as a sanity preservation tool, that knows that the team that leads the table at Christmas wins the league except (of course) if it’s Liverpool – even that fan must have a sense of inevitability by now. The tingle of certainty. The knowledge that there isn’t anything anyone can throw at this team to take away this title.

We’re gonna win the league, and there ain’t nuttin’ nobody can do about it.

The Reds made a mockery of the Toons today. I don’t know how it played out on TV, because I was in the stadium, and I saw it with my own eyes. It’s different, being in the stadium. On TV, the screen follows the ball, so it’s much harder to see what everyone else is doing. To appreciate the enormity of Szoboszlai’s work rate. Macca’s bonkers ability to just be – anywhere, everywhere, when it matters, and to annoy the living hell out of the opposition. Gravenberch’s ridiculousness as a sort of wet noodle that slides out of your hands when you least expect it, if you’re wearing the wrong shirt. You get to see all those little things that combine to make all these players appear magically from stage left in the right place when the TV camera follows the ball.

Folks, Liverpool has the best midfield in the world today, period. It’s the human version of the Liverpool Lion, the gorgeous historic steam engine that is on display in the Liverpool Museum. And it’s not just them; Jota and Lucho do so much work in the press it can be hard to remember they are forwards, and yet they still provide outlet after sublime outlet for that engine. The industry of this team is insane.

And then there’s Mo Salah.

I was lucky enough to sit in a part of the stadium where his wing was in the second half. Let’s face it; I was lucky enough to be alive to watch this man play in real life wearing a Liverpool shirt. I tried to focus on his feet, probably emulating countless world-class defenders before every game, to understand how he does what he does, but my poor brain couldn’t compute. Forget the big stuff, like another combination to open the scoring with Dom. It’s the little things. The way he recovers a ball that seems lost by somehow – it’s hard to explain how – getting through, not around, an opposing player, yet without touching them. The way he squirrels out of a circle of four premier league defenders who are all trying to nick the ball away. I am convinced that Salah has a paranormal capacity to feel air currents, like a bat “hears” the soundscape, because otherwise there is no explanation to the way he constantly moves the ball this way and that, tiny little movements that keep it out of toe reach of those six or eight or ten legs that desperately want to take it away from him.

Defending Salah should come with hazard pay, or at minimum the guarantee of lifetime therapy for PTSD.

If this was a dress rehearsal for the Carabao cup final, I say don’t hesitate the wear your Sunday best to the show. Newcastle is an excellent team, and it might have looked different on TV, but they were nowhere to be found today. The score could have been higher, but the Reds absolutely dominated this game and closed it out with style. From the stands, this was a comfortable win.

I will try to write a special column about my experience in Anfield once I sort out my emotions. In the meantime, though, behold that 13 point gap, and I promise you, no need to be nervous: we’re gonna win the league.

We’re gonna win the league.