Liverpool Recover To Move Second
This was easily Liverpool's hardest fought victory of the season. It's far from the worst they've played this season, but it was not a good first half performance and there was no doubt at half time that major improvements were required. One thing that for me at least has been worrying under Jurgen Klopp is that the club rarely seem to come from behind to win games anymore. Now, they've done it twice in seven league games, after turning around the game against Arsenal on the opening day.
I want to start by focusing on the positives because there are, in my opinion anyway, lots of them to take from this game. This is the first time that Liverpool have won four league games in a row under Klopp, and are now unbeaten in seven in all competitions, winning six of those games. This was another tricky away day, we've now played five away games out of seven and have ten points from those five away games. Most importantly, we're now second in the Premier League, and will gain ground on at least one of what so far are the other two best teams in the division, Man City and Spurs.
Those are just the brute facts of the situation of course, but this is nevertheless a really good start for Klopp's team, matching the points tally of the 13/14 season and only one behind our best Premier League total in recent years in the 08/09 season. In both of those seasons, we came second and I think most Liverpool fans would definitely take second right now. Even if the feeling that we can challenge for the title is growing around Anfield, I don't think too many fans genuinely believe that we can topple the might of Man City.
In terms of the performance, there are several positives to take from the game itself, more than just the result. To begin, there's no doubt that this is the sort of game that last season we would have lost, that once we fell behind we'd have buckled. To see the kind of mental recovery that occurred at half time under Klopp (which in truth had already started before that), was really good to see. not just in terms of the result, but in terms of the performance. If Liverpool were not close to their best first half, (although they were far from terrible) they were somewhere close in the second.
The critical difference was in terms of intensity and energy, and that was abundantly obvious. Although Liverpool didn't play badly in the first half, they didn't create many chances (and certainly no clear cut ones) because Swansea defended superbly, and Liverpool weren't firing on all cylinders. But Swansea were able to see a lot of the ball and counter-attack very effectively because they essentially stopped Liverpool's press, whilst simultaneously pressing incredibly well themselves. They exposed the main flaw in Liverpool's pressing game: if the press isn't at 100%, and if you pass the ball well (and make no mistake, Swansea passed the ball exceptionally well in the first half), then you can exploit the space that it leaves.
So Swansea pressed hard in the first half, forcing mistakes from Liverpool's central defenders, and they also evaded a half-hearted Liverpool press with excellent intricate passing. They created two or three decent chances, with Borja Baston, whose overall play was superb, letting them down with two terrible headers from excellent positions. But their goal was yet another example of Liverpool not being able to defend set pieces, as Baston peeled away off the back, bullied Nathaniel Clyne and the ball took a flick off Lovren's leg as he tried to clear, allowing Fer to tap in a ball that was probably going in anyway from a yard out. Scrappy. Horrible. Typical Liverpool.
In general, I think I prefer us playing well and scoring goals before we concede horribly off set pieces. But I'll take it the other way around too I suppose. Because the difference between the press in the first and second half was tangible. In the second half, our pressing game was far improved, and it felt at times as if Swansea couldn't get out of their own half. We were also far more creative, and the net result was that we scored two goals.
The first goal was quite sloppy from a Swansea perspective, but excellent from a Liverpool one. With Coutinho's free kick striking the wall, Henderson picked the ball up and swept a beautiful cross into the box. The Swansea defence stepped out, Roberto Firmino timed his run to perfection, cracked their offside trap like an egg and cushioned a deft header into the bottom corner. And if the first goal was sloppy then the second was a calamity. Barrow shanked a clearance straight up in the air, Firmino picked up the pieces inside the box, Rangel bundled him over, penalty. Milner converted.
If there's a question as to how Liverpool have already secured four penalties this season, all of which have been converted by Milner to give him four league goals, then the equation is pretty simple. The other team to have secured a lot of penalties is Man City. So the two teams with the most touches in the opposition box have secured the most penalties. Funny that, it's almost as if winning penalties is a metric of how often your good attacking play leads to you getting inside the box a lot, rather than being helped by referees. Weird.
In terms of individuals to highlight: let's begin with Phillipe Coutinho. When Adam Lallana limped off with a groin problem (which hopefully won't keep him out of the United game), Coutinho went into central midfield and absolutely dominated the game. His high press was instrumental, he played more key passes than anyone else on the pitch, he made more tackles than anyone in a red shirt and his passing game was excellent.
I also want to pick out Nat Clyne, whose bombastic running down the right side was pivotal in the second half, and his domination of the right hand side of play in the second half was symptomatic of the level of authority that Liverpool had in the game in the second half.
But for me the man of the match was Jordan Henderson again. His passing was second to none, making 88 passes at an accuracy of 88.6, the highest of anyone in a Liverpool shirt who made more than ten passes and only Leon Britton had a higher accuracy, and he made 60 less passes. And he did something with those passes, as only two players made more key passes, and he was the only player on the pitch to notch an assist. He also made the second most tackles for Liverpool after Coutinho, the joint most clearances with Lovren and threw in a couple of interceptions too. His overall passing and defensive shielding game was exceptional.
Of course the defensive weaknesses were on show again, and it was far from a vintage display from Liverpool, but we really stepped the game up second half and turned the pressure on Swansea and they wilted.
A final word on Swansea, who were really really good over the course of 90 minutes yesterday again and did not deserve to lose the match. Something said by Davie Provan really struck me. This was not a team who had stopped playing for their manager. And I think that's very very true. And based on the last two weekends of football, it would, for me at least, be incredibly harsh to sack Guidolin. At the least, it would show that the owners had paid no attention to what was happening on the pitch, just the black and white of two defeats in two games, and that kind of black and white results led ownership for me is not good for football. But on the other hand, with Arsenal in two weeks, can Swansea really afford to wait much longer to sack Guidolin? Well, yes to be blunt, we're only seven games into the season. And if they play as well as they did against Liverpool, they'll start picking up points very soon.
Player Ratings
Fabianski 6
Rangel 6
Hoorn 7
Amat 7
Naughton 6
Britton 7 (Ki 6)
Fer 8 (Fulton 6)
Cork 7
Sigurdsson 7
Baston 6
Routledge 6 (Barrow 5)
Karius 6
Clyne 8
Matip 6
Lovren 6
Milner 7
Henderson 9
Wijnaldum 7 (Can N/A)
Lallana 6 (Sturridge 6)
Coutinho 8
Firmino 7 (Origi N/A)
Mane 7
The Hard and Fast Section
- Chelsea saw off Hull as expected.
- Draws in all the other games.
- Oh Lee Westwood. What have you done?
- And Lewis Hamilton is fuming. Disaster for him.
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