MANE makes the difference as Liverpool leave it so late
Midfielder scores Anfield opener and then wins decisive injury-time penalty
SO the Liverpool juggernaut rolls on. It is now 17 consecutive victories, as they close in on Manchester City’s record of 18 successive wins from 2017. These two remarkable teams are redefining standards and not just for the Premier League era but for English football history.
And just when it looked as though the triumphal procession had juddered to a halt, brought to a stop by a cussed Leicester side showing something of the doggedness they will need to be a top-four contender, they saved themselves at the last.
We were well into injury- time when a well-intentioned effort to track back by Marc Albrighton, who had been excellent since coming on at half-time, ended up costing his team. He won the ball but ended up taking it into his own penalty area where he lost it to Sadio Mane.
Albrighton, in his eagerness to make amends, attempted a tackle and clipped Mane’s leg. Admittedly the striker fell with the drama you might expect from a player whose team is drinking in the last-chance saloon. But even with the tension of a VAR review, it was one of those marginal penalties which nevertheless seemed unlikely to be overturned.
‘I think he’s made the most of the contact,’ was how Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers described it and that was about right. ‘He’s had a touch and gone over. It was a very soft penalty. I didn’t think it was a clear and obvious penalty, that’s for sure but when the ref gives it it’s probably hard for the VAR to go against that.’
Still, there was more to it than just an exaggerated fall. Mane had run non-stop all afternoon but had found the energy to complete this last press to harry Albrighton. Ultimately, it is that desire and tactical relentlessness which brings about results such as these. ‘Absolutely exceptional,’ said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. ‘He was still there to make these decisive runs.’
That said, there was still the mighty Kasper Schmeichel to beat. James Milner stepped up, extraordinarily cool and simply placed the penalty to his right. Anfield fairly erupted. It wasn’t the style of the victory. In truth they dug this one out.
‘So far so good but 30 games to come,’ was Klopp’s summary. ‘We’re not fussed really by the situation, when people talk to us about the winning streak,’ he insisted. But the final whistle told a different story.
Andy Robertson celebrated so vigorously in the proximity of Ayoze Perez that the Spaniard had t o be forcibly restrained and marched off the pitch by his teammates. And Klopp was there, in front of The Kop, clenching his fist and orchestrating the roars. Every victory matters. But when you want to win a title, injury-time wins in a season in which you know every point will count suggest a direction of travel.
For Liverpool were made to work for this. Rodgers, on his return to Anfield, ensured as much. Was he too open when they might have won the league here back in 2014 and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea beat them? Not so, he insisted in the run up to this game. Yet this was an appropriately conservative performance that almost gleaned a point. Leicester had battled, held their own, engineered some halfchances and matched Liverpool in midfield. Caglar Soyuncu and Jonny Evans were i mpressive throughout. ‘ It was difficult to take,’ said Rodgers of the denouement.
Yet it only takes a moment and a pass to undo a body of good work. It was the same on 41 minutes when Liverpool worked the ball across the back four to Robertson who nudged it on to Milner. The pass that came looked almost routine but was a thing of great beauty. It curled around Evans. He wasn’t badly positioned and he stretched a leg but he was tantalisingly a centimetre or two short of intercepting it. All the while Mane was sprinting across him, anticipating the fact that he wouldn’t reach it. Mane gambled and won and was left streaking clear on goal and finished decisively.
After half time Liverpool might have stridden confidently into a commanding lead. Schmeichel had to save from Mane on 47 minutes after Trent Alexander- Arnold played him in and then Mane’s exchange with Mo Salah resulted in Evans blocking a shot on 56 minutes. Roberto Firmino turned neatly but shot wide on 65 minutes.
What seemed like Leicester’s main moment came on 66 minutes, Albrighton curling a pass around Liverpool’s centre halves for Jamie Vardy to run on to. Yet Vardy took a heavy touch and in doing so invited Adrian out to smother and collect before he could get a clean strike on goal.
In reality, though, there was no surge of Leicester attacks. Just a
determination about them and a refusal to lay down. And, in spells, some tidy football. As such, they remain a threat to almost anyone. Even this remarkable Liverpool team.
So a neat interchange of passes on 80 minutes saw Albrighton play in Perez, whose touch and pass found James Maddison running in, with Liverpool’s defence static. Maddison hadn’t, in truth, shown much of his creativity here but it would take more than a quiet afternoon at Anfield to dent his developed sense of self-belief. And the sight of The Kop looking down on his chance to score seemed unlikely to faze him: he struck his fi nish with t he panache expected and celebrated with gusto. And if that was not to be decisive, Leicester had at least shown enough to be taken seriously as one of the best outside of those remarkable two teams bestriding this era.