AT Anfield we only get to watch them three more times maximum. Only four more league games.
Acclaim them. Love them. Commune with them. Be prepared to bleed with them. But be part of their brilliance and have them be part of our need. Time has accelerated around us.
You don’t need to be Einstein to understand that time is relative. You don’t need to be Einstein to know that the first half of Liverpool’s game against Chelsea this afternoon goes slow. There is a level of control from The Reds that is welcome, but tense.
Forty-five minutes with no goals goes slowly. We breathe in and out as Chelsea and Liverpool fight over possession, fight over where the line is, test each other’s courage. While Liverpool are precise and effective, 45 minutes without a goal is a drag.
The shape of Chelsea is deeply impressive. They are like a sponge, stretching and flexing to soak up the fluid Liverpool attack. The breadth provided by Cesar Azpilicueta and N’Golo Kante is hard to manage.
Liverpool at times look a bit weak and too hollow in the midfield. We can’t get enough buildup, and while Naby Keita makes lightning runs and Mo Salah is everywhere (just everywhere), Chelsea are able to balance our pace with their distribution.
Fabinho is good in the middle but you sense how hard Liverpool are having to work to get the ball from front to back, when Chelsea are managing their shape so effectively.
Alisson is tested from time to time. Hazard is no mug and nor is Willian. These are lively players. Good players. Chelsea get to be good. It makes what happens to them all the more impressive.
Half time comes; 15 minutes passes quickly and we are all impatient. We know that this is it. We know that this is the final act in a league battle that at times has seemed to stretch impossibly long ahead of us, with countless hours, countless potential losses or mistakes, countless opportunities.
Here we are in the final moments of the season. Having fallen in love with this football team and wanting so calmly simply for them to win. Time to win the league. It’s time. We’ve waited long enough.
The second half kicks off.
Out of nowhere time speeds up. The ball shifts around the box, Jordan Henderson hangs it up and it is a cross you can celebrate. The ball being where it is makes it a goal. Sadio Mane converts and everyone explodes, Henderson wheels away ecstatic, these are the biggest games of his life, this is his whole life, these are the days that define him.
A second passes. Barely a second. A blink of an eye. And then Mo Salah turns and picks up the ball lifting it with power and purpose, and sends it with fire into the top left corner.
Grown men who have watched The Reds for 60 years stand dumbfounded at the clarity of the thing. Little kids at the match for the first time have their hearts won forever by this beautiful smiling man who came from Egypt via Rome, Switzerland and Chelsea to win us the league.
He celebrates. We go bananas. But he celebrates and all the racists who dare shout obscenities at the man are silenced. All the racists can fuck off, frankly. This complicated 20-something man full of a jumble of identities is acclaimed as an idol. He is globalisation. He is a muslim, and an Egyptian, and a footballer, and a dad, and a friend. And he is a fucking Liverpudlian.
Those that use his identity against him fail on every level to understand that, wilfully fail to understand the complexities of identity. People who reduce others to one thing are at root wrong, offensive and the problem.
Sadio Mane wants to win the league more than you. His pace helps this afternoon and though Chelsea are solid in the back, he tests them. He is uncontrollable bursting from left to right.
Firmino, relatively speaking is the quietest of the three, but he finds moments of fine form. Backheels and flicks not quite finding their way to the goal but nonetheless testing for those playing in blue, making their legs work, making their brains work harder.
I love the subs. Both the decisions but what they do. That mad five minutes after 2-0 where Chelsea get in 63 times needed something from the bench. Gini and James delivered. Immediately Wijnaldum holds it up marvellously in the middle of the pitch and everything feels better.
Chelsea were good. They were. Liverpool were better. They are. Twenty points better. Imagine that.
Until this season that has felt improbable; last season we went to Stamford Bridge with them breathing down our necks. This season we grabbed a late equaliser. But now there is a gulf between Chelsea’s good and Liverpool’s great. Time has changed an awful lot. It moves and shifts and now we are almost done.
They deserve to lift something up.
Make no mistake. This is a great side. Whatever happens from here we are talking and deal with greatness. It is distressing we only get to watch them at Anfield three more times at most. Not because I believe they will separate but because seasons are distinct things.
