Watford 3 Liverpool 3 (12/08/2017)

1- Football, eh?  Blimey.

It’s a classic First Day of the Season.  Sunshine on your face walking down Vicarage Road.  Touts after tickets, programme vendors, charity buckets.  50/50 scarves on sale for a tenner (“who buys them?”).  Friends rock up, you’ve not seen them for three months…  “how was your summer?”.  Albert is here for the first time in even longer, it’s good to see him.  He’s stunned by how tall the girls are, they are nonplussed but grin anyway.  There are flags, and noise, a tremendous montage on the big screens.  And then, then the football.  As has been said many times if you rely solely on the sport itself for your enjoyment you’re going to be disappointed more often than not but still, football.  And it’s just brilliant…

2- There’s a caveat of course.  Pete, slightly tiresomely, called it almost perfectly… “I’m giving Janmaat twelve minutes…”, he’d said, in anticipating the season’s first injury.  Actually Janmaat lasts closer to 14 minutes but it’s still an extraordinary echo of last season’s bizarre injury track record when he limps off after a brief period of lumbering forlornly around on the right of the attack with Amrabat covering behind him.  By the end of the game Roberto Pereyra, alarmingly, has also been replaced and Younès Kaboul has gingerly re-entered the pitch with three subs already used.  New Performance Director Gavin Benjafield will hopefully be taking notes…

3- But that aside it’s a splendid afternoon, and is already going well when Pete’s call is proved accurate.  An early, visible statement of intent has been executed by Janmaat who hounds Sadio Mané towards his own corner flag with a disciplined bit of belligerence that typifies our approach.  This is one performance, one game, and lots can happen between now and May;  the preceding two seasons both had, to varying extents, high points before crumbling in the dying stages.  But if this is a template for how we’re going to be then there’s an awful lot to like…  we’re tough and aggressive but disciplined with it, keeping the Reds at arms length by hassling them out of space – wasn’t this supposed to be their thing?  Key in this is a fine performance by a midfield that suddenly has a convincing shape…  whilst it’s great to have Ben Watson back in the fold, there’s no doubt that Chalobah and the majestic Doucouré are going to take some shifting on this evidence, whilst Tom Cleverley puts in an impossibly dynamic display “in the hole”.  Roberto Pereyra has slalomed in from the left, his crisp shot deflected wide. In front of him Stefano Okaka looks mobile and brutal and gets little protection but keeps coming back for more.  He’s also there to convert José Holebas cross on eight minutes.  Helps if Liverpool can’t defend for toffee of course, but we’ve missed open goals before…

4- I mentioned after the Sociedad game that we looked as if we’d learned the verse of Marco Silva’s song but were struggling with the chorus.  Here there was clear evidence of further intensive rehearsal since, significantly, we had kept the Reds at arm’s length until they prised the space for the irrepressible Mané to equalise.  It was a patient unpicking on Liverpool’s part, a sliding around of tiles on a child’s puzzle until the picture revealed itself and the Senegalese was through on goal.  Too deliberate, our defending, a method being recited line by line rather than instinctive but that will come.

Impressively, we bit back straight away.  Ringleader Doucouré began the move, releasing Amrabat on the right.  The ball found its way to Cleverley bundling towards the touchline, his square ball found Doucouré who unfussily tucked it away, restoring our lead almost before we noticed we’d lost it.

4- If there was an annoyance it was Nordin Amrabat.  Increasingly a target for frustration at the end of last season, an olive branch was offered with a rendition of the na-na-na-na-na… song early in the first half.  Some characteristic hesitancy lost him the crowd’s goodwill in the second half, but the greater crime for me was his inability or unwillingness to challenge for the ball without giving away a foul – a tug on the shirt here, a shove there.  Further evidence of a lack of confidence in his own ability, but also a laziness… it’s the first day of the season for goodness’ sake, give it a bloody go man.

Greater annoyance still was offered by our visitors, who seemed determined to scorn me for suggesting that they’d become halfway likeable in our season preview. You can forgive Jürgen Klopp for being narked at losing a lead at the death, less so for bleating about his side’s rough treatment (check this Jürgen, we didn’t even pick up a booking, unlike Sadio Mané who might not have got away with a yellow) and for two “offside” goals that were optimistic and very marginal calls respectively.  The offside law is there to prevent goalhanging not for use as a defensive weapon;  if you rely on it for the latter then you’re going to get burned sometimes.  Live with it.

Alberto Moreno meanwhile left onlookers in yellow comfortable with the outcome of our reported attempts to sign him, a narky little gobshite who responded to periods in which the game went against Liverpool with petulant and occasionally nasty confrontation.

5- So the second half starts, and here’s the evidence that we’ve still got some lines to learn.  Actually, in fairness, the first blow is the loss of Pereyra in his first competitive game since limping out of his last one in Manchester six months ago.  The home stands swore in unison and the players can be forgiven for being deflated by the development momentarily.

That’s all it took.  Liverpool may have looked ponderous defensively but going forward they were quick and mobile. They got themselves level when Salah, who had a little run in the first half of getting himself onto the end of a move and finding new ways to miss the target, first drew a foul from Gomes to win a penalty converted efficiently by Firmino, and shortly afterwards bundled in a looping ball to give the visitors the lead for the first time.  We looked rattled, we lost our focus and surrendered the initiative – but as an aside, yet another positive from the game was Marco Silva’s blunt assessment of our failings.  Not wishing to rake over old ground, a candid and accurate account inspires more confidence than the alternative.  Whatever,  in truth Liverpool could have had more once released from their mental funk

6- So it’s to our huge credit that they didn’t run away with it and the three subs, all new boys, all played a role.  Kiko Femenía was as advertised… quick and positive going forward but exposed defensively – two of the three goals against originated from his position, and Alberto Moreno shouldn’t have been allowed to take a pot shot that Gomes pushed over at 3-2… nonetheless, he got stuck in.  Richarlison, on for Pereyra, looked hugely exciting… clever and quick but strong  and physical also, more to come from him. And Andre Gray, on to give Liverpool’s defence something else to think about after a bruising hour from Okaka, demonstrated what we’ve got with aggression and mobility.

The theme of the afternoon however was character.  This is a bunch of scrappers and no mistake, a big tough team capable of bullying opponents but with a sharp and deft knife to stick in as well, no blunt instrument.  That we were still in the game in the dying minutes meant that this would have been a positive match report whatever, but the fact that Miguel Britos’ swivel and shot won a corner and that the same player was able to capitalise from Richarlison’s bullishness in the box reflected hugely well on the team’s effort.  It was a goal that echoed Nathan Aké’s opener in this fixture two seasons ago…  a goalkeeper exposed and flapping and fumbling at the ball, a scruffy conversion, an explosion of noise from an already boisterous home crowd.  Everyone deserved it.

It’s only a point, obviously, albeit against a strong side.  But the personality of the team and the manner of the performance matter more at this stage as an indicator of what is to come.  There were empty seats in the Family Stand, in part another annual feature of the first day of the season and holiday time.  Those seats won’t be empty for long on this evidence.

Yoorns…

 

Gomes 4, Janmaat 0, Holebas 3, Kaboul 4, Britos 3, Chalobah 3, *Doucouré 4*, Amrabat 2, Cleverley 4, Pereyra 4, Okaka 4

Subs: Femenía (for Janmaat, 18) 3, Richarlison (for Pereyra, 49) 3, Gray (for Okaka, 63) 3, Prödl, Watson, Capoue, Pantilimon