WEEKS before this. This:
- What a game this will be. Two sides who will want to play and be able to play without fear. First vs second or third. A close affair to see in the New Year.
- Can’t wait to take it to them. Stick it to them. Show them who is better. Should be some night. And you know what, if they win? Well all the best.
This week. This:
- Terrified about this. Lose this and we could be nine behind Chelsea. These are good you know. We are good. But these are good.
- We’re not full strength here. Got to just cut loose and be ourselves. Go at them. Scare them.
Team selection. This:
- Why has he changed it? This shape or system or personnel or all the above?
- Into these early. No messing about.
Half time. This:
- Liverpool; the Liverpool manager; his team — has chosen to make this match as alehouse as possible. This is fascinating in that it sort of completely undos whatever any opponent tries to do. Alehouse is that sort of move. Cleverness drips off it when done with clever players.
- The game became about battles. One on one. Two on two. Find your battle and win it. It may not feel like it means anything but it could mean everything. The ball? It goes. It goes. It goes. Win it. Shift it. Empty it. It goes.
- There isn’t a ton in it and there is everything in it. A game which had felt like it would be free flowing, end-to-end drama becomes one which feels like it will be decided by one goal in three at best. And Liverpool have the first of those goals.
- It’s a stark reminder of what the game actually is. And that at the very highest level the game is never more than one meal away from being an elongated process of winning the right to play. Winning the right to play can too often become more important than actually playing.
- Jordan Henderson leading this. First to everything and Henderson managed somehow to be second to the rest.
- And what a header. What a header. The Reds lead. The adverb “deservedly” is irrelevant. Because this is football. You rarely get what is deserved. But Liverpool spent some money on this footballer — Georginio Gregion Emile “Gini” Wijnaldum — and while his performances to date have been excellent, this sort of thing is cold and hard and marvellous.
Full time. This:
- Every clearance worthy of an ole. You know when they say “ole football”? I hate it. Why? Because clearances, blocks, tackles can feel like goals. Can feel worthy of oles. You know why? Because you choose your type of football and Liverpool chose theirs. The olé was seeing them out.
- Liverpool scrapped the most. It was a Gerard Houllier performance. All grit and sense. All harder than iron. All capable of one more. This is my football. The football I grew up with. Football where you watch the clock and shout the minute. Football we haven’t seen. Which leads to…
- Imagine being there in the week. Being one of them. The football that has got you here partially dispensed with. A manager who wants you to do it this differently. To be alehouse. To win your battles and see. His lads went with. His centre halves almost faultless. His goalkeeper a marvel. But his forwards. Willing and strong. One more channel. One more shuttle. One more run for Liverpool.
An hour since:
- Look at that table. As Evertonian Matt Jones said, imagine being Chelsea. Imagine having won that many and The Reds are there. Smiling, gnarly, capable of anything.
- 19 in. 43 on the board. These Reds. Our Reds. Harder than me. Harder than you. Love them. Come and adore them. Sunderland. If I do it right I will still be drunk from tonight. If they do it right so will they. Me on booze and success. Them on success. Harder than me. Better than me. Possibly even gnarlier than me.
- With love see you and them again on the 2nd. They are the Kings of Europe. As far as I am concerned.
- Walk around the gnarly bastards. Up the New Years Eve Reds. May they never string 15 passes together.
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All hail Lord Klavan! He has been absolutely outstanding once again today. Overshadowed only slightly by Wijnaldum who put in one of the best performances of the season, the pair of Klav and Gini stood out brightly and clearly from the rest. Another one where our team wasn’t really firing, Firmino still seems knackered and a step slow, Can was poor in his debut, that final touch was letting us down, but Rag and Gin put in heroic shifts and got us the 3 points. Nice to win games like these.
Debut = return to the starting XI…but you know what I mean
Agreed on klavan; think the match ratings were harsh on him. Lovren was good, klavan was outstanding; didn’t put a foot wrong.