What they have done for us and with us is just splendid. We really are in this together. That’s all of us, each of us. Each of you. Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.
Thirty-four down. Four to go. What a thing. We get to watch them four more times in this season. We get to love them four more times. We get to see their box of paints. I could drink a case of them, a case of you and still be on my feet.
Time to lift something up, Reds.
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And as if it wasn’t already another splendid piece, love the Joni Mitchell reference!
Brilliant read Neil as always. Pretty much summed up the match and my feelings for the players and Klopp.
“Make no mistake. This is a great side. Whatever happens from here we are talking and deal with greatness. It is distressing we only get to watch them at Anfield three more times at most. Not because I believe they will separate but because seasons are distinct things.”
Right. All the more reason to win the league and CL this season, especially for Henderson.
I think he knows it will be hard to match this run up next season.
City won’t blink twice with their oil money.
4 more to go.
Any praise for Henderson now that he is influencing games in his proper position?
Looking forward to it. YNWA.
@sharpman8 LOL! I knew you were waiting somewhere in the wings with that.
In all honesty, I’m not surprised by Henderson’s influence in his natural position, but I’m really impressed by his tenacity, ability and hard work up front to help the team win so far.
His performances in this position, 3 so far, only makes me imagine how much more improvement he would have made and whether he could’ve developed into influencing player/captain we were pining then to see, in all those finals we lost, and the league losses and draws that he could have been turned into a win.
Perhaps a little earlier and we would not be cheerleading Spurs and United and hoping for them to beat City.
On one hand I am absolutely elated and happy for Henderson and his supporters as, I, along with other supporters have given him more than his fair share of criticism in our differing opinions.
On the other hand it makes me angry to know that players can be so easily be marginalized by their own coach/manager for the sake of budget or tactics that could often derail their development. I mean buy the players for the right position and not force them to play for seasons on end.
Credit to Henderson for speaking up (or at least Southgate for showing) what some of us supporters even the critics felt he was better suited at.
Klopp is not perfect, but his realization makes me admire him all the more now. I don’t think this would happen with many top coaches who are already under enormous pressure.
I don’t know if I have answered your question in the way you want me to, but let’s hope we go on to win the remaining games in the League and CL with Henderson in his proper position.
Up the Henderson-led Reds!
That’s more or less saying Klopp hasn’t a clue? Yet with Hendo playing where we needed him to play, we went to 3 finals, one in the CL, we also are on the cusp of another CL semi final and we are top of the league with our greatest ever points haul to date with this many games gone.
He’s shite this fella Klopp then eh? Think we should just ditch him now then. Feckin fraud.
Brilliant as usual, Neil.
I can only imagine your match review post-Wolves if we win it!
Up the fucking reds!
Said it before and worth saying again, you’re writing about the matches after the event is a thing of beauty. Very little by way of obvious description of events- more the emotion and feeling each game encapsulates as a microcosm of a season, and of a lifetime supporting this club…
Absolute BOSS match review Neil!
Everything in me willed this team to win today, everything.
Come on you glorious Reds.
Every game of the season is the biggest game but that performance will hopefully leave the lads full of confidence. There is nothing to fear from here on in, on reflection there’s been nothing to fear all season. If they can keep going it will be very special indeed.
That’s an excellent read Neil.What a team we have, and what a joy to watch them do what they do.
That was a game jam-packed with symbolism. Chelsea are a side responsible for some of the worst footballing days of our lives and none worse than 2014.
I could see the ghosts of that day at times today. 0-0 at half-time, Chelsea organised and compact etc. But then it was just different. It was all just fine. Robertson even slipped over and it was all just cool.
We came out second half and played like a team operating on a different level to our opponents, because that’s exactly what we are. It honestly looked like we were going to score ten goals in three minutes at the start of that second half.
Henderson, missing that horrid day in 2014, was pivotal to us today. Driving us on. ‘You’re not taking anything away from here, you bastards. You don’t get to come here and fuck this up for us.’
Not that there’s any point highlighting individuals in this side. You feel guilty doing so because they’re all boss.
