Daniel’s Debrief: Newcastle 1-2 Liverpool

And just when you think you’ve seen it all, that happens. Football, eh. Bloody hell.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that that’s one of the best wins I’ve ever seen. And certainly one of the hardest-earned.

In the absence of Ibrahima Konate, I think the manager makes the right choice to play Joel Matip over Joe Gomez. Matip is a good ball-player and tends to be trusted more in the big games, I also think Jurgen Klopp sees Gomez predominantly as a right-back these days.

He starts Wataru Endo at 6, as expected, which allows him to play Alexis Mac Allister as an 8. Diogo Jota is dropped in favour of Cody Gakpo. This is going to sound like the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever heard but I really was calling for Darwin Nunez to start in the days building up to this game. Newcastle’s centre-backs struggle with movement and he offers that much more than Gakpo does.

Liverpool actually start reasonably well in the opening exchanges but soon found themselves on the back foot. The narratives were written early on with the Trent Alexander-Arnold/Anthony Gordon battles.

The first one, Alexander-Arnold gets thrown into touch. The right-back then picks up the ball and launches it back on the field. Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes then surround John Brooks, demanding that Alexander-Arnold is booked. Quite how John Brooks looks at that and thinks that the one who should be booked is Alexander-Arnold is genuinely staggering.

The second one is a bit daft from Alexander-Arnold, particularly on a yellow. If he’s not already on a booking, the ref would’ve booked him, and in isolation, that moment probably deserved another yellow. For me, Brooks bottles it because he knows he fucked up for the first one.

He has a hideous first half an hour, does Trent. But then, so do Liverpool. The only positive bit of play in that period comes from Luis Diaz, who embarks on a stunning mazy dribble, taking on Kieran Trippier and then forcing a near-post save out of Nick Pope. Diaz is playing at a very high level so far this season and his dribbling screams prime Eden Hazard. An impossibly difficult winger to stop.

Aside from that moment, the Reds are scrappy and losing battles across the park. Endo and Mac Allister struggle early on, and Newcastle’s midfield trio of Guimaraes, Joelinton and particularly Sandro Tonali are superb. They are all over Liverpool’s trio who just can’t live with them.

Then comes the goal. Mohamed Salah plays a normal pass to Alexander-Arnold and though it’s on his left foot, he absolutely should be controlling it, and 999 times out of a thousand, he does.

This time, though, he allows it to go straight under him, and he presents Gordon with a one-on-one. It’s a tidy finish and we’re 1-0 down.

Then comes the red card. For me, it’s the right decision. Regarding the DOGSO, we can’t be questioning whether Alexander Isak would’ve successfully controlled the ball or not. You’re then bringing into the conversation how competent the attacker is, which is ludicrous. You’d be sending people off for fouls on Erling Haaland or Harry Kane, but not for fouls on Neal Maupay.

Virgil Van Dijk’s foul actually comes about because of Newcastle once again vertically playing through Liverpool with relative ease. Alexander-Arnold, in the knowledge that he’s one foul away from a red card of his own, doesn’t get close enough to Gordon and Endo should stick a leg out to cut out the through ball. Endo was way out of his depth yesterday I thought.

It’s rash and poor defending from Van Dijk. What I will say is that, perversely, Liverpool would’ve actually been better off had he made the foul in the box, as it would’ve been a penalty but not a red card, because of the double jeopardy rule.

The manager brings Joe Gomez on. I thought he did extremely well, playing on the left side of defence, which he’s not used to. What surprises me is the decision to take off Diaz rather than Gakpo, which seemed the obvious option to me.

In keeping Gakpo on, he’s thinking that we’re not going to see much of the ball, so he wants his best ball retainers on the park for when we actually do have it, but I’d have tactically gone a bit different and looked to play entirely on the counter with the pace of Salah and Diaz out wide, rather than having Salah isolated up top.

For me, the latest in an increasingly long line of bizarre Klopp substitutions.

Having bottled sending Alexander-Arnold off due to a previous awful decision and then sending off Van Dijk soon after - correctly in my mind - Brooks then goes on a mad one for ten minutes, allowing Newcastle to foul whoever they want without a hint of a consequence.

Joelinton makes four fouls in a nine-minute period in the first half. Four. In nine minutes. He somehow manages to escape a booking. Guimaraes makes four fouls in the game, no booking. Quite simply atrocious refereeing from the man who didn’t think that Tyrone Mings daggering Gakpo’s chest at Anfield in May was worthy of a card of any colour.

Liverpool do so well to get to half-time at 1-0, and that would’ve been the target after the red card. The main reason the score remains as it is though is the monster that is Alisson Becker.