Wijnaldum, klavan, henderson, Clyne and milner were the players that really kept us moving in this game, in my opinion…
well said Neil, outstanding performances all round. Midfield tough as nails, Milner with sterling in his pocket.Klavan and Lovren were excellent, knowing when to pass and when to hoof. City spent £100 million on two players who just belted it out of play for no reason. up the controlled gnarly reds.
The change was intriguing, particularly as we twatted them twice playing our own game last season. It’s great that we can win in so many ways, a good discipline, and I’m more than happy with the three points, but I prefer our usual game: inviting City on is a high risk strategy and Houllier teams often failed to hold on.
Klavan is a rock btw. He has ice coursing through his veins.
Happy new year to one and all and thanks for providing such great content.
Legendary write up. Up the alehouse reds.
Happy new year!
Tough. That’s these Reds. Who knew? Herr Klopp, clever chap. And we are off to Sunderland to get Moyes sacked.
Put it down, Neil – you’re drunk :-)
You need to be able to play different ways. I reckon without Phil, he thought it was too risky to try to outplay them – so we outbattled themselves. They called it 4-3-3 on telly, but I was seeing 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 with us trying to crowd the midfield and stop them getting the ball to De Bruyne or Silva. Loved it, in a different kind of way…..
*them
Love all ye do at the Podcast.Happy new year to ye all.
Great write up Neil. Alehouse Reds indeed. Obviously only it’s only smart and clever if it works out but I love the unpredictability of it. We rightly gave Brendan tons of grieve when in the end he got sucked into spoofing about his team’s character. Jürgen’s team today had actual character. Gnarly fucking character. YNWA!
Al Capone: “You can get more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word.”
Character is fine, but you have to have someone who can actually put the ball in the net. I’m sure the players were showing plenty of upstanding character, but it didn’t make a lick of difference with Balotelli and Lambert leading the line (especially after Sakho was injured and we couldn’t even rely on a surprisingly effective back three to grind out those 1-0’s).
A front three of Lallana, Firmino, and Mane is a pure nightmare. Not one of them is an Aguero, but they all have goal threat. They all a whirr of motion. They all will press you like a winemaker presses grapes. And you’ve got Origi and Sturridge on the bench.
At the other end, I’ll gladly admit that Sakho was long a favorite of mine. There was a time a few years back when Skrtel seemed one of the best defenders in Europe. But I can’t begin to quantify the increase in calm I feel with this defense in comparison to the nail-biting that came with each oncoming attack from the past few years. Don’t even get me started with set-pieces. Watching the defense no longer seems like an existential drama. We may concede. We may lose games. But I am infinitely grateful for the alleviation of dread.
Up the wine Reds.
Up the alehouse reds. Though should have been done an dusted by half time (time just didn’t stand still for Bobby as usual). They seemed scarred first half. Who could blame them. Where’s our goals gonna come from? There gonna come. Who knows? I don’t. What a terrifying team our reds must be to face.
Happy new year to all.
As ever, brilliant, inventive, nailing the moment, the situation, the how it fucking well is to be a red. Right speccy bastard though . …
Even in our grandest moments of the last 15 years, which is where my consciousness begins with the mighty Reds, we have never been this tough, this inspiring, this entertaining, and this skilled simultaneously. At most each team exhibited two of those qualities.
At this juncture in 13/14 we looked like we were overachieving. It felt a bit of a farce, led by the brilliance of a few and the ride along capability of the rest. 08/09 was very good and balanced, but still lacked the overall ingenuity to overtake United. But second almost feels like it doesn’t match our quality, and that’s a very foreign feeling.
Before Hodgson I went into every game expecting to win and surprised when we lost. Since that time the opposite has been true. Regardless of the final result if this season, I will be grateful for the return of belief and that I can approach every weekend with a mix of anxiety and positivity rather than despair. Up the brilliant Reds!
The change of tactics was a risk indeed but we have to remember Klopp knows how to beat Pep’s sides. I think our game tomorrow will also have factored into his thinking, subconsciously or not.
A win ground out is as good as a win gained at a canter. There is a different sense of satisfaction in it. We got ahead then called City’s bluff to see if they had what it took to get past us. They didn’t. We are a proper, serious team with real depth.
