Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Aston Villa 2 Liverpool 2 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
I’VE spent the season sympathetic about the very idea of being Liverpool’s central forward.
It’s a thankless task. A role hard to play.
It is all give and no take. It has been that.
But tonight one Liverpool centre forward missed a very good chance at 1-1. One Liverpool centre forward missed a great chance at 2-2.
It’s just not good enough. There are no nice lines or clever angles or shoulder shrugging results. Liverpool draw tonight because lads whose job it is to kick it in the goal fail to do so.
These are the defining moments of the contest. There is nothing beyond this. The game we obsess about is phenomenally low scoring.
Tonight could break your spirit. It shouldn’t. Liverpool remain nicely clear. Liverpool remain better than their rivals. Liverpool are the best side.
But Liverpool are not magnificent and Liverpool are not infallible. Liverpool are a long way from perfect. That Liverpool could currently be the best team in the world doesn’t speak highly for the level being outrageous, instead it acts as a reminder; a need for humility.
Liverpool, eventually, this evening dissolve into a list of footballers who should blam it into the goal. This is also a need for humility.
Dear lord, that was stressful. And if you think you are stressed, imagine how Arne Slot feels tonight. He answers the usual ‘how do you feel’ type questions on the TV afterwards with admirable control. It’s a ridiculous question.
The captain, too, says no. He isn’t content with a point, through his teeth. He expresses the only thing he can after a game that tense, that of course, it would have been preferable to win. It would have been preferable for Darwin Nunez to score the goal he missed.
For 97 minutes, Liverpool soak up pressure from an ignited Aston Villa. They are shaken about at the back and Villa’s newly acquired players have pace and power going forward. Rashford and Asensio link well with Watkins, and on the face of it, Villa have made a canny choice to rescue Rashford gaining his experience as well as his underlying talent at this stage in the season.
Curtis Jones was excellent. Ibou Konate was excellent. But the usual suspects, they were not as excellent as we would like.
The first half is not Liverpool FC at their best. We don’t get control of this game and find it hard to break out. We are defensively shaky. Is it tiredness? Ryan Gravenberch, just a few games ago, was powering the midfield, but tonight, he and Alexis Mac Allister are not in control.
Villa work out our midfield. Curtis Jones doesn’t interfere enough as they career into the space we have left them.
This is the nature of the stress. Individually our players are tired, collectively the tactics were less effective than they needed to be tonight. And yes, we missed clear goal-scoring opportunities.
It’s funny, all of this. I have seen excellent Liverpool sides not win league titles. I have adored better sides than this, or sides against greater stuffing, or sides for whom the act of scoring is even tougher. But this side, even tonight, even when battering my wildest dreams, could still fulfill everything we could ever want.
So let’s draw a line under everything. From now until the bitter end should we get more points than Arsenal?
That is the only question worth asking. I thought Andy Robertson was splendid today. I always enjoy van Dijk. I disagree with the manager’s decision to sub Trent Alexander-Arnold, because he had the pace of the game but also because we’d have Conor Bradley for the next.
Alexis Mac Allister was in the wars. But then so was I. So were you. We want one thing so much.
Is tonight a step forward? It depends on what happens next. Six points from the next two and Liverpool are in great shape. But. But.
But this hasn’t happened to us before. Seeing it out, altogether. It is an act of care so it begins to be about love. And I trust you where love is concerned. After Sunday we have seven home and four away. Win Sunday, show love Sunday, then I trust you.
I’ve spent the season sympathetic. I expect the best Liverpool from here.
The best ones.
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Thanks Neil as ever your words have lifted me a little. However I wished you’d put ‘when’ we get more points than Arsenal rather than should! I need your positivity!! Nunez and Jota FFS just put the ball in the net.
I watched a re-run of the match having not seen it live so I managed to avoid all the angst and stress.
We were easily the better side but bearing in mind that Villa haven’t lost at home in the League since 24 August ( v Arsenal ) it is not a bad result. Villa also drew at Arsenal so our main rivals and ourselves both took 4 points from Villa.
The main positive for me was that we played much better than in recent weeks.