The save from Miguel Almiron is ridiculous. It’s audacious. It’s not normal. No-one should be that good. The reflex reaction, and the strength to keep such a clean, powerful strike out are genuinely incredible. To then have the presence of mind and speed of thought to claw away the ball for the corner makes the whole passage of goalkeeping even better.

I never thought I’d see a better keeper at Liverpool than Pepe Reina. The Spaniard was brilliant and largely very consistent. And I don’t mean this as any disrespect to him, who, again, was a top keeper, but Alisson has taken goalkeeping at Liverpool to a whole new level.

That was the sliding doors moment in the game. If that goes in - which it does against every goalkeeper in the world bar Alisson and maybe Jan Oblak - then it’s 2-0 against ten men and game over. 

Eddie Howe said it was the best save he’s seen in his life. For me, for you, for us Liverpool fans, it’s just the latest in Alisson’s showreel - Arkadiusz Milik in 2018, Teemu Pukki in 2020, Dele Alli in 2021, Che Adams in 2022. And there’s just a tiny sample of what he does on a weekly basis.

He is Liverpool’s most reliable performer and deserves to be considered one of the best players in the world. Week after week, Liverpool concede fewer goals than the xG suggests they should, and so much of that is down to him. I really can’t eulogise about him enough. He is phenomenal.

The second half continues the themes that pervaded the first - Newcastle dominate a midfield area that sees Endo and Mac Allister struggle somewhat, with Dominik Szoboszlai the only one having a particularly good game - he is so dynamic going forward but he’s got a remarkable work-rate about him for the dirty side of the game too, and in a backs-against-the-wall match like this, he’s a great player to have on your team.

Newcastle hit the post through Miguel Almiron after a brilliant run from the Paraguayan in which Liverpool again were carved open through the middle. Still, the Reds get to the 60 minute mark at 1-0. And that would’ve been the next target.

Klopp brings on Harvey Elliott and Diogo Jota, both of whom do well, particularly Jota.

I think he gets a bit of an unfair rap, Jota. Perhaps it feels like he’s less gifted than much of this Liverpool team, but I really think he’s the ultimate substance over style footballer, I compared him last week to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and I stand by that.

He is to the forward line what Georginio Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson were in their prime. A dog, a hard worker, and a really intelligent player. So much of what he does yesterday is so smart. His use of the ball is good and it’s his and Elliott’s introduction that sees Liverpool actually have a period of pressure for the first time in the match.

A series of set-pieces come to nothing but Liverpool’s influence is starting to grow in the game. Eddie Howe takes off Tonali, Gordon and Isak which to me was insane, they were Newcastle’s three most creative and threatening players.

Then the final two subs from Klopp. Nunez on for Mac Allister and Jarell Quansah on to make his debut, in place of Matip. He did reasonably well for a first game in a while, Matip, and the fact he was taken off suggests Konate is unlikely to be ready for Villa next weekend.

What Klopp does with Quansah is quite clever tactically. Quansah kind of takes up a right-back role with Alexander-Arnold alongside him at centre-back. For a manager who often isn’t particularly inventive with his in-game management, this was a good example of him being exactly that.

Then, Nunez does Nunez stuff, doesn’t he. The first goal. Alexander-Arnold’s switch to centre-back enables him to play a vertical pass to Salah, who lays it off for Jota. He gets a bit of luck, Jota, but his pass deflects into the path of Nunez, who makes a perfect channel run and unleashes a rifle into the bottom corner, in off the post.

It’s a devastating finish. Nick Pope simply has not a chance with it. Nunez puts it in the one place that no goalkeeper - not even Alisson - could save it. What a finish.

And Liverpool had done what they wanted to do. Keep the game at 1-0, stay in the game until the latter stages and then go for it late on. We’d got a point. Which with ten men, a goal down, away from home against a top four rival for 60 minutes, would’ve been a tremendous result.

To an extent, Klopp had got it right. Though for me, I’d have liked to have seen Nunez on earlier, I actually think we’d have ended up scoring much earlier, but the timing of the sub and what happens after makes it more exciting and more memorable.

Settling for a point is what Liverpool do, to an extent. They look after the ball really well and prevent Newcastle from having much joy after the equaliser. Quansah goes to centre-back with Alexander-Arnold returning to right-back. Even though they’d settled for a point, a result that they’d have been ecstatic with, the personnel they had up top of Salah, Nunez and Jota meant that if the ball did break, there would’ve been a chance.

Elliott does well. My biggest gripe with Elliott is physicality (but then again, we are building a team of technicians here), he struggles at times to compete in the 50/50s and the second balls, which against Newcastle, a BTEC version of Atletico Madrid, are vital.

