WELL, somebody’s got to say it…
That was not a great Liverpool performance. Not for me, Clive.
Great result, deserved result, decisive result. Such a great result that you can tell me that the performance doesn’t matter, tell me to stop being a grumpy old man, tell me to go and reproduce with myself.
I just think this Liverpool team are better than that. Even better.
You could be reading the most heavily veiled compliment that Jürgen Klopp’s side will ever receive but I don’t think they played to their potential last night, that’s all. If they do perform as they can in the remaining weeks of the season, I think they have an opportunity to make this a time that you will never forget.
I saw Liverpool win in Munich in 1981 and it wasn’t pretty. I have seen all five finals that the club have won and they probably only played to their capabilities in the first of them. The good old days weren’t all good.
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This is a cup competition. The result is the only thing that really counts. Manchester United got lucky in Paris, Liverpool’s only slice of luck last night was that Bayern were so poor. It is a measure of Klopp’s progress at Anfield that the best team in Germany seemed to fear the worst against him.
I saw nothing in Munich to suggest that Liverpool are not quite ready to win either or both of the glittering prizes they are chasing so proudly, so promisingly. I just know they will need to perform better than they did last night to conquer either summit. I hope someone on that jubilant flight home was bold enough to say it out loud.
If I’d known they were going to win 3-1 in the end, I could have almost laughed at some of those misplaced passes. There were dozens of them. The classic Bob Paisley mantra of “pass to the nearest red shirt” was being followed comedically at times. Bayern just kept giving it back rather apologetically.
I swear, the Champions League became the Childwall League for a spell. Division three.
Yes, I know it was tense, top-level competition but there is a lot more of that to come if the biggest boxes are going to be ticked. Liverpool will need to be better. Just saying.
Andy Robertson’s late, lamented yellow card was symptomatic of the untidiness, the carelessness. Too much of the decision making was messy and muddled. Never have I shouted “keep it” so many times at a slab of plasma.
As if to strengthen the tetchy case I’m making against your heroes were the three shafts of blinding light that won the tie. The goals were all superbly crafted and taken.
They were the three irrefutable items of evidence that Liverpool can rise to heights several planes above the level at which they idled along for too much of last night’s game. They were Liverpool goals.
If Ludwig van Beethoven had been at the match, he’d have gone home and written a symphony about Sadio Mane’s first. In about five movements. Each element of the goal deserved a standing ovation.
UEFA should have called for a five-minute suspension of play the instant that Mane tamed the awkward ball dropping over his shoulder with the outside of his right foot.
After a period of appreciation and thanksgiving for that stunning first touch, Sadio could then have performed the impossible turn that opened up the chance before a further pause in the action for Manuel Neuer to find his way back into the stadium.
Then, as the cascading applause for that balletic manoeuvre began to die down, the referee would have blown his whistle to cue the Liverpool number 10 to deliver his piece de resistance with a delicate lofted dab of his left foot. It was more a ceremony than a goal.
The other two goals were of a similar standard of precision execution too.
The default reaction of every pundit is to find a scapegoat for any set-piece concession. “Who was picking up van Dijk?” Well, two Bayern defenders were not only picking him up but roughing him up to try to prevent him from leaping to connect with a corner of Tom Brady accuracy.
James Milner’s delivery had all the destructive beauty of a guided missile homing in on its crosshairs. The floating Dutchman couldn’t miss.
Then came the third and even I could stop yelling “ffs don’t lose it” at the telly.
Mo Salah has been dividing opinions like Brexit just lately, but the subtle invention of his scoring pass was a further thing of beauty and there was the twisting frame of the man of the moment leaping to improvise another fearless finish. That’s what they can do, that’s how good they are.
There was a passage of play a couple of minutes before the third goal… 82 minutes, Divock Origi waiting to come on… When Liverpool played half-a-dozen crisp, concise simple passes in little triangles and 15 seconds disappeared off the clock without fuss or bother.
In its own way, it was as uplifting as any of the goals. It was the mature, measured winning football that they are well equipped to play.
So good was the result that it automatically inspired quotes and tweets suggesting that Liverpool had played that kind of football all night long, that they produced a classic, clear-thinking, controlled European away display. I wish I could agree.
