Neil Atkinson’s post-match review after Leicester City 1 Liverpool 0 in the Premier League at The King Power Stadium…
FUCK it.
Three dropped.
Feels like four dropped.
Five dropped.
Nine dropped.
There are a variety of reasons why you should be pleased that I am not and will never ever be the Liverpool manager. But right now one reason is that I couldn’t pick them up tomorrow.
I will be barely able to pick myself up tomorrow.
And yet so it goes.
It’s three dropped. Liverpool hurt themselves over the course of the 90 minutes so deeply and repeatedly there is little left to do or say but just recount it.
You take your chances. And when against a side that were set up to lose valiantly, to find their way to an hour having limited the damage you have to take your chances.
I stormed out. I marched up the road. I wanted nothing to do with their gobshites but I heard them talking about the Liverpool misses and about their belief growing. I heard them chatting about speaking to their favourite steward and stating they had just thought “get to 60 and see”.
With five to go I just wanted an equaliser not for any wider reason but because they had been so fucking obnoxious as a crew. Food poverty and Hillsborough songs. Donnie, these men are cunts. For no clear reason.
Mo Salah missed a penalty. That is the unpredictable, unwanted, frustrating truth of this evening. He scores and this is at worst two dropped points, not three. He scores and this is a very different game. Let’s be clear. He scores and Liverpool get in half time 0-2 and maybe more. This is what I mean about a side sat there wanting to get beat.
This is what I mean when I say they got to believe. Liverpool offered belief and my god Leicester, a really rather good side, grabbed it.
The ball goes in off the rebound after the missed penalty and this is a different game. But it doesn’t and it isn’t.
It is a horrible game for Liverpool.
It is a shocker.
It is a game where we don’t just lack any magic in front of goal but we lack sheer workmanship in front of goal. A 6/10 in front of goal would have resulted in goals. Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota are good. They play normally. Yet they don’t score. It is weird.
In the end this is three points we want and we don’t get. Horrible. Jurgen Klopp says it doesn’t look like us and he is right. We are usually about magic, we are usually able to be the most mundane. We are inverse in terms of magic. We aren’t Beyonce, we are The Stereophonics. Great slabs of shite making me question all of humanity.
We find ways, we dig them out. Tonight after Mo Salah misses the penalty and rebound — two clear chances he never normally would — this is 94 minutes in which Liverpool never find themselves.
Once that is clear, Leicester see this as their game to smash and grab points from a title contender with form they lack. Their goal is good. Schmeichel also gives a worthy account of himself. He loves it. He is joyous come the end.
Fuck it. Never again. Be better Liverpool but be better knowing you have made it so much steeper. I am not in this to frame Manchester City’s brilliance. I am in this to win a league. It feels like 72 dropped in that context.
Fuck it. Beat Chelsea and have a look. But my God everything hurts and I’d like to go out forever and not in a good way.
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“I’m struggling to remember a Liverpool defeat I’ve been so vexxed by in a long time. They gifted three points to a side that had no hope at the start. That was gruesome, that.”
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— The Anfield Wrap (@TheAnfieldWrap) December 28, 2021
We’ve lost 2 league games and the world has ended? That’s what the Premier League is now – drop any points and you’re finished. If we beat Chelsea on Sunday suddenly all is well. Nonsense and hyperbole everywhere. Half the season to go. Everyone will drop points. We’ll be there at the business end. YNWA.
That’s the game now. City look capable of grinding out win after win. We don’t.
It won’t all be well though, we will be 12 behind before we even play Chelsea. And you’re right, that is what the PL is now. Because of Man City, you lose a couple of games and you have had it.
It’s not the defeat per se, but the manner of how it came about. A shambolic, Mack Sennett
slapstick of a performance…just not as funny.
No one thinks we won’t be there at the business end but it won’t he top. It’s not ‘only 2 defeats’ it’s also 5 draws. City don’t do draws. They lose one then go and win the next 13. This is the table were playing at. It’s 5 draws 2 loses in a season were Covid is gonna ravage many a weeks and the most expensively assembled squad in football history are more set up at dealing with it. They’re not bringing Milner on at 1 down. They’re not starting Milner and Morton at Spurs away. Of course anything can happen but winning at Chelsea and Etihad is now a must or have you not paid attention to City in the last 5 years?
If our attack is as shit as this with Mo and Mane, I cannot imagine how shit we’ll be when they’re in the AFCON.
It was practically as if the missed penalty completely blocked every player’s mind and train of thoughts and literally poured cement in everyone’s boot on the pitch.
Mo scores and this is a very different game because this is side that were set up to lose valiantly or at least limit the damage.
It was a weird performance from everyone as if we rather play 26th and now playing 28th and therefore we were fatigued
Because we weren’t swift enough we had no composure, no legs, bad decision making as if there’s no brains from any player to find the net or at least pickup a proper pass we were very shambolic.
It was a Sad day for LFC we were really poor all over pitch from every player.
We were really poor and the crowd capitalized on that plus they hated us with their feed the ******’s chants.
The fact that we were rubbish also emboldened them
What hurts the most is that still we had massive chances to change the game yet none were taken.
Long story short we we gifted three points to a side that had no hope at the start because we didn’t turn up we were not clinical enough in the final third up next is Sunday hopefully we play at our best on Sunday and push on from there.
Klop still believes in Ox who plays like a kid and is hopeless and starts him. Never learned a lesson.
I disagree Neil. Jota and mane were poor today. i would have pulled them. We had no imagination and the tempo was too slow. We probably got our rythmn messed up by not playing Vs Leeds. Salahs pen was not great, but hes only human. This hurts more cause Leicester are shite and we deserved 3 points just on missed chances alone.. we go again
Halfway point. 19 played. 2 defeats. Which is proper good.
That dominant City team also lost twice after 19 games. But the difference between City and Liverpool is that we draw too many games. Same reason we lose the League in 18/19.
I’m not mad about this game. We didn’t deserve it, we didn’t earn it. It’s one of them. My heart still hurts about the Brentford game or Brighton or 10-men Chelsea etc. We played well in those draws, sometimes in leading positions but couldn’t see the wins out.
In the second half of the season, there’s no more room for error. Probably need to win 17-18 matches from the remaining 19 games. Which is a sheer impossible task. But these Reds under Klopp know how to do the impossible.
Win the next game against Chelsea, by any means necessary. Then it looks a lot more hopeful again.
We were debating who comes off for Bobby, Sadio or Diogo. ‘Either or both, they’ve both been shite’. Instead NEITHER?! Also baffled that Fab went off instead of Hendo. We looked like the team that played yesterday. The subs seemed to make us even worse. As a few have said if it weren’t for Citehs billions, this wouldn’t matter so much. But you have to be 97% to beat them. Strange that winning the champs league is almost easier with them in your league!
I said it in the match ratings, TAA was dreadful. He is scouse so we can’t be honest about that.
Watch back what he does for their goal. And it wasn’t the only time he split the Red Sea down our RB flank so that Hendo and Matip (yellowed) are fucked.
When he is good -great, when he is bad, he is BAD.
The writing and podcasts all try and dress up the story about why LFC will likely not win the title.
Basically, we all know it’s down to the underinvestment in the squad.
It’s plain and simple!