KLOPP: THAT’S NO FUN
Boss fury after Watford grab ‘offside’ equaliser
NO MATTER how hard Liverpool fight to keep Philippe Coutinho it will not address the frailties which undermined them at Watford.
Indeed, no matter how hard they fight to prise Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, it is hard to see how one more centre-half might cure all the ills.
It may be a new season but it opened with familiar old problems for Jurgen Klopp and his team and they were encapsulated by Miguel Britos’s stoppage-time equaliser.
It was not pretty and it was probably not fair given Britos was offside when Richarlison’s effort from a near-post corner was diverted against the bar by Simon Mignolet.
Any offence escaped the attention of the officials, however, and the Watford centre-half had the strength to keep Mignolet at bay as he nodded the rebound home.
Vicarage Road erupted to acclaim the sixth goal of another breathless game in the Premier League and the rightful heir to the pulsating chaos of the opener between Arsenal and Leicester on Friday night.
Liverpool had started badly, gone behind from a set-piece and recovered, gone behind to another goal with a strong hint of offside and then taken control with two goals in two second-half minutes. For halfan-hour or so, Mohamed Salah, so often untidy and wasteful, was cast as a goal hero. Then Liverpool conceded another goal from another corner and the points were shared.
‘That’s really not that fun,’ fumed Klopp. ‘It was offside and that’s difficult to accept, but we know we can do better and we have to do better. You cannot expect perfection in the first match but I was not happy in the first half when it was very physical and Watford were the winners in these situations. They didn’t create too much with the ball but they scored two goals and everyone will say: “Oh, it was a set-piece”.’
They will because it was and it so often is where Liverpool — who next visit Hoffenheim in a Champions League qualifying play-off on Tuesday — are concerned.
Jose Holebas delivered a corner and Stefano Okaka ran away from one red shirt and past another to meet it without a challenge. Okaka was four yards out when he made contact but Mignolet showed no inclination to leave his line and was powerless to keep out the header.
‘I’m not fed up talking about setpieces,’ said Klopp. ‘I have to talk about it. We defended most of them really well, but at the end is it enough if we concede one goal? No. We have to work on it but there are a lot of things to work on. No direction in the first half. Much better in the second half, playing football but it leads to nothing.’
Going forward, Liverpool can be quick and dangerous and they levelled through a slick passing move revolving around Sadio Mane, who eased the ball to Alberto Moreno and continued his run. Moreno zipped a pass into the feet of Emre Can, who found Mane with a flick and the striker clipped a clinical finish past Heurelho Gomes.
Watford’s second was scored by Abdoulaye Doucoure amid more comic capers from Liverpool and another appeal in vain for offside. Doucoure found Tom Cleverley on the right and his low cross was fired by right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold into centre-half Joel Matip, who was in a heap on the floor.
The ricochet dropped kindly for Doucoure to sweep it into the net. This time, the offside call concerned Okaka, who was a yard off when Doucoure passed to Cleverley and, although he did not touch the ball, his presence was central to the tangle between AlexanderArnold and Matip.
Whatever instruction Klopp gave at half-time had the desired effect on his team and in particular Salah, who turned the game in a matter of minutes soon after the interval.
First he was simply too quick for Gomes as he burst onto a through ball and was toppled by the Watford keeper. This time referee Anthony Taylor made the right call in awarding a penalty.