A Perfect Afternoon
14th of December, 2019.
Liverpool v Watford.
I actually had time-out to chill and chose not to go to Writers and instead had a Morrisons Big Breakfast – never again! I’ll stick to my usual sausage bap – yum, yum! The girl behind the till though did say, ‘You’re here before the mad rush’. She always replies how it is there as the staff are constantly run of their feet like opposition defences trying to cope with Sadio Mane and Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson running at them.
Well, it did allow me to get some sweets though – for those of you that are interested, yet again, those soft, almost doughy, refresher ones were on the menu, along with fizzy – sharp, cola bottles; especially as I am still trying to prevent the cold getting on my chest.
‘Four and half more years’ went the Daily Mirror back-page headline with a grinning Jurgen Klopp; but I bet he is not grinning as much as we all are at him signing a new contract to keep him at Anfield until 2024. ‘He is the best manager’ a Manc nonetheless, said in work the previous day. Quite.
I was actually at Davie’s house before Dean. Fudge, she the dog, not he the dog, as she is often called, greeted me with a wagging tail – of course I gave her a cwtch but hoped she would not ‘drop one’ too often in the next hour or two.
Within ten minutes, me, Davie and his wife, Carly, had been joined by Dean and equally importantly; his lap-top. It was the security net to our watching the reds as much as Virgil van Djke is a lynchpin to our defence.
‘Deanie’, as 7 year-old Kelsey, calls him, had done very well. ‘Speedie Deanie’ he could have been called. He had been out on the Crimbo works do in ‘Kar-diff’ the night before and had not been impressed with the fatty pork served-up in a restaurant with his works, though thank goodness he had not stumped up £45 a head. Consequently he had a late one (I bet I don’t have to tell anyone reading this, that Cardiff is rammed with pubs!) but Dean fell into bed in a hotel by the train station and had already got home and beat the rush in Tesco’s and had made it up to Cwmbran in double-quick timing – the like of which was on a par with Liverpool having sliced through Salzburg away in the week, where if they missed once chance, they missed two dozen – but scored a ‘worldie’ through an acute angled right-foot shot by Mo Salah, which is already a ‘Goal of the Season’ candidate.
So, Watford. Bottom of the table. A guaranteed three points then. Yes – all the way. No, no, no. I had spent the last half hour tweeting that we should not count our chickens before they were hatched. You all know what Liverpool can be like! Give them Man City or Spurs or Chelsea and they raise their game but anyone out of the so-called top-six then it’s a case of – which reds team will turn-up?
Sweets on the table as Davie for a change (thought I’d say that for you Carly) got the tea’s in and the game was about to kick-off.
Liverpool had Alisson, Virgil van Djke, Joe Gomes at the back with James Milner and Trent Alexander-Arnold as full-backs, as Jurgen sought to give Andy Robertson a rest. Gini Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson and Xherdan Shaqiri in midfield – in an attacking tactical move. The usual trio were up top – Bobby Firmino, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane. That was a strong team. Liverpool these days are a strong team no matter who Klopp picks. That’s another reason why every red is delighted he is staying on for ‘Four and half More Years’ – if it was an Election sound-bite, he’d win by a majority land-slide.
The reds struggled. Going through the motions. I was lulled at first into feeling that we were in no danger but as the game germinated, Watford made me go from sitting comfortably to being on the edge of my seat and being fidgety. It was like we were just waiting for Watford to deservedly score.
Liverpool were so slack in the middle and at the back. Watford fluffed their lines as Troy Denney and Saar, mis-kicked right in front of the Kop’s six-yard box. We just shook our heads in dis-belief and relief in equal measure at our good fortune.
Liverpool cannot keep doing this in games – riding their luck.
From a Watford corner, the ball was not so much hacked away but passed intelligently out on a rapier counter as Bobby Firmino flicked it on and Sadio Mane galloped away like one of them horses at Chepstow last week, and in the blink of a Jurgen Klopp smile, the ball was on the edge of the Watford area. Mo Salah controlled it with his left, went inside a player and then majestically curled the ball with his weaker right foot as the ball went gracefully past Foster’s left.
Somehow, it was 1-0.
‘Keep a clean sheet and we’ve won’ Dean said.
‘I don’t think it will stay this way’ I said, meaning that I thought Watford would score at some point.
Well, we just about got to the break un-scathed, through a minor miracle.
It was like Liverpool – and I’ve said this before, are doing just the bare minimum to win games. It’s like they were trying to conserve energy. It was not making my ticker go slow I can tell you. The amount of times I got stressed in the whole game was nobody’s business.
Watford should have scored in the second half as well. At one point, Liverpool got so dis-jointed that even Virgil van Djke was feeling the strain and nerves as he rolled a back-pass to Alisson which just about went wide of Alisson’s right post.
‘If they are like this now, what will they be like if they are going for the championship?’ Davie said. Exactly. The way they are playing Liverpool may not be in that position if they carry-on being so charitable.
The ball was played up to the Kop End, as Liverpool attacked and then, thanks to a great cross, Sadio Mane leapt to score a bullet header. The other three celebrated and then a few seconds I did – just in case it was a figment of my imagination. A feeling of relief. However, VAR intervened and chalked Mane’s goal off due to offside.
‘He was off’ Dean said, as they showed the replays. It still did not make us feel any better though.
Jittery. Jittery at home to Watford. I rolled back the years and saw us hanging -on against Wimbledon when we were defending Champions, then that Darren Barton scored a cracker at the Kop End and it ended 1-1. I knew then that we had majorly messed-up and I feared the same thing was going to happen on this day.
Gini Wijnaldum was holding his leg and had to go off. Another injury. That’s Lovren, Matip, Fabinho – all out and even though we have fortunately got midfield numbers, it is a worry. It meant that Milner – who had signed a two-year contract extension the day before, went into the middle as Robertson came on. He immediately added more zest, as Carly so rightly pointed out.
With time ticking by and Liverpool using their experience to good effect to kill it at every opportunity and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain having replaced Bobby Firmino, who’d not had the best of games, the reds attacked.
Origi, who had just come on, raced down the inside right and messed his shot up. The ball fell to Mo Salah, on the right edge of Fosters six-yard box and Mo being Mo, only went and audaciously back-heeled the ball into the back of the net!
It was just fabulous. No wonder we celebrated another special goal by him, in the same week mind, with such happiness and relief.
‘That puts more pressure on them (Leicester)’, Dean said, as he prepared to go home and have a few chilling hours on the sofa, in front of the TV having performed his chores.
It sounded like a perfect afternoon!
15/12/19
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