Liverpool 3 Leicester City 1: A shock win for the Reds
Leftover turkey sandwiches, black and white films, Leicester not winning at Anfield. This was the seventh time in ten years Leicester and Liverpool have met between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. It took place exactly 40 years after Leicester won 2-1 thanks to Gary Lineker’s goal in front of the Kop. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Liverpool won.
Things were actually looking up at 8.06pm. Premier League debutant Jakub Stolarczyk had just made a fine block in front of the Kop. Jordan Ayew had swivelled in the other penalty area and guided the ball into the bottom corner of the Liverpool net to lift Leicester out of the bottom three in the in-play table. And The Reds had to try and find a way back into the game without the prolific Wout Faes.
By 8.10pm, Leicester had had their final shot of the game and we might as well all have gone home.
It was just past 9pm when Curtis Jones prodded the ball beyond Stolarczyk to put Liverpool 2-1 up, Cody Gakpo having wandered beyond James Justin before scoring in first half injury time.
The game went on, but with little to note from a Leicester perspective. If you must know, in the 81st minute Patson Daka took a “long throw” which barely reached the penalty area and eventually fell to Boubakary Soumare who lobbed it up in the air from outside the box for Alisson to catch. It couldn’t have been a more damning verdict of the 2021 summer transfer window even if Ryan Bertrand had run onto the pitch and whacked the ball out of play.
One minute later, Mohamed Salah, who Liverpool effectively rested by permitting him to play the entire 90 minutes at walking pace, strolled forward and passed the third goal into the bottom corner.
This sort of game, the first half of which was played in thick fog, is a trick. It looks like it was competitive if you didn’t watch it. The score says 1-0, or 1-1, or 2-1, but there’s a grim inevitability to it all. Everybody is going through the motions. The players. The crowd. The referee. The commentators. It’s an exercise in futility.
It still involved a lot of hard work on Leicester’s part and the final score of 3-1 offered an air of respectability. It wasn’t 10-0, as predicted by many Leicester fans, but then there was increased confidence when Jakub Stolarczyk’s name appeared on the teamsheet in place of Danny Ward.
Stolarczyk, unlike Ward, looks like a goalkeeper. He does the things you expect a goalkeeper to do, like save all the shots that are straight at him. He was good. If you really must have a positive, it was him.
And we scored. We scored in the 6th minute and then had three shots in the 10th minute. But sadly that represented the end of van Nistelrooy’s team’s efforts on goal. There were two further attacking forays that should have led to a shot. Both involved Stephy Mavididi passing to Patson Daka. In the first half, Mavididi misplaced a simple pass and Daka didn’t get the chance to have a shot. In the second, Mavididi found Daka in a great position but he swung at the ball with his weaker foot and failed to register a shot.
During nine pointless minutes of injury time, Liverpool knocked the ball around at the back and our attackers stood and watched them. It was a demoralising sight that summed up the mirage of competitiveness and the lack of entertainment.
It would be easy to say that this is the hardest game of the season and to score at Anfield is achievement enough. Take the lack of humiliation as a positive and move on. But last night’s look of making the attack up as they went along is not confined to games like this.
It’s the story of the season. There is no real plan of how we will pose an attacking threat. Andrew Robertson has struggled in recent weeks but had his easiest game of the campaign once Ayew had shaken off his attentions to score.
That contradiction sums up this Leicester side in many ways, a theme that runs through from Steve Cooper to the fledgling Ruud van Nistelrooy era. The goals we score aren’t supported by any consistent threat. The players who score them - 9 of our past 12 goals have been scored by Jamie Vardy, Jordan Ayew and Bobby Decordova-Reid - aren’t the kind of players who worry the opposition for 90 minutes. Or 60 minutes. Or 20 minutes.
They are moments players and this is a team of moments. Outside of these moments, there is nothing to really buy into. Van Nistelrooy had the opportunity to throw Will Alves on for the final few minutes but opted instead for Decordova-Reid. The whole thing feels like a shrug of indifference. We’re treading water.
Defensively, it was a different story, especially in the first half. There was effort. Bilal El Khannouss made several headed clearances from inside Leicester’s penalty area. Mavididi worked back really well to help Victor Kristiansen limit the threat of Mohamed Salah. Jannik Vestergaard was aerially dominant.
There were, of course, too many crosses and too many shots to defend, but that goes without saying this season. Given the Armageddon of the defeat to Wolves last Sunday, not conceding a ridiculous goal represented clear progress.
The good news is that this season won’t be decided by games like Liverpool away. The bad news is that it will be decided by games like Wolves at home. Less than an hour before kickoff at Anfield, there were wild celebrations at Molineux as Manchester United were beaten and Leicester were finally plunged into the relegation zone. It’s a wonder that it’s taken this long. Since winning at Southampton, we’ve taken 5 points from the past 10 games.
Mads Hermansen’s injury has taken the headlines but in truth, Abdul Fatawu’s season-ender closed the lid on any hopes of this squad being competitive at Premier League level, if there were any to start with. It was Cooper’s second-worst crime not to start Fatawu every time he had the chance.
His worst crime was convincing the club we needed players like Ayew, Decordova Reid and Oliver Skipp. That the best way we could spend money in the region of £30million was on Skipp and Ayew. That we needed to spend vast sums on Premier League experience when the only hope we have of becoming a well-run club again is to sign players like Hermansen and Fatawu, benefit from their quality and then turn tidy profits on them.
As much as Liverpool away was always going to be a write-off, it’s also a reminder of what a team looks like if you have a style of play in mind and keep buying players who fit what you’re trying to do. It’s easier for Liverpool as once they find someone like Alisson or Virgil Van Dijk, they can invariably keep him.
They can also go out and get the manager they think can continue what the previous one started, rather than spending weeks in negotiations with someone and then saying “you’ll have to do” to the guy who keeps asking for the job. All this is coming home to roost now. The decline isn’t hidden any more. It’s plain for all to see.
As we hurtle inexorably towards the second January transfer window in three years where Leicester City need a full-back, a centre-back and a winger to try to stave off the threat of relegation, the real question is what’s left in it for the fans?
We have an executive leadership hardly anyone wants, lots of players nobody wants and a manager who looks unable to make the best of a terrible hand. A couple of daunting fixtures lie ahead, but they’re all daunting when you simply don’t look good enough.
We are where you’d expect us to be, marginally the best (for now) of the promoted sides but with the teams above us all beginning to show their Premier League credentials, the list of teams we think we could finish above is getting shorter and shorter.
So how many teams are on your list?
