Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 0 Las Palmas 0 in the final game of The Reds 2024-2025 pre-season…
HAVING written some of this in advance of the final whistle, my worry is it will read far angrier than I intend it to.
I am not cross; football no longer really, other than awful things, has the capability of making me cross. It would be better to read the below as the absence of a positive capability feeling stark.
What I mean is that I think football has such a capacity to bring and share such joy that I want Liverpool to grab every opportunity and feel every opportunity missed keenly. After all, we may all die tomorrow.
If Liverpool play at Anfield I want there to be some magic. Or the ground conditions for magic and the first of them is a crowd. Laboratory conditions may suit our rivals but, in all the ways, they don’t suit us and they never ever should.
In that context I feel like Ben Doak has hard lines. Slaloming round full backs we have seen. The fact there isn’t quite the end product we have seen. But today felt a little different from both flanks.
He is actually unfortunate and nothing grabs an opposition defence like a crowd being up when an attacker receives the ball. It can change a structure. Doak never gets that and instead finds himself playing roulette. It’s a bit more roulette than grey-beards may like, but nothing outrageous.
Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott are bright, but nobody else truly is. This makes the brightness a problem. They are passing to runs which should be made. Wataru Endo again looks like it just doesn’t suit him.
Ibou Konate does enough to suggest it isn’t quite the lock for central defence next weekend, while Andy Robertson looks pretty fit and comes closest to scoring. If the very existence of the game suits any Liverpool player the answer is Robertson in the long run.
That Sepp van den Berg doesn’t contribute feels significant. That only Trey Nyoni of the young players is the only one who has grabbed the attention across all of pre-season also feels significant. Liverpool will end up running with 24 or 25 but there will be no alarms and no surprises.
It’s mad to think of that, but write them down – as it stands it is three goalkeepers, eight defenders, four deep-lying midfielders, five for the attacking sections either side of the forwards not counting Doak and then lastly two forwards. Zubimendi would make that 23 and then two more gets us to 25 without counting Nyoni.
The key thing about the game in general is that it always will be social. So while nothing about it is memorable, I may remember me, Rob and Steve booking hotels, or Rob and Laura and Chris talking about folk music, or me and Robbie talking about sausage rolls. This nonsense, this ephemera, is part of what football is and I regret nothing.
But it just has to be better and more than this and there being a crowd would lead to that. We know that. And it would help the players, help Liverpool’s players.
The message to Liverpool, a Liverpool who have got so much right this preseason, on and off the pitch. A Liverpool who have been not just a credit to themselves, but a credit to us especially while the fascists ran wild. A Liverpool who have understood what the wider wants are from them is this: don’t do this again.
Liverpool playing at Anfield is an event. It could always be someone’s first game, could be a whole new adventure or could be the same old yesterday, but it is always a thing to look forward to, always a pleasure, definitely a privilege.
Don’t mess about. Don’t remind us of COVID and don’t take moments away. Closed doors are fine, but closed doors need to be actually closed.
Ultimately, fuck silent discos. We had enough of them. We had too many. The night after 30 years of not winning the league was a silent disco; the greatest night. The night we waited for, the night we never moved away in order to ensure we could have. That night, our night, a silent disco.
No more. Never again. I want all my discos to be as loud as possible. I will stand by the speaker if I have to.
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