Daniel’s Debrief: Nottingham Forest 0-1 Liverpool

The limbs this season. What a collection.

Newcastle away. Fulham at home. Arsenal in the cup. Luton at Anfield. Wembley. 

And now another to add to it. 

The crazy thing about this one is that you never felt like it was coming, Liverpool were showing no signs of an imminent breakthrough.

They had been laboured, they had looked short on quality, they had looked short on energy.

It looked like today was just a stretch too far for a depleted and tired squad.

It didn’t feel for a second like a big moment was coming.

And yet, despite this, there’s also an inevitability about Liverpool. Despite the faults with the performance which I’ve touched upon there, despite the fact they didn’t look likely, there’ll be no-one who feels too surprised that they’ve gone and done it again.

And that’s a measure of despite what is going on around them - injuries, competitive opponents, fatigue, refereeing decisions, youth, basically any kind of adversity you can get - that there’s just something about this Liverpool team that you can’t deny or ignore.

You just know they’re going to be alright. You know they’re going to come out of the other side of the storm.

Not that I was saying this at 80 minutes, of course.

Because for so much of that today, it looks like the heroic efforts of the last weeks and months has finally caught up with them and their run - which always had a niggling unsustainable feel about it - had reached its natural end.

There’s a staleness, an impotence and an emptiness to the first half in particular.

Harvey Elliott and Joe Gomez in particular look fucked - Gomez really struggles in the midfield role that he did a decent job in on Wednesday and isn’t much better at full-back.

Cody Gakpo has a pretty horrendous day throughout and is particularly appalling in the first half. He takes a chance away from Virgil Van Dijk at a corner and fails to find either the goal or Luis Diaz with a presentable opportunity after a beautiful Alexis Mac Allister pass.

It never fails to stagger me how easily-beaten he is in the air when he’s got the height and body frame that should make him physically dominant.

It’s a strange one with Gakpo because you can’t deny his goal contributions and he does seem to come up with quite big goals - Luton and the Fulham semi-final spring to mind, but of our five attackers, he’s comfortably fifth best.

There’s a few others that are way off it in that first half - nothing seems to go right for Andy Robertson and while his level never drops to poor, he’s not really hit the heights he’s previously shown since the start of last season, probably.

I love Robertson and he’s a Liverpool legend, in my eyes and the best left-back we’ve had in my lifetime. But I could see us looking to upgrade there in the summer.

A lot will obviously depend on who the manager is but whether it’s Xabi Alonso, Ruben Amorim or Simone Inzaghi - my three preferred candidates - there’s a few areas that feel like obvious places to start - centre-back, left-back and wing.

To reiterate, Robertson is still a great asset and I would be more than happy to keep him, but a new manager may want a more dynamic player there - Robertson doesn’t get up and down quite as much as he once did.

He’s not the only one who isn’t up to scratch in the first half. As talented as Bobby Clark is, this Premier League start away from home against physical side just looks a bit too much. 

He doesn’t quite get the time on the ball he would like and while his use of it is pretty good, some of his positioning in attack isn’t great and he takes up some of the spaces that Diaz would want to work in.

It’s no surprise that the performance improves when Wataru Endo, Dominik Szoboszlai and Darwin Nunez come on and Gomez is in his natural role.

In tricky games like these that are always likely to be low-scoring and low on chances, familiarity and having round pegs in round holes is king.

That’s what works well for Forest. They have a gameplan which is more obvious and apparent than Liverpool, who feel like they’re hoping for individual brilliance rather than their strategy helping them to a way.

Their counter-attack is deadly and they get out well on the right with Neco Williams and then dominate Liverpool’s makeshift midfield with some combative performances from Nicolas Dominguez and Ryan Yates.

Callum Hudson-Odoi offers some outlet on the wing and Divock Origi makes some sense for them out wide too. His work-rate seems as inconsistent as it was at Liverpool but one of his attributes that we never saw enough of in a red shirt was his blistering pace.

It’s a fast Forest team and their biggest chance comes from this. Anthony Elanga works well as a centre-forward for them and is thwarted by a terrific Caoimhin Kelleher save.

In the wake of the news that Alisson Becker is going to be out for a while longer, Kelleher’s performance today was some comfort.

He has been marvellous since coming into the team six games ago.

What’s really interesting to me is how much his game looks like Alisson’s at the minute, the save from Elanga is so Alisson-esque in how late he commits his body to make it as difficult as possible for Elanga.

Maybe I was a bit harsh on Kelleher in the first half of the season where it felt like he came in for Europa League and League Cup games and made an error every time, before his dreadful day at home to Fulham where Endo and Trent Alexander-Arnold’s goals bailed him out.