I couldn’t wait to get out last night. I knew it was gonna be a new year talking about the reds.
I went to the party on my push bike because I’m too tight to pay for a taxi. So I parked it in a side alley and went straight to the back garden. It was over an hour before I said hello to the host as I found the lads in the garden talking about the reds. This is what I want from a NYE party.
If you knew me I’m always willing to talk about the reds at any given moment and I’m confident in what I’m saying. I hit a bit of a snag last night though which isn’t like me. I was full of praise for Gini but my mate said ‘but what does he actually do’ and knowing I was going to the party he’d turned up with 3 pages of scribbled notes and stats. So, we went over them and I understood his stats about tackles won, chances created and his defensive duties but the best I could come up with was ‘fuck stats, I know what I see. It pissed me off that I couldn’t defend him.
At one point I said I just need to make a call and sneaked off to the alleyway to read Mike’s excellent piece from recently, looking for ammo but it only reaffirmed points I’d already made. My mate agreed with the points but wasn’t convinced by them. Another piped up with he’s like Ronnie Whelan which I was all over but again it wasn’t enough.
Can TAW get their best man on this to write an article about why he’s so good? Why we love him and what he offers. Or can anyone else attempt to articulate it?
Respect to Klavan. 3 clean sheets in the 4 games since he’s been brought back to Premier League action. I’d be intrigued to see him Matip and Mignolet together.
It’s surprising that anybody was putting you in a situation where you needed to defend Gini. You would imagine people, at least by now, can appreciate his value to us?
He has been a vital part of our good form this season as one of those silently effective players. He is so physically strong and I haven’t seen anybody get round him. It’s one of those where you get a real sense of his impact when watching him live. He plays as one of the three but with the mind of an attacker with the way he opens up the pitch with a well timed dummy or a first time pass. He’s also belligerent when it comes to winning the ball back, which is precisely why Klopp plays him where he does.
Yesterday we saw the impact he can have going forward when freed up by Can’s presence in the middle. He was also getting into ominous positions against West Ham and Stoke.
£23m well spent.
Yeah, agree with all that mate. My mate has had a season ticket for the 20 years I’ve known him and he’s one person who’s views I respect. He was just pointing out that in comparison to Can who’s played half the number of games Gini has, Can has better stats all over. Lallana’s stats far outweigh Gini in tackles won and Hendo is miles ahead of both. From both an attacking and defending point his stats aren’t great. My mate has no issue with Gini. He thinks he’s ok but that’s it. I found it frustrating not being able to articulate why he was so important because everything I said he had a stat to prove otherwise, lol. All the best Dan. Have a good year and an even better May.
What I love about that is every player mentioned is one of ours. It’s great to be having these discussions about who our most effective midfielder is and be able to make a case for every one of them. I suppose stats can tell you a lot but like you said, you know what you see
Happy new year to you as well mate.
Here’s one way to articulate it mate.
The season before we signed Charlie Adam, his ‘stats’ (I do fucking hate stats) were better than that of Luka Modric.
Stats or no stats, football fans with a brain would tell you all to a man (or woman) who they would have in their team.
To bend Jim Royle’s quote slightly: “Stats my arse”.
Here’s one way to articulate it mate.
The season before we signed Charlie Adam, his ‘stats’ (I do fucking hate stats) were better than that of Luka Modric.
Stats or no stats, football fans with a brain would tell you all to a man (or woman) who they would have in their team.
To bend Jim Royle’s quote slightly: “Stats my arse”.
P.s. could you delete the original post with my name on it haha
Haha, can’t argue with that Jimmy (Chris, haha)
In this case my mate is using stats to try and back up his point that Gini doesn’t do enough from what he see’s on the pitch. He’ll get there in the end mate.
It’s funny though, when you mention Charlie Adam and there are others it’s good to see how far we’ve come since those dark days whether we got to a couple of finals or not.
Exactly what I thought Alehouse…..Klavan excellent performance, considering he’d been booked early on he did well to still be on the pitch at 94 minutes in a game of such intensity and meaning. Up The Business House Reds….