GRIT LEAP FORWARD
If we win the title we’ll look back on this hard-fought win as a HUGE moment says Robertson
WINNING again, seven points clear again, with Mo Salah scoring again. Reports of Liverpool’s title wobble appear to have been greatly exaggerated. If anything, this win at Brighton was the kind of ugly, gritty victory champions are made of.
The knives were sharpened after an under-strength Reds side were dumped out of the FA Cup last Monday night by Wolves.
And Brighton, who had taken a point off Arsenal and beaten Manchester United at the Amex, had lost just six of their previous 29 home games so the Mersey men knew what they were up against.
So after a triumph forged on commitment and focus, left-back Andy Robertson was absolutely right in his assessment that, if Liverpool do finally end their long wait for the title, they will look back at this win as a defining moment in their season.
“Whoever wins the league will look back on some games and think, ‘We probably weren’t at our best there but we managed to turn one point into three or zero into one’.
“If we manage to do it, I’m sure we’ll look back on this game as one of them.
“It’s all about finding a way. That’s what we did. That’s what all the teams are doing now. Manchester City haven’t played their best but have been winning games and Tottenham have done the same.
“People can overreact when you go on a long run without a defeat but we all stayed calm, we knew what we had to do. We knew how long this run-in was going to be and that the chances of us being unbeaten this season were very slim.
“But we were still four points clear after losing at Manchester City and now we go to seven again. Obviously they have the game in hand but we’ve got the points on the board.”
With the gap now seven points, the pressure is back on Pep Guardiola’s City side, who host Wolves tonight.
Asked whether he preferred his Liverpool team to be the hunters or the hunted, Robertson expects the chase to go to the wire – with Tottenham involved – either way.
“I suppose if you are being chased you’re at the top,” he said. “It doesn’t really make any difference. Every team will be looking to finish top at the end of the season and that’s all that matters, it doesn’t matter how you get there.
“We know it’s going to go right to the wire.”
The suggestion that Salah was theatrical in his response to Pascal Gross’s pull on his shirt and kick at his legs early in the second half is ludicrous.
If that challenge did not warrant a penalty then we might as well pack up and go home.
Understandably, Robertson was quick to defend his Anfield team-mate, who slammed the winner from the spot.
“He’s not that type of player (to dive) and every time it happens then we go back and look at the video and you think, ‘Well, it’s not a dive.’ How many times is it going to happen?
“I’ll need to see it back but I was at the edge of the box and for me it was a stonewall penalty.”
Salah (left, with boss Jurgen Klopp) has been criticised for going down too easily in the box on a number of occasions – most recently against Arsenal and Newcastle – but Robertson said: “If people are starting to say Mo has gone down easily, it’s not fair because the one against Arsenal, especially, he got clipped three times on his way down.
“They still appealed but it’s a bit of desperation.”