Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 3 Southampton 1 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
SIXTEEN clear. Sixteen is loads.
But 16 could be seven when we kick off against Everton if Arsenal get their act together.
Hence why the scoreline at half time needed to be addressed urgently, because suddenly that could have been four and I had no interest in looking at David Moyes’s face in that context.
On the Monday morning after the Nottingham Forest defeat back in September, I got off the train at Moorfields and found myself in step with Liverpool legend David Fairclough and we chatted about the game.
“Too easy-ozey,” he said.
Easy-ozey. A spectacular old scouse phrase or perhaps Paisleyism. We’ll leave the etymology and instead luxuriate in it. It describes perfectly what it is meant to; it can probably only really be applied to football. Or perhaps the way I put IKEA furniture together.
It is the perfect description of that first half. Liverpool were far too easy-ozey in everything they did. It drove me mad. I have barely recovered now.
There is a league title to be won and they don’t give league titles out to easy-ozey outfits. Nothing is done yet. That The Reds have put themselves into this luxurious position is marvellous. But nothing is done yet; nothing is even done after that second half other than to get three more points on the board, take one more step forward towards the finish line they define.
I can take getting beat. I’m used, in so many areas, to getting beat. But I can’t handle getting beat because of being casual, because of being easy-ozey. In anything really. Nowhere should it be tolerated.
It had been a half time for anger. I am not in the Liverpool dressing room. Luckily. I would have lost my mind at the break. I sort of hope the manager did. There comes a point to demand and expect more.
Southampton had had a plan and been quite good. They had ability in wide areas and could stretch Liverpool. They had third man runners. But they were also 20th. And they had clear wobbles but Liverpool made nothing of it.
And then.
The second half was excellent. Andy Robertson isn’t easy-ozey in anything he does I suspect and it becomes his football team, the whole side driven on by the left-hand side. Robertson, Alexis Mac Allister, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez take the game to Southampton relentlessly and irresistibly. Trent Alexander-Arnold keeps hitting the big one, Harvey Elliott keeps the width and suddenly the pitch is too big for a spirited Southampton side.
It is, for 15 minutes, played at Robertson and Arnold’s tempo. It is, for 15 minutes, football from last season or from 2017-18, it is vertical and about second balls and breakdowns. It is football to break a team, not just stretch them. To bust them into smithereens. Southampton cannot cope with any part of it and this leads to a big bowl of Darwin Nunez.
It is suddenly his type of game too. Not “chaos” but direct. He wins flick ons, he turns the ball around corners, plays wall passes, makes Taylor Harwood-Bellis regret getting up this morning.
And gets a goal and wins a penalty. The Nunez thing is that you never know when it will come. But just maybe the answer is reaching this stage: “When you really need it”.
On Wednesday, we really needed it. Second half against Arsenal, we really needed it. Against Brentford, we really needed it. Today, we really needed it. There he was.
Harvey Elliott came on full of steam. He bristled and shone, looked full of power. He has a role to play in these coming weeks. He is going to be part of Liverpool winning trophies. Luis Diaz left it all out there too. He was marvellous second half.
I enjoyed there being six subs and wonder if that played into the half time big move; the manager knew he had three more in his pocket.
Mo Salah gets a brace of penalties. He lacks a bit of sharpness and this isn’t the best time for that. But you trust him in critical moments.
For the second penalty, Ibou Konate was down on his haunches. And then the net ripples and he screamed to himself. Just roared. And he wasn’t alone.
Liverpool decided not today. Not today. Not any day in our ground, not any day on our turf. It may happen, but it shouldn’t happen here and it shouldn’t happen through being easy-ozey.
A week closer to the Promised Land. And now three weeks off from the quest. A chance to recharge and contemplate.
But nothing is done. Don’t you dare kid yourself.
Take your warning, Liverpool. You don’t get a lot of them.
—
Often in these words you’ll see me say that the best Liverpudlians come from outside. Or that the club belongs to everyone if they want it to belong to them.
Today there was a celebration of life mass for my friend Bernard McCarthy in St Teresa’s, Donore Avenue in Dublin, followed by his burial.
Whenever I think of Bernard I think of him dancing on a table to Spandau Ballet’s Gold on the evening Divock Origi did the decent thing in the 96th minute against Everton. There he is, pointing and singing and stamping. The stamping is what stays with me, the percussive noise and force.
Today, watching the service remotely prior to the game, we heard of a life well lived. A work life, social life, home life lived to the full. The feet stamping down, the force of it, the joy of it. The relishing every moment of it all.
Through the service I was left to reflect on his family, his worldwide diaspora of friends of whom I am lucky to number, and left contemplating the sheer luck we have with this thing of ours, that it brings us together with such joy across seas and oceans.
Luck has left me standing so tall.
Stamp your feet. And look up.
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