Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after West Ham United 0 Liverpool 5 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
YOU can’t keep him out of the action.
The best thing about how Mo Salah could right now be the best player in the world, could well have been the best player in the world full stop since he rocked up here is that fact…
You can’t keep him out of the action.
It is the most spectacular thing. Today, he should probably score at least one more. I reckon he thinks he should score two more. But it doesn’t matter how influential he is in the first half, he is more influential in the second. It doesn’t matter how influential he was on one Sunday in London, he is as influential the week after.
He shows and is found. He shows and he battles. He shows and shows genius. Not flashes of genius, but genius. What he is currently doing is phenomenal. He is a phenomenon. It feels almost boring to write it again, but he is the greatest player I have been fortunate enough to watch. He makes me gasp and laugh and roar almost every week. He is the greatest living Liverpudlian and like most of the true contenders for that crown he comes from the outside.
Elsewhere – he might not have been man of the match. Genuinely. He may not have been the best footballer on the pitch. That could have been Alexis Mac Allister. It is the consummate midfield performance from him. He wins every battle and moves every ball perfectly. When it needs to go fast, it goes fast. When it needs to go sideways, it goes sideways. When it just needs to be won, well, there: that.
The pictures in MacAllister’s head are always ten seconds ahead and he leaps and he leaps and he leaps. Last season, he reached a plane of existence few in the country could live with from January to April and he is there again. The job now is keeping him there. Keeping him at that plane.
Who else? Well. Obviously, the captain. He is the finest player you could ever conceive of playing his position. He is strong and certain and the funniest thing that happens most games now is when he decides he is going centre forward, but today he was unlucky not to score. His skill is exceptional; that of a number 10 in 1997. When someone acts like football isn’t what it used to be, remember that. He plays centre back for Liverpool.
Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota all contribute in the most obvious way again, but Diaz is outstanding amongst the tallest flowers in the country. He opens the scoring by being the brightest, by showing gumption. His brain ticks the whole while. Jota will soon make his mark earlier. And Gakpo is having a ball currently. He looks all of his frame and more.
Their keeper played well. Their best player played well. But they had no answer. No answer to either full back. To Curtis Jones. To Wataru Endo. To everything Liverpool threw at them and then, unfortunately, Liverpool didn’t stop throwing. It was relentless and the best part of this is that relentless is what Liverpool will need to be on the road to have the league table continue to bend to their will by mid February.
Liverpool have scored 14 in their last three games, two away, two in the capital where the football doesn’t matter as much but the show does; supporters going club to club to see Jimmy Greaves. Well, this is the show. This is the whole fucking show. We are, right now, the only show in town. And Jimmy Greaves plays right wing for us.
This needs to continue. Right now Liverpool only have a game in hand on Nottingham Forest, but significant points advantage on their London rivals and the table looks drop dead gorgeous. The maths look drop dead gorgeous. Mo Salah looks drop dead gorgeous and tonight the city looks drop dead gorgeous in the December night.
This needs to continue. We are the best side in the country. We should decide where the finish line is. We will decide where the finish line is.
You can’t keep us out of the action because we are the action.
All the best for the new year.
All my love.
Into these.
Download The Anfield Wrap’s free app for Liverpool FC podcasts, video and writing all in one place…
