SUPER MANE TO THE RESCUE!
This will be a title of many colours just as they always were in the days when Liverpool won them as a matter of routine. Power, collectivism, technical genius. They have always played their part. And, just like last night, so has luck.
It can’t be said that West ham took a battering ram to Jurgen Klopp’s side. A handful of shots on target and two goals tell the story. But it took a goalkeeping calamity and a very providential deflection to see the team home after they passed the hour mark a goal behind. Liverpool are four wins away from the title with a tally of 106 points from their last possible 108 in this competition. ‘We shall not be moved,’ the Kop sang at the end. indeed.
Mark Noble, who delivered with vision what he lacked in pace, is old enough to remember the afternoon a few years back when a West ham team managed by slaven Bilic earned their first Anfield win in half a century after he pepped them up by playing Thin Lizzy’s Whiskey in the Jar in the dressing room before the match.
Moyes seemed to have found something similar. he has lost to Liverpool 18 times now and still never won at Anfield but his team asked questions.
Klopp felt his Liverpool side were found lacking when dealing with set-pieces and competing with the second ball. But in truth their becalmed midfield was badly missing Jordan henderson and their defence was curiously short on intensity. The team looked ponderous until the frantic finish.
So what ensued was a journey far deeper into the realms of dramatic tension than any had imagined this West ham team being a part of. Though the 1-6 odds-on favourites led inside nine minutes — an exocet Trent Alexander-Arnold cross finding the head of Georginio Wijnaldum, who had scored before the vulnerable issa Diop had even calculated the threat — West ham were level inside three minutes. Joe Gomez did not leap to challenge Diop’s header from a Robert snodgrass delivery from the right.
And though Liverpool still manufactured 11 efforts before the break, including Virgil van Dijk’s magisterial run to send an Alexander-Arnold corner crashing against the top of the bar, West ham went ahead. Declan Rice’s cross from the right found substitute Pablo Fornals in two yards of space, allowed him by a defence sitting curiously deep. There was no challenge from Virgil van Dijk as the spaniard struck a clean half-volley beyond Alisson.
It is at moments like this that teams of champion class look to other dimensions. The full backs, Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson, were the ones who provided it. The metronomic accuracy with which two deliver from the wide areas still doesn’t fail to astonish, even as Klopp’s side stand on the threshold of history. Robertson’s 40- yard diagonal, delivered with a hint of bend, arrived in the space Mo salah was running into. it took the best of Lukasz Fabianski to palm the ensuing shot over the bar.
Alexander-Arnold looked to do far more than deliver from wide areas. he assumes a responsibility for the entire team. ‘We’ve passed the moment where he is like a young boy,’ Klopp said. ‘he is a proper member of the team.’
Klopp tried to engineer some bite and pace. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain arrived for Naby Keita and promptly struck a 30-yard shot a few feet wide. he also engendered a sense of belief around the stadium. Alexander-Arnold’s’ curling effort was then palmed away two-handed by Fabianski.
It was the strike force on whom the course of the night depended and Klopp, implacable and stationary, hands stuffed in pockets, could see something exceptional might be required. salah could not find the elevation to meet another Robertson cross when unmarked in the six-yard box.
Then came the gifts that brought Liverpool level and saw them home. Robertson’s cool and measured lay- back for salah after racing into the box should not have posed a problem with the forest of West ham players obstructing the goal. The most generous interpretation of Fabianski’s error is that they unsighted him as the shot trickled through his legs to put Liverpool level.
The beginnings of the winner came from a Joe Gomez shot-cross which deflected off Noble into the path of Alexander-Arnold. Roberto Firmino could not reach his cross but sadio Mane was at the back post to scramble in the goal which sent Anfield into delirium.
‘Sometimes you can be at a club when you’ve got everything going for you,’ reflected Moyes. ‘The shot deflects into their path, which was really harsh on us.’
No one was complaining when a further Mane goal was rightly chalked off for offside. Liverpool’s victory equals Manchester City’s record of 18 consecutive Premier League wins between August and December 2017. Liverpool move a step closer to the inevitable, 22 points clear at the top and imperious, whatever the weather.