Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 2 Wolves 1 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
FUCKING hell.
It’s unorthodox reportage this as an opener, I grant you.
But fucking hell.
The whole enterprise shifted from one you’d just take to dangling over the abyss.
Look – I’ve known the abyss. I’ve known it deeper and more fraught. So have you. But the sudden realisation about any given abyss is they all share one quality – the idea of being plunged into endless darkness. One doesn’t, on the way down, go “well this abyss doesn’t have anywhere near the same annoyances as ones brought about by Ilkay Gundogan”. The thing about abysses while plunging, is they are all much of a muchness. Like Drake’s discography.
Wolverhampton Wanderers are a good side between both boxes. This was the case when we went to Molyneux earlier this season. They worked us for 20 minutes first half, but couldn’t quite land a blow. Today they work us and work us second, but still don’t land the blow outside of Cunha’s brilliance. Across the pitch they have players capable of winning their one-v-one duel. Except both penalty areas and it is this which gets Liverpool out of dodge in the overall reckoning.
But the blows they don’t land hurt. The blows they don’t land need dodging. The issue is exactly this – the 17th best squad and best team in the Premier League have really good players and you try to stay in first gear against them at your peril.
In the end, Liverpool need a stupid penalty to earn the points. In the end, Liverpool are hanging on and, in the end, Liverpool are having to graft like no one’s business.
In the end, the defining moments of the game are those which stop Liverpool going 3-0. The Mo Salah disallowed goal and the Diogo Jota penalty taken away. Both would have meant this writing was about Liverpool’s professionalism. The same can be said for Michael Oliver’s timekeeping on Wednesday. Half a minute less and we’re praising The Reds to the skies. This here is the demonstration of fine margins.
But this too is the reality of fine margins, of letting fine margins into your lives. Liverpool seemed good at not allowing that earlier this season. Even a game like Chelsea at home didn’t feel like this, like everything was on the line and the worst was just there. We need to reconceive of fine margins and maybe make them less fine.
There are moments and seasons where you need to work out what it is you want. I am convinced, with the greatest of love and respect, there is a solid chunk of Liverpool supporters who would be happy with a successful chase for top four and a cup run every season. Because that doesn’t bring about the abyss. Doesn’t elicit a moment where it feels like your soul will exit through your shoes, and then your feet will follow.
What I want, what I want the wider we to want is this. But fucking hell.
There is a thing with the opening goal where you get the reminder how thankless it is to be the number nine in this Liverpool team. Diogo Jota does brilliantly on the halfway line and launches a whole attack. Luis Diaz misses him out to find Mo Salah and then Mo Salah, possibly accidentally, misses him out to put the ball into space between the goalkeeper and Diaz and the latter forces it home. Diaz will go on to win the penalty.
The point being that for weeks, months, Diaz’s contribution to key moments has waned while “leading the line”. One game back playing left wing and he looks priceless again. Wins the game for Liverpool. And Diogo Jota, a player who is the rawest output, suddenly has none.
Being fair, he should have had more, as per the above. And being critical, Darwin Nunez should have offered more sheer shoulder to the grindstone after coming on. But being honest, at the minute playing number nine for Liverpool in this moment is the toughest gig in showbusiness.
They get in at the half flattered, but nowhere near as flattered as they will be. That said if you want to score you have to shoot and Wolves can’t quite manage that and that fact in essence is their doom and Liverpool’s salvation.
Jarrel Quansah has a good second half. Virgil van Dijk stays alive, the muckier it gets the more Andy Robertson contributes. Wataru Endo comes on and the game is exactly the one that suits him, suits his moment. He concedes freekicks, wins freekicks, is just freekicks and time.
You play games of football against two forces. One is the opponent. The other is the clock. Today became the clock more than the opponent. Their quality between both boxes, but lack of it in them, meant they were a blunt instrument knocking a door down. However, the clock means at some point the instrument must be put down. At some point, it stops. Tick tock.
Fucking hell, Liverpool. Fucking, fucking hell.
A bad day at the office. But there can’t be many more.
Seven clear, though. Thirteen to play. There is another clock ticking, another scoreboard to manage. Time bends our way.
Fucking hell. We don’t know we’re born.
Nick Drake’s discography!
Er, it says Drake, not Nick Drake.
Do you know Nick Drake’s discography?
Big up the crowd managed to override the anxiety and put in a good performance while the team put in a shite performances but Endord’ it out to see it home,