A word on Mo’s goal. That was a goal too good even for a video game. You’d have to restart or something if you lashed in one of those on FIFA 19. It’s just not credible.
87/88 – 90 points
85/86 – 88 points
81/82 – 87 points
08/09 – 86 points
That’s it. Of the 103 seasons in the top tier, that’s the only times this illustrious club has culled together as many points as we now have. And we still have 4 games left with another 12 points of offer.
Today, we not only buried the ghost of the slip (which has always struck me as ridiculous because Chelsea had spent weeks 25-33 in first place only to fall on their face against Aston Villa, Stoke, and Sunderland, but Mourinho is a genius playing for a 0-0). The slip is well and buried, but so is our point total for the whole of 13/14 (and that was without going into the knockout rounds of the Champions League).
The first two ✌ seasons in your eighties tally was 42 games,40 in 1988.Winning nothing would be a disaster.
Hi Dave, Are you saying that if we don’t win something this season then it’s a disaster? I disagree.
This…. He celebrates. We go bananas. But he celebrates and all the racists who dare shout obscenities at the man are silenced. All the racists can fuck off, frankly. This complicated 20-something man full of a jumble of identities is acclaimed as an idol. He is globalisation. He is a muslim, and an Egyptian, and a footballer, and a dad, and a friend. And he is a fucking Liverpudlian.
Not sure, whether I am allowed to link it, but for everyone understanding German, Klopp gave a really(!) relaxed 5min. post match interview with the DAZN channel.
There were some tactical analysis (Chelsea’s play forcing offside ) in it as well as questions about Cardiff. Basically, the preparation time will be reduced due to the Porto trip, but they don’t take the remaining games lightly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvkWeiA3cXA
Great piece, Neil. These Reds are truly wonderful.
Good work with that line from the Joni Mitchell lyric too.
All this team needs is a big trophy now to underline the progress. That’s it.
And I really they get past Porto. Tey have earned themselves the treat of playing at the Camp Nou.
Great read, Neil. Felt the emotion and was taken back to the match with every point made in your article.
What a team and what a manager we have.
As a Chelsea fan I’d just like to congratulate you on a fantastic team. Enjoyed the match despite losing but I wonder what Salah was saying to Hazard about the two missed chances?!
Best LFC team for a very long time and frankly, a likeable bunch too. Good luck and I hope you beat Citeh to the title
2014 was a better chance, not winning the title with 97 would be crazy.
But it could happen and we would still be ACE.
Don’t forget, we are up against a financially doped up City team, afford every decision by officials, who have yet to have a string of hard games (normally their cup games have seen them drawn against nobodies and their games against the oppo have all come at advantageous times for them and not so the oppo). So perspective is everything at times. Yes it is crazy if we don’t win the League with 97 points, but so is some of the answers.
Wonderful as usual Neil, thank you for these. Am I too naive to think we ought to aim, over our next two matches, to overhaul City’s goal difference? I can imagine a scenario where City beat Spurs narrowly but then lose to United (leaving their gd roughly where it is now). If we then happen to draw against Newcastle or Wolves, we could wind up level on points with City. Would be the cruelest of the cruel to lose on GD. With our firepower we should knock the stuffing out of both Cardiff and Hudds. A couple of 4 or 5 nils might become absolutely crucial in the final reckoning.
Thought we bossed the game and the new midfield set up gives us more edge up against team’s sitting deep. We are a different gravy to 4 years ago when it was more of a streaky post Xmas Leicester fantastic run based on 3 or 4 individuals playing out of their skins.
This is built on long term foundations with more to come. When Klopp took over did any of us think we would get to this sort of level? These lads and most of all Klopp so deserve to get something at the end of it all against the money machines. All we can do is keeping making sure our voices are gone come Monday morning!
‘He celebrates. We go bananas. But he celebrates and all the racists who dare shout obscenities at the man are silenced. All the racists can fuck off, frankly. This complicated 20-something man full of a jumble of identities is acclaimed as an idol. He is globalisation. He is a muslim, and an Egyptian, and a footballer, and a dad, and a friend. And he is a fucking Liverpudlian.’
Brilliant this!