We were hoping that the second half against Crystal Palace was just a blip, but sadly it wasn’t. This time we conceded six goals to Liverpool amidst plenty of headless chicken defending, and the confidence of the players looks totally shot.
We urgently needed to get back on track with a result in this game, but we didn’t know which version of Liverpool would turn up, after the strangely inconsistent season they’ve had so far. They had enjoyed big wins over Bournemouth, Rangers and our friends from Old Trafford, but have struggled otherwise, and had even failed to score away from home against anyone below them in the league.
So many fans were nervous about this game, but some of us thought we might get a result. Javi Gracia made two changes to the starting line-up. He bowed to the wishes of Luke Ayling’s many social media critics and rested him in favour of Kristensen, while Bamford’s latest injury was a calf problem, so Rodrigo was back in the side to lead the forward line.
As this was the nearest match to the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, the evening began with both captains laying wreaths in the shape of the number 97 in front of the Liverpool section of the crowd. And when the match started we paid Liverpool as much respect on the field as we had off it, with as negative a home performance as I can remember for a very long time.
Perhaps Gracia wanted to keep things tight, with the memory of last week’s thrashing still fresh, as we were content to sit deep and try to catch Liverpool on the break. And for the first 35 minutes it seemed to be working reasonably well, as Liverpool failed to give Meslier anything to do, and if anything we had the better of the chances.
The trouble was that Rodrigo was clearly struggling for fitness, and lacked the sharpness he had before his injury. He had a free header from an early free kick and would probably have scored if he’d sent it toward the near corner with power, but he flicked to the side that Alisson was covering, and the reds’ keeper made a comfortable save.
The Spaniard also sent an optimistic long-range shot wide of the post, and the other decent chance we created saw Sinisterra being played down the wing, but he had to shoot from a narrow angle after taking a poor touch, and sent it over the bar. But then came a controversial moment that changed the whole complexion of the game.
Firpo mis-controlled an attempt to deal with a long ball down the wing, and ended up whacking the ball against Alexander-Arnold, which the Liverpool man seemed to control with his arm. But the ref didn’t spot it and after a one-two Alexander-Arnold crossed for our one-time transfer target Gakpo to score from close range.
It’s a mystery why VAR didn’t intervene, but the Sky commentators suggested the handball was ‘too far back in the move’. If that’s true it was absolute nonsense, as that was the start of the move, and three passes later they had the ball in the net. That said, it’s stretching it to say that if the goal had been disallowed the whole of the rest of the match would have been completely different.
Leeds were stung by this setback and went charging forward, but McKennie lost possession, and Jota played an excellent through-ball to Mo Salah. Struijk hesitated before starting to track Salah’s run and by the time he did it was too late, and the Egyptian took advantage of the extra space to smash a fierce left-foot shot past Meslier to put Liverpool two in front.
Just before half time there was an annoying moment when Leeds worked their way into a promising position from a throw-in, only for play to be stopped when a spare ball was thrown onto the pitch from the visitors’ section of the crowd. The Liverpool players had stopped, but the ref should have remembered the famous beachball incident and played on, rather than deny us a shot on goal because their fans misbehaved.
At half-time the players might have been fired up by the injustice of their first goal, because we came out a little bit fired up, and pulled a goal back within a couple of minutes. Sinisterra took advantage of an error by Konate to dispossess the Liverpool defender and score with a neat chip over the advancing Alisson. This got the crowd going again, and for all of five minutes it looked like we were getting back into the match.
That was until Liverpool broke away again and restored their two goal advantage in the 52nd minute. This time it was Jones who played a superbly weighted through ball to find Jota outpacing our defence, and he slotted the ball just inside the near post. That goal deflated Leeds once again, though shortly afterwards we did have a VAR decision in our favour, when Salah quite rightly had a goal disallowed for offside.
Aaronson was close to pulling one back with a curling shot that clipped the outside of the post, but just as Gracia was about to make a couple of positive substitutions to try to salvage something from the game, Liverpool put it beyond our reach with a fourth goal. Koch was left struggling for pace as Jota went past him, and Gakpo played in Salah for the Egyptian’s second of the night.
Aaronson and the tiring Rodrigo were replaced by Rutter and Summerville, and while Summerville looked lively, our record signing has drawn plenty of flack for his rabbit in the headlights contribution. That said, it was asking a lot for him to turn things around at 4-1 down while Liverpool had all the momentum, and at one point he was surrounded by three of their players with none of ours offering any support.
And there were plenty of scapegoats at the other end of the field, with Roca and McKennie offering no cover to the back four, Firpo and Struijk all over the place and Meslier failing to command his goal. We were badly missing the injured Adams and will have to hope that Wöber will soon be fit enough to come off the bench. And despite his flaws, would Cooper’s leadership have been valuable at the back?
Speaking of injuries, Sinisterra hobbled off in the 77th minute, which is a worry when we need his creativity in the seven games to come. He was replaced by Forshaw, with Gnonto also coming on for Harrison. Apparently he wasn’t introduced earlier because he still isn’t fully fit himself, according to Gracia. But the biggest problem was that Liverpool had an array of attacking talent to bring off the bench, eager to show what they can do after spells on the sidelines.
And the visitors continued to demonstrate how vulnerable our defence is against swift attacking moves, with accurate passing on the floor. It was almost as if Jurgen Klopp had been watching the video of the Palace game and planning accordingly, and they completed the rout with late goals from Jota and Nunez.
At that point Meslier had conceded goals from all of the last eleven shots on target that he had faced, but at least he managed to break that run in injury time, if only because the ball hit him in the face. Shortly afterwards we had the final whistle to spare us from any further damage to our goal difference. Who would have thought at half-time in the Palace game that it would come to this after only another one and a half matches.
In the post-match analysis Jamie Carragher suggested that Gracia might even be relieved of his duties before the next game. I doubt it will come to that, if only because it took the club so long to appoint him, and there is hardly time to go through the whole rigamarole again with only seven games remaining. But that said, he doesn’t seem to be getting a grip on our defensive issues, and you can’t imagine him giving the players the rocket they need.
It’s difficult to see us getting a result at Fulham, even though Premier League rules will spare us from having to face Dan James. So the Leicester and Bournemouth games are looking crucial, as well as hoping that the other teams at the bottom continue to be as rubbish as they have been in recent weeks. Desperate times indeed.