They found a laudable way to win. No more. The really good news is that they can play a lot better than that.
If I sound demanding, it is because the challenge of the next two months is going to be very demanding indeed. It is already a very good season, already a very good team and squad. Liverpool have created a tantalising double opportunity for themselves to raise their game and their reputations to the highest heights.
I think it is an opportunity they have the ability to seize. I just didn’t see all or enough of that ability in last night’s performance. There, I’ve said it.
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Couldn’t agree more Clive. But as always the caveat being the result.
That’s all that matters. I am hoping last night was a wake up call. As you say, this really is within our grasp. If, we want it enough..
100%. But I balance that with the thought that there are 11 elite, if older, athletes on the other side trying to stop what we do best.
All true enough. The best thing about last night though, personally speaking at least, was seeing Liverpool make few concessions to the opponent, the venue or the size of the occasion. Much as we should have beaten Everton anyway, we seemed to build them up into what they weren’t – last night, we practically achieved the opposite. Extra gears or no extra gears, maintain this mindset and we won’t die wondering, at least.
I agree with everything you put Clive, that most definitely wasn’t a great performance by us and we can and will improve. However results wise it was perfect
So true, glad someone said it. For much of the first half, Bayern looked faster and more skillful, similar to how PSG looked against us. Another level higher.
But this Reds team don’t need to be faster or more skillful for 90 minutes to win games.
We have a defence which, while not proving as impervious as we’d thought at the start of season, is nonetheless extremely hard to breach.
In VVD, Fabinho, Milner, TAA and Gini, we have players who can play excellent raking passes and long balls or death by passing depending on the situation and we have a shining trident of Forwards who can take turns in being provider or the main man.
Right now, Sadio has rightly claimed the spotlight and with his first goal should also claim some prize, some moment in football legend. Clive’s “Beethoven” description of the goal was so perfect that even though I’d love to eulogise about it, I’ll defer to that. Chapeaux, Sadio!
It’s no exaggeration or gilding of the lily to say that Mo was an unstoppable force of goalscoring wizardry last year, so by appearing this time round to be merely human, would normally be disappointing if it were not for the fact that he is still involved in so many goals, either with skillfully passing as we saw for Mané’s second, or his runs and movement that twist the mind and soil the shorts of entire opposition defences. As for Bobby, he did what he always does, rolls up his sleeves and gets on with it. He is basically our Brazilian Dirk Kuyt with better teeth and much better skills. His goals will always come here and there, not as consistently as his bullying tackles or industrious movement but frequently enough to disuade any LFC fan to hope that the slew of elite strikers constantly linked with our club don’t take his place.
It doesn’t always click. We’ve been poor at times this season. We’ve been outclassed a couple of times, here and there. We’ve had to settle for draws or stalemates which feel like losses, despite optimism in the media.
But this team doesn’t have to waltz all over the opposition for ninety minutes to get our results. Anyone in the team can rise up and win the game for us at any moment, whether it’s a thunderbolt header from the Virg, a couple of deflected goals from our Swiss TNT barrel big Shaw, a lightning run from Robinson CruiseNo or even an impossible save at the death from the DayGlo Bearded Supermodel keeper with a girl’s name.
We don’t need to be good all the time, just brilliant when it counts. And so far, we have been.
Allez Allez Allez
I’ve a different take on it. With the ball for the first 70 minutes our performance wasn’t great, it was our work off the ball that was exceptional. We ground them down. Broke them mentally. Earned the right to play the last 20 with a swagger. We were better than them, faster than them and fitter than them.
Agreed Rich.i’m not convinced the hendo/fab/Gini/ Milner midfield pool has “another gear” to find. They are an unbelievably hard working unit which can grind through big matches and when we take the lead start to assume control but as in Munich it doesn’t always look comfortable. For me that is a reflection of limitations in the players.
For now they are the best we have. how incredible they have been but in the fantasy football world there is certainly room for some extra composure in the middle of the park when Klopp decides on how to build on his squad.
Ox and Keita could have a big impact.
Fantasy football is just that. For now let’s live in the real world and get behind every single lad who puts on a red shirt for us.
It wasn’t about fantasy football, just more about unenforced errors that we made. We were sloppy and messy at times on Wednesday night. We can and we will do better.