Unbeatables demolished!
Sarr and Deeney deny Reds recordbreaking victory, inflicting their first Premier League defeat in 422 days
Klopp says shock loss can take pressure off Liverpool
Pearson hails Watford for ‘very satisfying’ result
Jurgen Klopp said he hoped Liverpool’s shock defeat by Watford that ended their hopes of breaking Arsenal’s 49game unbeaten run record from 2004 would set his team free from the pressure of chasing down one of the great landmarks in English football.
A sensational performance from Watford at Vicarage Road meant that Liverpool, the team tagged as the unbeatables, lost in the league for the first time this season, their undefeated run stopped at 44 games. The 3-0 victory with two goals from Ismaila Sarr and another from Troy Deeney still leaves Liverpool with a potential 19-point lead, even if Manchester City win their game in hand, but it ends the chance of an “invincibles” season.
Klopp said: “It was clear that at some time we would lose a game. We didn’t wait for it but it was clear that it would happen. Tonight it happened. I see it rather positively, because the closer it comes [to the record] I’m not bothered, but I’m not sure how other people think about that. So from now on we can play free football again. We don’t have to defend or try to get the record, we just can try to win games again.”
The Liverpool manager was quick to praise Watford, saying: “The most important thing is congratulations Watford, well deserved. That is what should be the headline. We didn’t perform like we should have and Watford performed exactly like they wanted.”
He said he was not even sure of the number of games that were required to break the record. “I am not interested. I know things like this are really difficult because the boys have to beat everything, each little pain, each big pain, each inner voice, each voice from outside. The influence from everywhere, you cannot lose anymore, that’s the world. We have to stay on track. What the boys did so far is exceptional but it’s not over. The only thing I am interested in is it’s not over.
“We will go again. Promise, 100 per cent, and then we will see where it leads us. We didn’t expect the number of games we won but we are not surprised because the boys had an impressive season last time.
“Everybody is fighting like crazy and we fought the whole season like crazy and tonight we lost that battle. What can I say? That it’s not acceptable? We don’t think it’s not important because we won so many games, but we don’t think it’s the biggest catastrophe in the world of football. We feel the defeat really. Absolutely it’s the opposite of what we wanted to happen. Now we have a chance to show the reaction as well.”
Nigel Pearson said his team, up to 17th place, had shown they could survive in the Premier League. “We knew we had to be at our maximum. I thought we defended with an awful lot of discipline when we had to defend deep. We were aggressive with the pressing and I thought we played with quality as well. Every single player out there delivered what they were in the side to deliver.
“I wish I could enjoy good times a bit more. I’m already looking at the next game. It’s very satisfying. It’s good to get a reward for everybody’s work. My job is to steer the ship and try and keep some perspective.
“With 10 games left we’ve an awful lot of work to do. Our season so far has been littered with disappointments. We’ve put ourselves in a situation where being involved in relegation battles, the type of pressure for the players to deal with every time they go out, is not necessarily easy. I think they have coped with it exceptionally well.”
of the greatest unbeaten streaks in the history of the English game had to end somewhere, but that it came against a club who have sacked two managers already this season and nursed a relegation death-wish since August, made this a truly surreal event.
Liverpool’s invincible season is over. They will surely win their first Premier League nonetheless, a historic 30-year wait that only a force majeure or international public health event could stop now, but the dream of going 50 games unbeaten and taking Arsenal’s place in the record books is over. Stopped by an astonishing performance from a Watford side who began the day in 19th place and played – in the second half at least – like a more adventurous version of Atletico Madrid.
Diego Simeone, Carlo Ancelotti, and now Nigel Pearson – the only three managers who have defeated a Jurgen Klopp Liverpool team, as opposed to the second string League Cup version, in a season in which the leaders have looked unstoppable. The clock is stopped for Liverpool at 44 games undefeated going back to Jan 3 last year, and this is the end of a remarkable 18 straight wins in the league.
They will be eager to get back on that run next Saturday at home to Bournemouth, after Tuesday’s FA Cup tie although for now Arsene Wenger’s 49-game unbeaten run of 2004 is safe.
Liverpool were dreadful. Their fa- mous front three were unrecognisable. They managed just one shot on target. Even more surprising was the defensive performance, a situation not helped by the absence of Joe Gomez, rested as a precaution, and replaced by Dejan Lovren. Lovren had one of those bad days of his, but there were belowpar performances from the unlikeliest of characters, including Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
For Ismaila Sarr, who scored two wonderful goals, it was a splendid day. So too Troy Deeney, who got the third and was more than a match for Lovren. For Pearson it was a triumph, having faced Liverpool in his first game in charge of Watford in December when the team did well at Anfield but succumbed in the end. He lost Gerard Deulofeu to a bad injury in the first half when his team were more than a match for Liverpool before raising their game again after the break.
The Spanish winger’s right leg seemed to fold under him and Pearson said that there was distress among his players at the severity of the injury.
This is the team of “Super Nigel Pearson” as the home support sings and, after the calamity of the early part of the season they are out the relegation zone. Pearson’s reign started magnificently but recently it has been harder, and this win came after a bad run of two points from five games.
That they can keep coming back from setbacks suggests once again that Watford have the survival gene this season. “We have 10 games left and we have to emulate this form”, Pearson said afterwards, but even this taciturn old soul could not suppress a smile at what had been achieved. Pearson knows how to use Sarr, coming off the flanks with pace and composure in front of goal.
The Senegal international counts Sadio Mane as his hero, but he eclipsed him on this occasion. A hamstring injury has meant that Sarr has been unavailable for Pearson over recent weeks and his priority will be keeping him fit.
What next for Liverpool? They are in London on Tuesday to play Chelsea in the FA Cup, while Klopp said he had not been him keeping count of the games on this unbeaten run.
He was without Jordan Henderson as well as Gomez and Naby Keita, who has a hip injury, and he rejected any suggestion of tiredness. “It’s not easy to explain why it didn’t happen for us,” he said, “but it shouldn’t be the biggest sensation in world football”. You could
make the case that the pace and power of Watford just got to them. As the fixtures pile up, there will be others who feel they can do the same to the European champions. Klopp was not having a bit of it. “Why do we have the amount of points? Because we fought against each little feeling in the body, when [our] concentration level looked like it would drop, we fought against that, against fortune, against everything.” He said his team was ready, in the words of Steven Gerrard, “to go again”.
In a slow first half in which just one chance presented itself to Watford, there were the seeds of a fine performance. Will Hughes was excellent and Etienne Capoue and Abdoulaye Doucoure were dominant. Deeney was shrewd in making sure he was up against Lovren and not Van Dijk.
Sarr had already seen a shot tipped over when he scored his first. Deeney blocked off Lovren and allowed a throw-in to bounce over them. Doucoure took it to the byline, beating Van Dijk and the cutback fell for Sarr.
His second was even better, when Hughes won the ball on the right and poked it down the line to Deeney, who opened up Liverpool with one pass. Sarr was on his own running at Alisson and he took his goal beautifully.
Then, Alexander-Arnold’s back pass was intercepted by Sarr and laid back to Deeney, who scored. “Can we play you every week?” sang the Watford fans, who sounded convinced they are staying up.