Watford show that even football gods can bleed
IT felt as if it had been coming. At the start of February, Liverpool might have looked at a four-game stretch against three relegation strugglers and an Atletico Madrid side that has been short of its best this season and thought they had little reason to sweat. To watch those games told a different story, and it also gave evidence that teams have now found a way to bloody their nose.
Make no mistake, defeat by Watford at the weekend was nothing more than a blip in Liverpool’s march to the title but it contained many of the tactical elements employed by opponents that had caused Jurgen Klopp problems in the previous three matches. Liverpool have perfected the switched pass, dropped over the heads of opposing full-backs as a means to smash through the low block. But in recent matches they have found a second and sometimes third defender occupying those slots; in turn the clogging up of arterial routes has dulled the effectivenes of balls into the feet of Sadio Mane and Mo Salah.
If they were fortunate against Norwich – a team that won just its fifth Premier League game of the season on Saturday – they were positively jammy against West Ham. Just 22 minutes away from a midweek defeat no-one could have predicted, Lukasz Fabianski’s howler allowed them back into the game before a huge deflection allowed Trent Alexander-Arnold to set up Mane for the winner.
Meanwhile, Atletico had offered a template in how to contain Liverpool in their Champions Leage last-16 victory that the others have started to follow.
Watford stuck to the gameplan and took advantage of a jaded Liverpool performance and Dejan Lovren’s destabilising presence in the back four. The Croat has a propensity for the catastrophic and gives a glimpse of what old Liverpool were – a team susciptible to defensive fragility with a tendency to be lackadaisical. Klopp has been derided by the usual football dinosaurs for employing a throwin coach, yet it has been a significant feature of Liverpool’s attacking play since the arrival of
Dane Thomas Gronnemark. It is a shame his remit does not appear to extend to defending them.
Watford’s first goal was straight from Gronnemark’s textbook, their second sprung Liverpool’s suicidally high line and their third was a shambles involving Lovren and Alexander-Arnold. There followed the inevitable existential debate about the use of the term invincibles. This was Liverpool’s first league defeat in 44 games. In short, ‘invincibility’ refers to the Premier League – much as it did for Arsenal, the one team that did manage to go through a league season without defeat. It must be noted that this team of ‘invincibles’ lost in the semi-finals of the FA and League Cups and were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals by Chelsea.
The Arsenal Twitter account tweeted ‘Phew’ not long after the final whistle at Vicarage Road. It referred to their own Premier Leage record but it could well have been sent out by any of a handful of clubs who see themselves as challengers to Liverpool’s dominance. The cloak of invicibility had slipped.
BRILLIANT BUNDESLIGA CHELSEA took a hiding at the hands of Bayern Munich, Tottenham were second-best against RB Leipzig and Jurgen Klopp will have had that thinking cap on just a little bit longer in recent weeks as he mulls over a way for Liverpool to break down Atletico Madrid in nine days’ time.
The defeats by Chelsea and Tottenham highlighted the gap between the also-rans in England and those vying for the title in the Bundesliga. It also shone a light on the German title race where up to five clubs are still in contention, in contrast to England where Liverpool are out of sight.
And yet the enduring fascination with German football prevails. There is value for money; the Bundesliga is the best-attended league in Europe, there are more goals per game than in England or Spain and you can get a beer at your seat. Most crucially of all, the fan’s voice is heard and enshrined in the 50+1 legislation which ensures that majority control of clubs remains with supporters.
And this year, there is a title race. Bayern, Leipzig, Dortmund, Borussia Moenchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen still have genuine claims. Five, including Wofsburg, remain in European competition.
The one-horse race in England and the relatively poor showing in Europe, coupled with a sense of increasing apathy within English football, demonstrates that TV revenue cannot buy everything.