But, to add to my earlier point about familiarity, he has looked top-class in a run of games, which seems fairly obvious. One thing I really like is his ability to kick the ball with both feet, whereas Alisson gets a bit anxious at times with his left and will actively avoid it even when it’s the better option.

Liverpool keeping a clean sheet today - a third in a row - is down in huge part to Kelleher and Ibrahima Konate and Virgil Van Dijk.

The two centre-backs are unbelievable today. Konate’s ball-playing is phenomenal. He is so front-footed in his defending and just doesn’t allow anything to pass him.

There’s a moment where he is so intelligent against Taiwo Awoniyi, who provides a greater physical threat from the bench than Elanga, and times his tackle so perfectly.

He makes another stunning tackle on Morgan Gibbs-White in the first half. If there was one criticism of Konate in his early Liverpool days, it was that he was a bit rash on occasion. But since December, he’s been an absolute unit.

Maybe he is underrated, and if so, the reason is that he plays to the best in the world and one of the best there’s ever been in Van Dijk.

Absolutely flawless yet again. His reading of the game, his positioning, his ridiculous win-rate in duels, his ability to get us downfield, his calmness.

There’s a point in the first half where he does the Lord’s work by effectively dealing with a cross by reading it superbly and preventing Kelleher from facing Origi and Gibbs-White six yards out.

Konate and Van Dijk are rocks.

They aren’t the only good centre-backs on the pitch. Murillo is unbelievable for Forest in the game and his block from Diaz’s chance in the first half is almighty. He is front-footed, cultured but can also defend last-ditch. He screams Liverpool to me.

Someone else who screams Liverpool is Diaz. He embodies what has gone on in the last twelve days, winning four games we had no right to win.

Diaz runs his arse off for 90 minutes once again and wants to win this league title, wants to win the FA Cup, wanted to win the League Cup and you can guarantee he’ll want the Europa as well.

Not everything is working for him at the minute but he’s not letting his head drop and is continuing to go and go and to work and work. He is trying his heart out to recreate that Crystal Palace goal from that season and one day it’s going to happen.

An absolute engine.

Despite all of his endeavour, it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming. Nunez and Jayden Danns come on, and the former goes close with a header that is saved by Matz Sels and that feels like the last big chance Liverpool will get.

And yet.

And then.

And no.

In the 99th minute, beyond the allotted additional time - more on that later - Liverpool do one of their ridiculous things.

Firstly, Endo’s little touch to nick the ball away from Hudson-Odoi and Awoniyi. This is the most Endo thing you’ll ever see. Winning balls he’s got no right to win.

He only missed the Southampton game but having him back now is a major relief - losing him would’ve been a disaster, and I didn’t think I’d be saying that in November.

Endo’s touch puts it into the path of Mac Allister, and his skill and little feint to gain a touch of space and get it back on his left foot is sumptuous.

That is a player who’s won the World Cup. That is a virtuoso footballer. He is everything and he is anything - a tackler, a bruiser, a playmaker, a creator, an anchor or a goal contributor.

The signing of the season in the league. An absolute bargain for Liverpool. 

He’s the best of Liverpool’s starting midfielders by a huge distance and time after time, gets us on the front foot with his through balls.

And then produces a glorious lofted pass into Nunez’s pass, and the striker wins the game with a classic header.

Fourteen goals and eleven assists for Nunez now.

He’s not perfect, he misses chances - he missed a few today - but Liverpool are an infinitely more threatening and dangerous team with him on the field.

And whatever happens from now, whatever becomes of his career, if he left Liverpool tomorrow he’d be responsible for two of the most unbelievable late wins under Klopp - Newcastle and Forest.

Yes, the goal was late.

Yes, it was 38 seconds after the eight minutes that had been given.

No, this isn’t corruption. No, this isn’t the league making sure Liverpool win it.

A reminder that during the eight minutes of added time, Danilo and Gibbs-White are both booked for time-wasting.

If two of your players time-waste in added time and then your team lose to a goal after the added time is up, you’ve only got one place to look.

It’s Fabio Carvalho against Newcastle last season all over again.

And, if the league was really trying to make sure Liverpool won the league, wouldn’t they have instead awarded the stonewall penalty when Danns was walloped in the box rather than hope that a Liverpool side that couldn’t score in 98 minutes could score in an extra 38 seconds? 

With the resources he’s had available to him, Jurgen Klopp has had no right to win the four games we’ve won in the last eleven days. If we’d won one of them, that would’ve been an achievement, so to get four is astonishing.

I touched upon what a new manager may do in the transfer market in the summer but his biggest task will be to maintain the spirit and mentality that Klopp has so deeply ingrained in every single member of his squad.

Daniel