Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 4-2 Newcastle

They’re some team, Liverpool.

They’ve been winning the hard way and it may get spun that they’ve done that again here and whilst that is sort of true, it’s absolutely not in the same category as Palace or Fulham where Liverpool just find a way to win and perhaps don’t deserve it.

This, however, was a breathtaking attacking performance and one of the best displays of attacking football Anfield will have seen for some time. I’m not sure we’ve attacked that well since the first half of the 19/20 season.

Every single attack we have feels like it’s going to end with a goal and but for a scarcely believable goalkeeping effort from Martin Dubravka, they could’ve racked up double figures.

7.53xG. Seven. Point. Five. Three.

Have you ever seen the like?

Well, you haven’t. I haven’t. No-one has. The Premier League’s highest xG ever recorded. 

If Liverpool had won that game 8-0, that would’ve been about fair and a mixture of wasteful finishing and amazing goalkeeping prevented that.

So, credit to Newcastle for keeping the goals down and for snatching two of their own but Liverpool were in a different class and there’s no team on Earth that could’ve lived with them in that groove.

There’s some magnificent individuals.

I’m starting at Curtis Jones. 

Quite simply, Liverpool are just a better team with Jones in it. He is essential. He does so much that often doesn’t get noticed but people are starting to notice it and it’s great.

He is great. His ability to drop the shoulder and find the right pass, constantly, wow. His passing is remarkably accurate and secure, he is so good on the ball and so intelligent. 

His game management. He can tackle and he can dribble. My God does he work hard. His ball recovery in his own box is what starts the counter-attack for the first goal.

His positioning is second to none and he constantly finds himself in good areas.

He can be a screen for the back four and he can be a late midfield runner. And that’s how he scores his goal, arriving late into the box to tap home a beautiful Liverpool move after a quite sumptuous pass from Mohamed Salah.

Salah then. A first half of frustration after one of the worst penalties hes taken for Liverpool but then a second half for the ages.

That forty-five minutes. Jesus Christ. Unplayable.

Unplayable. You hear it get thrown around a lot but for that second half, Salah embodies everything that word should mean. Dan Burn just cannot get close to him. 

And when he does get close to him, Salah still takes it away from him.

He opens the scoring with the end to a glorious move involving all of the attacking players. Dominik Szoboszlai's greatest contribution to the game comes in this moment, sending a nice drilled pass into Luis Diaz. 

Diaz is brilliant here. He stands up Tino Livramento, comes on his inside and then plays a perfect pass to Darwin Nunez. You’re expecting for all the world that he’s going to shoot but instead he squares it to Salah who taps home.

The first time the three of them have connected well for a move in ages. And it’s devastating when they do. And nigh-on impossible to defend against.

Salah sets up the third too. Such a smooth, silky pass to Cody Gakpo who makes a strange connection with the ball but manages to find the target nonetheless.

To round it all off, Salah nets his second penalty without a hint of nerve.

It’s a special player and a special personality who can produce what he does in that second half after that first half penalty.

What a footballer. Arguably Liverpool’s greatest.

Arguably the Premier League’s greatest.

Thierry Henry. Cristiano Ronaldo. Ryan Giggs. Sergio Aguero. Ashley Cole. Steven Gerrard. Frank Lampard. Paul Scholes. Peter Schmeichel. Patrick Vieira. Harry Kane. Edwin Van Der Sar. Alan Shearer.

Get Mohamed Salah right in that conversation.

His insane goalscoring alone puts him there - now 204 Liverpool goals in 332 appearances, from the wing, not up front - but the most underrated aspect of his game has always been his passing ability.

He showcases that here with some his outside-of-the-boot ball to Gakpo and his through ball for the Jones goal.

He goes wide and wider, and how he operates in tight spaces is world-class.

I’ve had a few Liverpool heroes. Fernando Torres. Steven Gerrard. Luis Suarez. 

But this guy, fucking hell.

Drink it in. Live it and breathe it and enjoy it and cherish it and remember it because you might never see a player like him again.

He is a joy to watch but there’s so many others who put in outstanding individual displays. Diaz for the first half is on a similar level to Salah in the second - unplayable.

This is easily Diaz’s best game of the season and possibly his best performance since the injury at Arsenal fourteen months ago.

He goes inside and out, he doesn’t just rely on the same trick and his dribbling - which has deserted him for months - is back with aplomb.

He is positive and dynamic and his bursts of pace and tricky feet graced his game again. The disallowed goal, he is unlucky for, because it’s such a calm finish. It’s now three disallowed goals for him this season, and he’s not been offside for any of them.

It’s Nunez in this case, Nunez was infuriating for so much of the first half but it’s undeniable that things happen around and because of him. 

He does so well for the Salah goal when every sinew in his body would’ve been telling him to shoot.

