YOU can’t live with Liverpool.
You think you can. You set up and do something interesting. You give the full backs room and time. You have four lads in centre mid and the centre forwards shield Fabinho. You’ve given it some thought. You aren’t a mug.
But you can’t live with Liverpool. You give it everything you have and just when you could do with it being a bit easier, just when you are about tiring they go up a gear.
You just can’t live with them.
It was almost unfair watching Nacho Monreal in front of us. He was destroyed by Liverpool in the second half. He looked his age and then some. He looked bamboozled by Mo Salah and worked into the ground by Jordan Henderson. I wanted him hooked for humanitarian reasons.
By that point, Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk had Arsenal’s attackers in their back pocket, Roberto Firmino had chipped it up to volley it and Fabinho had the game in his hand.
The thing was Arsenal probably should have taken the lead. It would have made little difference in the end if they had, and while they had two or three chances they were simultaneously hanging on in the game by their fingertips.
Instead Liverpool made it one and then there was a break and then they made it two and then they made it devastating. There was a gulf, an ocean.
It’s important to say this – that is a side 27 points better than another beating them at home. The side 27 points poorer gets to do bits. I remember a great Arsenal side came to Anfield and battered us 2-2. Heskey late equaliser. The gulf in class was an ocean. They were a phenomenon but we did enough bits and we all got to go bananas.
But bits are just bits. And when you see the ocean, when you see the sheer scope of the gulf you can take solace in bits for a short time. And you know bits are unsustainable in the long term.
You can’t live with Liverpool.
What heightens all this is that Arsenal will break 70 points and yet the superiority will remain present, the gulf which is an ocean will be there. It is there when Mo Salah scores his third, there when Virgil van Dijk dominates a Nicolas Pepe heading towards a blind alley because he just can.
The point is this: as “We are the Champions, Champions of Europe” echoed around Anfield today, as Liverpool won their 12th successive league game, as everything happened as it should in that second half, it was hard to escape the thought that this might be the best Liverpool team I have ever watched and the best I will ever watch.
I’m 38. This is ballpark halfway. Ballpark. I mean we’ll see. But listening to Anfield rock and watching Arsenal roll, it was both a privilege and a reminder. Enjoy this because it may never, ever be better.
Before the game we were in a gaff in the Baltic playing absolute banging house at 3.30pm and it had food and astroturf and we did the “shall we just fuck the game off” thing. We’ve all done it. But never has it been further away from reality really.
Imagine passing up the chance to see these in the flesh. Imagine turning your nose up at the best you may ever see. Who do you think you are?
The season may only be three games in. Everything can still go wrong. But it makes it more important to log this moment, to savour it.
Take a moment right now to think about all this, think about the 12 league games and remember that while winning them Liverpool were also winning European Cups and beating Barcelona 4-0 at Anfield. Pick a moment, be it Divock or Gini, Sadio or Mo. Pick one and remember it. Pick today’s if you like. Cherish it.
Cherish it because it won’t always be like this. It can’t, that isn’t how it works. Cherish it with your friends, your family. This is an absolute gift, a reminder that the moment moves on and that what goes around comes around. This is a joy to be alive.
You can’t live with Liverpool. They won’t be this version forever just as they weren’t in 2015 or 2011 or 2007. You can’t live with them.
But you can love them.
SUBSCRIBE to TAW Player for our immediate post-match reaction podcast and video…
“Mo Salah is one of the best players I’ve ever seen play for Liverpool.
“It doesn’t get any better than this.” ❤️
📱 Subscribe and listen to our immediate post-match reaction show after The Reds’ 3-1 over Arsenal 👉 https://t.co/XZAK9veWt7 pic.twitter.com/3BHHLyX4l6
— The Anfield Wrap (@TheAnfieldWrap) August 24, 2019
Recent Posts:
[rpfc_recent_posts_from_category meta=”true”]
Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
I’m 74 and have seen all the great teams but what I am watching now takes my breath away.
This is one magnificent football team savour it now because like everything it won’t be around forever.
Amen. Loved a lot about today, especially how Fab and Robertson went bananas when we let the goal in. But the main point was how much I just love *all* the lads. There’s no iffyness; it’s unequivocal. Isn’t it great? We’re so lucky, in a world gone mad, to have this and you’re right, we have to hold and cherish it.
This team is simply sublime. Best I’ver ever seen. It doesn’t get better than this current era we are witnessing.
Fans who still have a moan about things are just doing it for moaning’s sake.
Liverpool are mustard. Dijon mustard.
Djoin mustard is only good for making Diane Sauce with. There’s some unbelievably firery hot Dutch & Russian mustards out there that even make Coleman’s English seem tame. This Liverpool are a new form of mustard that surpasses all of them.
It’s just pure joy. And fear. It’s like what i experienced those first days with a newborn baby. Unreserved love. And unfathomed fear. A primal sense of everything being ok and completely bonkers and on the edge all at the same time.
Phil – that is the best encapsulation of my feelings that I have ever seen/heard.
All spot on . This side has no weakness. They may well be the best ever. Allez
The last 15 was not our best work. We showed signs of weakness during that period and it didn’t escape Klopp.
Arsenal only truly had a go at us when Lazcette came on. We got pushed back and suddenly struggled to keep hold of the ball.
Things still to work on.
I decided in May 2014 to follow the EPL and deliberated for a few weeks before choosing LFC as my team to follow in 14/15. I quickly got hooked on the game, and the league, and the Reds. The soccer gods have been generous to me.
Neil Atkinson “the pundit nobody can live with!” Lovely stuff as per. You need your own show lad…your words give a man goosebumps. Last year the pundits in the media would keep asking the question regarding city being the greatest footballing side of all time. Remember that nonsense? Now what? Gone a bit quiet on that topic huh? For me this current Liverpool side is better than city..by quite some distance. Not saying city aren’t quality cos that would be very insincere of me but just look at these Reds! The character! The commitment! The collective! …next step.. the Champions! You’ve done what we asked and made us dream again and there isn’t a pipe in sight. YNWA!
How I loved the 11 wins of Brendan Rodgers. Elation. Like someone had cracked their fingernails into the seams of the universe and ripped it open, and our little human minds could never fully take in what we were witnessing no matter how wide we opened our eyes.
These 12 wins are a different universe altogether, more like a joyous rapture. Without Mignolet and Skrtel and Glen Johnson and Aly Cissokho existing on the same astral plane as Suarez, Sturridge, and Gerrard, we lack the exhilaration of incomprehension.
But we trade it for rapture. These lads are magnificence. Shining magnificence to a man, Klopp fist-pumping in beatific illumination at its center.
My son was too young for 2014, but these days will burn bright for the both of us, and this our shared joy – in the fullest sense – will remain with us for many, many years if not simply cradled in our hearts to the grave.
The excellence of man. Up the Olympian Reds.
Beautiful Walter.
Up the Olympian reds
Wow, you should have your own article. Very well put. Poetic.
Ah, it’s all just so so beautiful. Thanks Neil!!
Oceans of class
Brought about by Arsenal getting a lot of tactics wrong.
We were sublime and made them pay for naivety. There will be bigger tests ahead.
However we can only enjoy and savour the moment.
Next up we play Burnley’s answer to a team geared up to playing rugby. Just hope the weather is kind next weekend, as Burnley won’t be, especially as they will be at their leg breaking best.
I’m not sure you will ever better this. I’m old enough to have watched great Liverpool sides. But watching you now is a privilege for any football fan not completely eaten up with jealousy.
I take it you are not a Liverpool supporter? If not you show true class.