Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Manchester United 4 Liverpool 3 in the FA Cup quarter final at Old Trafford…
LIVERPOOL get what they deserve.
I think this is important. No hard-luck stories here. For the first time this season Liverpool need to have a good, long think.
One hard-luck story – it is the end of a long run. It has been hard and arduous and it has taken it out of them. One hard-luck story. Being blunt is a teeny bit understandable.
But none others allowed. Not having it.
Liverpool start poorly, United tire and then Liverpool are 1-2 and actually sort of worth it. By 55 they are definitely worth it. By 65 it should be 1-3, but Liverpool only have themselves to blame. They only have themselves to blame.
The game was weird – Manchester United away should be a matter of everything and it will be on April 7th. Manchester United themselves are weird, a side without a shape, a side who appear to only be able to attack or defend, but never really do both in one movement. You go from facing up six of them to facing up none of them and carrying it without having to be particularly good.
Then you end up able to have a shot. The keeper is good, but shots are shots. Then you start again.
Liverpool end up the game’s dominant force, but do nowhere near enough with it. If I felt they had the nous I would wonder if Manchester United were rope-a-doping Liverpool, but they are themselves dopes.
The game should have been killed. It just should have been. Liverpool under Klopp have rarely made it easy for themselves and it felt like that, the idea we’d have to show graft and character rather than just ease away.
When the camera cuts to the manager he has the good grace to look as vexed as I am by the decisions being made by his side second half. The game is there to be killed and Liverpool instead resuscitate the thing through their own slack behaviour.
I respect Manchester United, seemingly more than Manchester United have managed to respect themselves recently, and Old Trafford gets to be a thing. They can keep an inferior side in it the way Anfield has managed down the years. Get through a series of fives and stay in touch and just see. It’s a way to play football, a way to live.
But that’s why you kill the game. Put them to bed. Make them fractious with one another.
All the subs felt late and Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz’s races looked run from about 80. But the manager thinks they are about to win it.
In the end they lose it. Liverpool are daft again and again, daft for the first equaliser, daft for the second. For the winner they are beyond daft. Why don’t they have one more man back? Why don’t they just end the attack? It’s a great finish from Amad, Conor Bradley actually does alright, but watching it unfold was like watching Sideshow Bob with the rakes.
No one does a quadruple and days like today are why. It isn’t a reason to fall out of love with these lads of ours, not a reason to doubt they can’t go on and deliver the league title we all crave, but is instead a timely reminder they are a work in progress.
The game was the least important remaining, however much of an emotional maelstrom it became. The game was merely a warm up for April 7th, no matter what it means to them. The game gets to be a video, an improvement, a reason for growth.
Because it was there to be won and in all the dominating Liverpool forgot the winning. How unlike them.
They can have this one, however it feels going to bed tonight, but no more. We’ve bigger fish to fry so we need to make our nets bigger, but the gaps in the netting smaller. Tonight a fish squirmed away from our grasp. Not again.
International break comes at a good time. Recharge, reconvene and remember what we are.
Liverpool get what they deserve. It happens. But it can’t happen again.
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Wish mancs had got gakpo.
He has the required commitment levels to fit right in there
Summed it up Neil, my thoughts and feelings exactly.
Frustrated not because we lost but because we could and should have won.
There’s nothing as graceless as the one-eyed supporter trying to masquerade as an impartial football pundit, especially when it comes to supporters of Liverpool and United.
One of the things I learned from one of Britain’s greatest ever sportswriters, Neville Cardus, is to love the game first and appreciate what both sides bring to the contest. In his case it was about cricket, and to read his articles and books was to learn to rise above the pettiness and bias of the typical supporter and view the game as a whole – it gave me a much greater appreciation for the game and a greater awareness and admiration for all that opposing players brought to bear – to deny a great innings from the likes of Lara or Tendulkar was to deny yourself the joy of the game itself, even if your own team was bearing the brunt of it.
Writers like Atkinson will never get that, and in essence it isn’t worth a moment of anyone’s time reading his articles because there’s next to nothing in them that doesn’t reek of a blinkered perspective and an unwillingness to concede the quality of other teams. As with this article, Liverpool don’t lose a game, they simply fail to win it. It’s immature writing to the point of childishness.
>The game was weird
That was pretty much my summary too, that was a _weird_ game.
First 20 or so we were terrible but largely got away with it, 25-80 i felt we were playing exactly like we should be but somehow didn’t get any goals out of it.
Then a couple of really uncharacteristic defensive errors undid everything :(
I find it weird saying that we have a goalscoring problem when we’ve scored so many goals this year but i feel like we really do in some situations. We’ve been unable to convert a _lot_ of draws where we were dominant into wins this season, ultimately because the chances of our front three are often squandered
Why would one come to a site called The Anfield Wrap – which generally has matters LFC as its remit – expecting impartial punditry on a Liverpool game against their biggest rivals after a disappointing result? That’s a bit like opening a packet of Monster Munch and wondering why they’re all a different shape to Hula Hoops, then writing a letter of complaint to Mr Munch demanding their snack be more round in future.
(And I say that as someone who thinks that were they a neutral – if anyone *can* be a neutral where Man United are concerned, especially if they have more than passing memories of the 90s – they would find the goal-red card combo that ended the game extremely funny.)
Atkinson is a glorious writer, writing about his glorious team, not any other team but his glorious team. He’s not myopic, he’s in love.
Thank you Neil, on point as ever. At least the media quadruple nonsense is over. We move on, there’s a league title to be won.
We can’t beat anybody good. Dropped 12 out of 15 to the other top 4 this year (!) plus two to the Mancs, and now this. Flat track bullies with a shite mentality. Admit it.
Shite mentality? I can’t agree with that. I thought your first post was fair but the second?? From one Scott to another- have you actually been watching the same team as the rest of us? Maybe try putting some ice in it next time… ;-)