Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 2 Wolves 0 in the 2023-2024 Premier League season…
THE golden rule of this post-match writing work has always been to never write them before a ball has been kicked.
There was an urge this week to cheat. After all, what was going to happen, really? Game, palaver, Klopp.
But that urge was suppressed because of part three. Klopp.
He always has his own agenda, has his own ideas, has his way of being. And he always exists in and inhabits the moment. The moment is everything with him. It has been part of the magic.
Another part of the magic has been how he wants everyone to be the best version of themselves. He wants to create the circumstances where that is constantly possible. He wants that for everyone. For his players. For the team around him. And for us. The supporters.
He has wanted that since the day he arrived, not just the best for us, but that we be the version of who we can be. And that we help one another in being the best version of who they can be too.
That didn’t stop today. So there weren’t tears, there was instead an enormous call to arms. This does not stop. This cannot stop. Because if it stops then he has failed. We have failed, but he has too – his intention has always been to bequeath the best possible club to his successor and we are part of that. We are active, we have been active and we remain active.
He was right to point that out, that he didn’t change us from doubters to believers, but instead created the circumstances which made that easier. We had to do that ourselves. We had to be active. We had to be alive and to make change.
Change isn’t something inherently bad. It isn’t something to be scared of. Part of why he chimes deeply with me, and presumably with you, is because he is a rare voice in this increasingly desolate country which can speak and chooses to speak with optimism from a place of reason, who chooses to speak progressively and without fear.
He backs himself and his people, and, crucially, he backs you and he backs me and I can’t think of anyone else’s backing I want more.
All things. Must pass. Nothing lasts forever, nothing good and nothing bad. All the things we have experienced over the past nine years are ours to remember, relive, reflect on and celebrate. And to ensure it does not stop. This cannot stop. Not for me, not for you and not for all of us. Not for Liverpool.
Often in these scenarios – the immensely emotional – the game itself can be a challenge.
Not today, though. This isn’t hard going. Liverpool’s possession game is very strong. The captain is being the captain and is having one of those games where he has decided he is going to roam all over the park and bollock anyone who doesn’t pass to him. He was a scream, Virgil van Dijk.
Wolves are defensively robust in the first half. They are playing to absorb Liverpool’s pressure and to kick through the middle. After 20 minutes pass with no goals, you wonder whether this is a strategy that will put Liverpool again a goal behind, as it feels like we have been too often this season, but then the daft and dangerous red card challenge occurs and it is likely to be all over bar the shouting.
The opening goal is a cracker. Harvey Elliott picks out Alexis Mac Allister, who heads home delicately before the scramble gets the second.
Second half, Jose Sa makes some very strong saves. Liverpool players strike the ball with both effort and abandon, knowing nothing turns on this result and that Anfield would love to see them score. Sa, though, does not oblige and Liverpool yet again don’t kill a game.
That doesn’t matter, though. The game is theirs.
If there is a slight shakiness in the red ranks, it’s in the midfield. Waturo Endo loses out in physique terms to some of the Wolves players, who are physical in the centre and like tent poles at the back.
By the time injury time at the end of the match is called, nobody cares. We are singing Jürgen Klopp’s song and we know we are all done. Good done. Happy grief. Sweet sorrow.
A sign in the lower Kenny unveiled in the final minutes just said, ‘He said so.’
Yes. He said so. He did what he said. How rough is the world outside Anfield that we feel someone achieving what they said is remarkable, is wonderful.
Children in Merseyside tonight deserve some people to deliver what they said for them. There are a bloody lot of things that need to be done for people. But in our corner of L4 tonight, we applauded a man who delivered what he said and this is all why he sticks out like a sore thumb. Why he chimes in this era which lacks authenticity and decency and honesty.
He wanted to change things and he did. He wanted us to believe in him and we did. Tonight he told Anfield that he believes in us. If we want to achieve things in the future, we can never forget that lesson.
It’s hard to resist the bait and switch of “the big man is the best of us etc etc” and then have it be about Joel Matip, but we shall resist by virtue of saying that Joel Matip was indeed the best of us. He has been an integral part of a team which won everything and those integral qualities have been everywhere around the place given the way his teammates and manager speak about him.
It’s been a truly great Liverpool career and therefore a truly great career and whatever happens next he deserves the very, very best.
Thiago Alcantara has in so many ways been my favourite. I want him to be happy. He plays football like a man who has jokes. I want smiles and laughs.
The heart swells at the sight of so many of the coaching staff leaving to start anew. It’s sad obviously, but I hope they are excited. I hope they are emisseries too, chatting about the way they do it in Liverpool, the way they love it in Liverpool.
But it all means we get to start anew too. New journey, new memories, new miracles. We get to put a show on for a new crew, a crew who should be excited because they are about to get to do the best thing they will do in their whole lives. Imagine being them, seeing all this, this thing of ours and being about to take responsibility for it all.
Because it needs responsibility. It needed it throughout, needed the greatest care to have the greatest careless moments, needed responsibility to drive our hedonism, has needed them to need more than want and want for all time with their collective skills. They wanted to win the league more than me and that is why I got what I wanted more than anything – to win the league.
And now it changes. Now the guiding force and some of the supporting force has gone. But not really; we know that. We know how this works. Just because someone isn’t here, doesn’t mean they aren’t really here. Just because only 3,000 can be in an away end or 60,000 in Anfield doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of us amassed together in a grand spiritual space, yearning and loving and wanting our players and one another to be the best versions of ourselves. That’s how this works. How it has always worked. And how he has reminded us it has worked.
Just because he isn’t *there*, just there, opposite me at Anfield, doesn’t mean he isn’t *here*. Because the way this works is that he always will be. You are always here, too. We are always here together and that we now includes him – the greatest living Liverpudlian. All the best ones come from outside. Another part of the magic.
Go well, big man. Nobody could have asked for any more.
All my love.
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The final few paragraphs here really capture it – beautiful stuff, Neil. I’m just one of the global millions, watching it on telly, tears in my eyes. And I can tell you, as I glide deeper into middle age, it’s his connectivity and his light that has brought me all the way back to the same kind of blind belief and bonkers enthusiasm I had for this club when I was bemoaning losing the Littlewoods in 1987 and revelling in the glorious vintage of the subsequent season. Maybe this time around, sharing all the memories with my son, it’s been better again – the very best of times.
Jurgen, forever one of ours.
Another season has passed Neil and I am very grateful. For your eloquence and for connecting up the dots. I read every one you know and I have done for years now. It means a lot as I live overseas but you keep me connected often viscerally in your writing to a very particular part of home for me. Thankyou.
Neil, you write so beautifully on our relationship with Jurgen, the club and each other. You offer everyone an opportunity to connect with the complete abundance and limitless nature of the best of us.
It’s only about the present moment because it’s only in the present moment that you listen and are given the clarity of thought that you offer us in your inspired writing. Thank you.
We are and have always been connected. Jurgen reminds us all through his present and loving demonstration. And we remember again.
So grateful for the love you bring to this celebration of remembering. This clear mind, this big heart. This love. Together.
I read what you wrote and then i cried.
Neil,
Great to meet you and John and Craig is Pittsburgh tonight. Your welcome for buying the first round, helping with the furniture, and my brother for helping with the sound.
Thanks for an awesome show, it was everything I could hope for and more.
With love,
Anton