Anfield is like Alcatraz — there is no way out!
IT WILL provide no solace for Steve Bruce, but his team moved into second place in one particular table after their visit to Anfield. Newcastle United held the lead at Liverpool on Saturday.
A wonderful strike from Jetro Willems — a right-foot blast that never altered direction as it ripped into the top corner — allowed the left back and his team-mates to dream for 21 minutes.
You may raise an eyebrow at the exact detail of the time but it was significant. Since April 2017, when Liverpool last lost at home in the Premier League (to Crystal Palace), only Leicester (50 minutes) have been in front for longer at Anfield.
The numbers of Liverpool’s domination at home stretch further. Arsenal, Palace and Burnley (twice) are the only other teams to have gone ahead in 43 matches. Away teams hoping to leave Merseyside with three points are facing football’s equivalent of trying to escape from Alcatraz. There is no way out for prisoners.
Such is the level of confidence in this Liverpool team that you never really gave credence to the idea that Newcastle would somehow conjure a shock.
‘They are a very, very good team,’ said Bruce. ‘As good as you get. The big difficulty that we all have is when, no disrespect to us, you know a team is far better than you, you have to try and find a way. If you open up and try to attack, they will blow you away.’
What was most striking about this success, one that unexpectedly saw Liverpool five points clear by the close of play, was the ease with which they went through the gears. They were off the pace when Willems scored but there was no panic.
Willems said: ‘In the second half when you make two mistakes and they go two goals up it is difficult to come back. We are not the first team to have lost here.’
Jurgen Klopp greeted Willems’ strike by moving to the edge of his technical area, nodding his head and gesturing to his team to remain calm. It was exactly
what they did and once Sadio Mane scored a fabulous equaliser there was an inevitability about the outcome.
All over the pitch, there were wonderful cameos. Mane benefited from a Martin Dubravka error to score his second but he keeps elevating his levels. Roberto Firmino replaced the injured Divock Origi and played with such ingenuity that Bruce likened him to Eric Cantona.
‘We didn’t panic, we still had a lot of time to get the result,’ said Andrew Robertson, who was the game’s outstanding performer. ‘It was important that we got the goal early because I’ve been part of Steve Bruce teams that can shut up shop at these big places.
‘If it went into half time at 1-0 it could have been a very different second half.’
Perhaps, but there has been a relentlessness about Liverpool that feels different to Klopp’s previous campaigns here.
Liverpool may have established the biggest lead at the top after five matches in the Premier League era, but it means nothing to Klopp or his players. In the same way that there is no significance attached to a club record of 14 successive league wins — it is all numbers and noise. Nobody at Anfield will pay any attention to the fact they have this buffer. Lose home and away to Manchester City and Liverpool will be the ones playing catch up. This mindset has been apparent since the squad returned to work in the summer.
Winning sprees can breed complacency but Klopp has made it so that whatever happened in the past — winning the Champions League or amassing 97 points — doesn’t matter. They are only intent on the future.
‘We prepare for every game as if it’s our last because that’s the only game that’s in front of us,’ said Robertson. ‘Last season we were very good at never looking too far ahead at the games that you class as big games.
‘Newcastle away last season, for example. We took care of that after playing Barcelona away. We had Barcelona at home three days after going to Newcastle but we took care of the games that we had to take care of because the next game is the most important.
‘That’s the attitude we have taken and we can’t look at a busy September period because Newcastle had to be taken care of first. Now we focus on Napoli. We don’t look too far ahead but we just focus on the next game because that’s how we get the best out of ourselves.’