He wins his 50/50 and finds Salah. The pass. Oh my God, the pass. It’s eye-of-the-needle stuff from Salah. A truly beautiful pass, executed with the finest technique. The outside of the boot, to get the purchase and delivery on that, at exactly the right pace, line and precision, it’s world-class from Salah. Not only Liverpool’s best goalscorer but their best creator too.

Then it’s Nunez again. One-on-one with Pope again. Same channel again. He gets the run on Burn and this time goes for a more delicate, but equally effective, finish into the far corner. Another delightful goal.

Bedlam. Pandemonium. 

ANARCHY.

I didn’t think I’d celebrate a goal more than Carvalho’s winner against the Geordies a year ago on Thursday for as long as I lived, but here I am now, proclaiming that it’s now not even the most limbs-inducing goal against that opposition.

In the most ludicrous of circumstances, losing an early goal, then their captain after half an hour, away from home at a top side, the Reds had scored twice in the last ten minutes and snuck victory from the jaws of defeat.

At 1-0, we’d have all taken a point. Christ, I was even saying a 1-0 loss isn’t such a bad result in the circumstances. Liverpool had other ideas. The likes of Alisson, Salah and Nunez weren’t willing to settle.

Easily the biggest moment in Darwin Nunez’s career so far and it could be one we look back on in months and years to come as to ‘where it all started’ for him. Because of his nationality, he’s been compared a lot to a former Liverpool great in Luis Suarez and the biggest credit I can give him is that both of those finishes reminded me of Suarez’s rocket at home to Tottenham in 2014 - unstoppable.

I actually think he’s more in the mould of another Uruguayan legend, Edinson Cavani. Like Cavani, his movement is electric and intelligent, and horrible to defend against. 

Forgive the other Manchester United link here, but did anyone else think of Robin Van Persie at the first goal? He scored a goal away at West Ham in 2013 that was almost identical to that. Just a rocket.

Playing Nunez in the way he did yesterday, off the shoulder, running in behind, is 100% the best way to play him, not with his back to goal in the way you’d play Gakpo or Jota, perhaps. He’s a completely different type of player and if truth be told, he suits a 4-2-3-1 much more than a 4-3-3 and I’d love to see him given a chance in a system like that.

Tactically, it’s hard to say how well Klopp did yesterday. His subs ended up working because of the result, but weren’t necessarily the correct choice in the first instance.

He managed the game better than Howe though, who will have left Geordies scratching their heads about the withdrawal of the superb Tonali. They’re playing like Atletico Madrid but Diego Simeone, Eddie Howe is not.

They’re a good team though. A team of bastards perhaps, a team that are wind-up merchants, a team that will kick you off the pitch. And any win over them is one that will have to be hard-fought. 

Good to see that bad melon Jason Tindall taught a lesson, too.

Sometimes, you have to win games on heart and desire. Quality and tactics are key, of course. But they can only take you so far. Liverpool’s win might’ve come down to individual brilliance of Alisson and Nunez, but it was backed up by the immense shifts that Salah, Jota, Szoboszlai, Gomez and Andy Robertson put in.

Seven points out of nine. With two of the hardest away games out of the way. Going into the season, I’d have snapped your hand off for five or even six points from the first nine. Seven is magnificent and it stretches Liverpool’s long unbeaten run to 14 games - no losses since City away on April 1st.

City drew away at Newcastle last year in the third game. 3-3. They only won away at two of the top ten all season - Arsenal and Fulham. They lost at Liverpool, United, Spurs and Brentford. You don’t have to pick up many wins in the big away fixtures, so the ones that you do get are MASSIVE.

And don’t forget, Liverpool and Newcastle are likely to be finishing reasonably close in the title. Yesterday is a six-point swing in Liverpool’s favour. Newcastle were heading for all three points and Liverpool none, but in the end the points went back to Merseyside.

Newcastle would’ve won the game if they’d had Liverpool’s attackers. The five attackers that Liverpool have got are an unbelievable collection, an embarrassment of riches. By having them, and the best goalkeeper on the planet, Liverpool have a chance in any game.

The next week will determine how serious Liverpool are about mounting a title challenge. Endo might be a decent squad player but yesterday showed that a more physical and mobile DM is a necessity. And with Konate and now Van Dijk unavailable, the need for a left-sided centre-back is highlighted once more. 

I love Sven Botman, him going off was a blow for them yesterday. Liverpool were linked with him 18 months ago and must wish they’d got him. But that’s not to say that they can’t correct that mistake by going and getting a top DM and an LCB in this week.

If Liverpool get those two signings in by the next time I’m writing one of these, then we know we’re serious.

For now though, it’s about relishing and enjoying one of the great wins of the Klopp era. The circumstances make it miraculous. 

Maybe that really was the greatest win of the Klopp era.

Daniel