RAG TIME SOUNDS FAB
Klavan pops up with gem
LIVERPOOL boss Jurgen Klopp expected a war against Burnley and his loyal foot soldiers rose to the challenge to battle to victory at Turf Moor.
The free-flowing, exciting football to which Kopites have become accustomed was replaced by Liverpool gritting their teeth and scrapping for every ball.
Sadio Mane scored a brilliant opener only for Liverpool to be pegged back by Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s diving header.
But Liverpool consolidated their place in the Premier League’s top four with a dramatic added-time winner from Ragnar Klavan.
Snapped
It was just reward for a battling defensive display as the Reds rolled their sleeves up.
Liverpool had scored 30 goals in eight away games before this clash, but Burnley proved to be stubborn opposition.
The Clarets put high balls into the box, chased lost causes and snapped at the heels of the visitors.
Sean Dyche’s men may have conceded three goals in their last home against Tottenham as Harry Kane ran riot.
But they showed the kind of dogged determination which had seen them concede the same number in their previous nine home games combined. Liverpool were without in-form Philippe Coutinho. He was officially unavailable to face the Clarets because of a thigh injury – although rumours linking the Brazilian star with a £130m switch to Barcelona continue to bubble.
Deprived of two of their ‘Fab Four’ in Coutinho and Mohamed Salah, who was out with a groin problem, Liverpool were like The Beatles without Lennon and McCartney.
Liverpool sorely missed Coutinho pulling the strings in midfield and Salah’s pace to get in behind Burnley’s two banks of four.
This was a game when Liverpool needed Mane to step up and recapture his scintillating form of last season, and while he largely struggled he provided a key moment of quality just after the hour.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain intelligently found Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right flank and the full-back’s deflected cross found Mane in the middle of the box.
The Senegal star controlled the ball with his back to goal, turned and struck an unstoppable shot past Burnley keeper Nick Pope and into the roof of the net.
Not long after a brilliant save from Pope kept out a thumping shot from AlexanderArnold which had looked destined to end up in the top-right corner of the net.
Burnley equalised three minutes from time when Charlie Taylor’s cross from the left was flicked on by substitute Sam Vokes, and the stooping Gudmundsson headed past recalled keeper Simon Mignolet.
But Liverpool hit back in added time when Oxlade-Chamberlain’s free-kick was headed back across goal by Dejan Lovren – to leave centre-back partner Klavan to score with a simple header from a few yards out.
Pope; Bardsley, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Gudmundsson, Cork, Defour, Arfield (Wells 86); Hendrick (Vokes 71); Barnes. Subs: Lindegaard, Lowton, Long, Westwood, Walters.
Mignolet; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Klavan, Gomez; Can, Wijnaldum; OxladeChamberlain (Matip 90), Lallana (Milner 86), Mane (Firmino 72); Solanke, Subs: Karius, Robertson, Ings, Woodburn.
Roger East.