What Made Liverpool’s Loss To Arsenal Harder To Stomach

by | Feb 6, 2024 | app, Featured Writing, Footie, Karl Coppack's Column | 0 comments

What Made Liverpool's Loss To Arsenal Harder To Stomach

A bad day at the office is understandable for a Liverpool side so ahead of the curve, but Sunday’s loss to Arsenal was still hard to take…

 

”SHOW me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser” – Alan Johnson, JLB Credit

Yeah, that was hard to take. The Reds couldn’t get going, got something they didn’t really deserve and then threw it away anyway. A bad day at the office. It’s important to keep perspective and take it out on Burnley. Be the bigger man now. You can’t win them all.

I hope Martin Odegaard is sent on a Speed Awareness course once a week for the next two years. All that ‘getting the crowd going’ after six minutes when they were louder than they’ve ever been just makes me want to keck.

I know, I know. Show the Corinthian spirit and take it on the chin. Sportsmanship. A bit of class.

I hope Anthony Taylor drops his car keys down a grid and realises his spares are in the glove box. I’d like to be there when it happens. I’d like to ask him why Gabriel can wrestle Darwin Nunez to the ground with impunity, but Ibrahima Konate can’t do the same on Havertz.

That’s churlish, isn’t it? I should be looking at the bigger reasons. Virgil van Dijk, the slow start and being nowhere near their box for huge parts of the game.

Credit to the captain. He came out to face the telly people and held his hands up. He’ll hurt for a few days and then reset himself. It’s just three points. That’s all.

Mind you, tell that to Mikel. The Legoheaded shiny-shoed gimp. I’m surprised he wasn’t smelting his own Premier League trophy under his seat in injury time. All he’s done there is been nice to Manchester City.

Come on, Karl. You’re better than that. Context.

No one likes to lose, though. I’m fully with Johnson on this point.

We got what we deserved. Too slow, maybe too tired and dragged out of position too often. Arsenal constantly put us in places we didn’t want to be. Credit to Rice and Jorginho, they were excellent in their midfield. There’ll always be games like that and I can’t see Virgil having one of those again. He’ll learn from that. It might even do him some good.

Maybe if Darwin and Dom Szoboszlai had started… I don’t know.

But it is all about context. Two defeats all season, one of them dubious at best, and the big aways done. If City have the advantage now it’ll be a straight shootout on March 9, which will probably be March 10 by the time the telly people have had a word.

We should have Mo and the two full-backs fully fit by then, so let’s not get too down-hearted. It’s three points, that’s all. Don’t let it get into our heads.

You’d think Martinelli would be able to grow a full moustache by now, wouldn’t you?

I really like Martinelli. He’s unplayable at times. I was made up when they took him off, but bearing in mind that I was equally annoyed that they had gold Adidas stripes on their kits instead of red ones – which is, y’know, their club colours and that – it’s fair to say this is hardly the place for reasoned debate.

A bad day all round. I had to watch it on Sky and the only smile I managed was when Jamie Carragher told Odegaard to get off the pitch when he was pissing around with the photographer at the end. A grunt of agreement from Keane.

What is it with North London teams and their on-field antics after a win? Back in September, Spurs would have gone full Argentina 1978 ticker tape if they’d have thought of it.

It was just annoying when it was sold as Arsenal’s return to the title race. All credit to them for the win — seriously — but this season is about just two teams and only one of them played on Sunday. The other won last night but they’d already won the weekend anyway. That’s the biggest frustration.

But now it’s all about Burnley. Having no midweek game for once helps. I hope Virgil stares at a photo of David Datro Fofana every night before he goes to bed, like Rocky does to Ivan Drago’s pic in Rocky IV and then tears it up at 2.30pm next Saturday.

Yeah, hard to take but you can’t be reasoned and placid all the time. I hate losing. I’m just no good at it and it’s worse when you can only look at your own team when it comes to blame. One game too far. It’s time to put it behind us, re-group and make everyone suffer.

Virgil’s great. He wasn’t on Sunday but he will be again.

I don’t like losing. Let’s try not to do that again.

Remember the Johnson.

Karl

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