Nunez is such an instinctive player and whenever he has to make a quick decision, he usually makes the right one. It’s when there’s time to think that it all goes wrong.

The one-on-one he ends up with in the first half, it’s crying out for him to just go round Dubravka or dink it over him, yet he opts for power and it’s a poor effort.

23 goals for Liverpool but not one of them has been a one-on-one yet.

Nunez isn’t clinical like a top striker should be and while I think he’s a better all-round player than Alexander Isak, but the Swedish striker gets one chance and buries it calmly. 

If Nunez could add that clinical edge to his game he’d be one of the best. 

I love him out wide and I’m more and more certain that he’s better utilised on the left wing.

The central spot should be reserved for Jota. It is some sub performance from him. One of the most clever and effective players in the league. 

He wins the second penalty and in a game which Liverpool rack up seven-and-a-half xG, somehow the talking point has ended up being a mildly controversial but correct award of a penalty?

I think one of the problems with the discourse is that people seem to think that it’s either a dive or a penalty, with no in-between.

There is some contact between Jota and Dubravka. It may appear he goes down easily but I challenge anyone to be running after a ball at full speed, receive contact on their back leg and stay up. 

Also worth pointing out that Jota had the most open of goals and there’d be no reason for him to go down unless he genuinely was tripped.

A penalty rather than Jota slotting home also denied the returning Alexis Mac Allister of a world-class assist. A delicious pass. 

Dubravka himself has admitted that it was a penalty, by the way.

What a cameo. He is a terrific player, Jota.

Let’s never have him marking Sven Botman at a corner again, though.

Gakpo is quietly going about his business this season and whilst he hasn’t put in many astonishing performances, his return of eight goals and two assists is pretty respectable.

Ibrahima Konate is the business at the back next to Virgil Van Dijk, who apart from a slack offside line for the Isak goal, was marvellous again.

There’s Trent Alexander-Arnold who passes the ball with such progression and such ease that it’s almost comical, especially in the first half. He gets accused of forcing it somewhat at times but the way he hits passes first-time is on another planet.

Don’t forget him nearly scoring from the corner flag, too.

A joke of a footballer. The holy quartet. Salah. Van Dijk. Alisson. Alexander-Arnold. 

Joe Gomez, goodness me. He is locking out every winger he’s coming up against, be that at right-back or left-back this season. His physicality is offering so much protection down that flank.

One of our best this season. We wouldn’t be where we are without him. Worth a reminder that currently, both our left-backs are out and that’s not even a problem because of how good Gomez has been.

Gomez and Jones are on quite the redemption arc after tough spells and it’s worth talking about Wataru Endo here, too. His first handful of Liverpool appearances weren’t great and he didn’t look like he had it in him to play as well as he has of late.

He tires a bit towards the end of this game but for a good hour he is everywhere again. Reliable, effective and precise. 

He now sets off to captain Japan in the Asian Cup and it works nicely that Mac Allister is back just as he jets off for a while. 

Salah will obviously be a huge loss and the next month is a huge one in Liverpool’s challenge. Can they cope without him? Two years ago, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain stepped up and scored in both league games that Salah and Sadio Mane missed.

The same needs to happen this year, whether it’s Harvey Elliott on the right or moving Diaz over there.

If Szoboszlai is injured then Elliott may find himself in midfield which could prompt Diaz to be deployed on the right.

Szoboszlai is the one who is most out of form right now, he isn’t grabbing the game like he did at the start of the season, and his replacement from the bench Ryan Gravenberch couldn’t get to grips with the intensity of the match.

Anthony Taylor infuriates throughout and while I don’t think he gets many of the big decisions wrong, it’s some of the cheap fouls and bookings he gives that do my head in here.

The Joelinton story is a hilarious one - should’ve been booked twice in the first half, somehow avoids it twice, and is then finally shown a yellow in the second half, by which time he should’ve already been off.

Taylor plays an advantage which no-one is expecting, and catches Alexander-Arnold by surprise, then doesn’t come back to book Joelinton afterwards. Since when has that not been a thing? 

Mike Dean backing this decision up on Sky is quite a reach, by the way.

It shouldn’t have been 4-2. It should’ve been about 10-0 but three points is three points.

And that’s a phrase normally reserved for iffy performances where the result is hard-fought but this one really shouldn’t be considered that way. 

For 45 minutes, it had shades of Manchester United but what Liverpool do better than they did that day is create good chances, rather than low-quality ones. 7.53xG vs 2.68 that day.

Twenty down. Eighteen to go.

The next month is colossal. Three tough league games and a cup semi-final, and an FA Cup trip to the Emirates, all without Salah or Endo. 

There’s a reason Liverpool are top of the league - they’ve been the best team this season.

City have lost three times, Arsenal four.

Liverpool just one, and that was a diddle anyway. That’s our only league defeat in 31 now.

That’s a run of potential champions.

They looked like a team of champions here.

Daniel