THE SPIRIT OF SHANKLY
As Salah keeps Liverpool run going, Klopp is channelling...
THE face of Bill Shankly stared out from the front cover of the Liverpool programme. Wearing his red club tracksuit and holding a leather ball in his left hand, he was pointing with the forefinger on his right hand somewhere into the middle distance. ‘ Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool,’ it said in capital letters behind his image.
It was 60 years to the day since the father of modern Liverpool took charge of the club and it feels as though his spirit is still abroad at this stadium where he enjoyed so many triumphs. Great managers have come and gone since Shankly but none have felt like his reincarnation quite so much as Jurgen Klopp.
For Klopp, just as it was for Shankly, fraternity is everything in football. For Klopp, just as it was for Shankly, it is the intensity of t he brotherhood between players and the unity between club and fans that drives a team onwards and gives it an edge over its competitors. Shankly was a socialist with a manifesto. As his team prepared to go, temporarily, 11 points clear at the top of the table, Klopp set out his own.
‘ In a dressing room you don’t look at someone and see colour, creed, sexuality or anything of that nature,’ he told Liverpool’s supporters in the programme as they arrived for this clash between top and bottom. ‘You see a friend, a team-mate, someone who you can help and someone who can help you. Someone that, by working together, you can have better collective experiences than if you tried to do it on your own.’
When Liverpool kicked off against Watford, Anfield was still agog with the news that Klopp had signed a new extended contract that will keep him at the club until 2024, reassuring supporters that the glories the German boss has restored to the red half of Merseyside will not melt away again just as Liverpool’s hegemony in English football appears to have been re-established.
It is only mid-December but this sketchy victory over the Premier League’s bottom club took them 17 points clear of the champions, Manchester City. Leicester City are their nearest challengers. Neither of their pursuers should be discounted but it is already clear that this represents by far Liverpool’s best chance of winning their first title for 30 years.
This was a long way from being their most fluent performance of what has been a remarkable first half of the season. It was their 16th victory in 17 unbeaten matches this campaign and their eighth league win in succession but it may also have been their least convincing.
‘We need each point we can get because it is a tough and long season,’ said Klopp. ‘We just have to recover and play the next game.’
Watford have won 15 fewer games than Liverpool since the s eason began but t heir new manager, Nigel Pearson, would have been entitled to feel aggrieved that they did not collect three points here in his first match in charge.
Watford, who started the day six points adrift of safety, missed chance after chance. There were glaring mishits in front of goal, fluffed one- on- ones with t he goalkeeper, Gerard Deulofeu hit the post with a corner and Virgil van Dijk even got in on the act by wrong- footing Alisson with a backpass and nearly diverting the ball into the net.
Watford missed all those chances and Liverpool, who are now 40 points ahead of Pearson’s side, took advantage. Mo Salah put them ahead before half- time with a sublime finish after a lightning counter-attack but it was not until the final minute of normal time that the Egypt forward made the game safe with a cheeky flick that went through the legs of Christian Kabasele on the line.
Liverpool will not care unduly how the three points were attained. Their march goes on. And they will depart today for the Club World Cup in Doha, where they play their first match on Wednesday, still boasting an impregnable record in the league.
They are not unstoppable. Yet. But they have built up a fearsome momentum. The title race is already at a point where it will take a collapse of spectacular proportions to deny them.
If Watford had been more adept in front of goal, though, this might easily have been a different story. The visitors should have taken the lead in the sixth minute. They worked the ball down the right to find Ismaila Sarr and, when he whipped the ball across the face of goal, Troy Deeney got his feet in a tangle and failed to get the touch needed to divert past Alisson.
Watford wasted another chance eight minutes before half-time. Once more, the danger came down the Liverpool left. This time, a clever exchange of passes ended with Sarr finding Etienne Capoue in space. Capoue had time to take the ball to the byline, look up and pick out Abdoulaye Doucoure 12 yards out.
A little composure was called for but it did not answer. Doucoure swung wildly and missed.
The ball was scrambled out for a corner and, without delay, Liverpool made Watford pay for their profligacy. They cleared the ball to Sadio Mane, who helped it on to Salah. Salah ran at the retreating defence, cut inside on to his right foot and bent a brilliant finish round Ben Foster and into the back of the net.
Watford should have drawn level straight away. Deulofeu darted down the left and hit a hard, low cross into the six-yard box. Alisson dived to parry it away but it fell invitingly to Sarr eight yards out. Sarr steadied himself and t ri ed t o smash t he ball goalwards with his right foot. He
only made the faintest touch. The ball actually went backwards. If he had been playing cricket, then Sarr would have been caught behind. Liverpool thought they had gone further ahead five minutes after the interval when a bullet header from Mane beat Foster but was ruled out for offside by VAR. Even then, Watford continued to make and waste—chances. Deulofeu burst clean through on Alisson but hit his shot too close to the keeper, who was able to push it away. Liverpool had several chances to increase their lead but they had caught Watford’s bug and Van Dijk’s late backpass that caught Alisson off- guard made Anfield groan in alarm.
They want the title so much here that the nerves in the crowd are already palpable. The pressure will get so heavy Liverpool will need a cushion going in to the run-in.
So far, there is every sign they will have one. They got the goal that made the game safe late on when the ball was pulled back to Divock Origi 10 yards out. He miscued his shot but it bobbled to Salah, who flicked it into the net. Liverpool had rode their luck, just as champions need to.