The easy way, the hard way & the Liverpool way

As always, the result is the most importantly thing but man was that a tough watch. Once again the recurring theme continues – our rivals drop points, we have a great chance to capitalise and turn the screw on them but instead of the boys coming out pumped up, highly motivated and determined to take advantage, the team looked flat, low on quality all over the pitch and fairly devoid of ideas.

Every time I think we’ve turned a corner in terms of our poor showings in the first half of games – Leverkusen for example, come the next game we serve up the first half dross that has plagued us for three years now. Shaky at the back, lethargic in midfield and toothless up front. It’s like we can only get ourselves up for it from the start when we’re playing a top team. When we’re playing so called lesser teams, it’s like we think we just need to turn up to beat them and never seem to learn our lesson that it’s not that simple.

To the game itself then and the first half was littered with errors from both teams. Southampton are the latest rubbish team to think they can play out from the back like a Guardiola team, despite being punished for it week after week and like Burnley last season, it’s going to get them relegated. We should be grateful however as we only really looked dangerous when they were messing up, passing around their own box and ultimately that’s where our opening goal came from.

Not that we’d have known however, seeing as Sky were playing an unnecessary replay of the total non event that was Bradley scuffing a shot a few minutes earlier. Not gonna lie, I was raging. You could hear the crowd reacting to something going on and I’m screaming at the telly to ditch the replay but by the time they did, all we saw was the ball hitting the back of the net. Someone will be in trouble for that I suspect and rightly so.

Anyway, the replay confirmed Southampton once again making a mess of playing out from the back, with Szoboszlai ultimately scoring with a well taken finish that we’ve not seen nearly enough of from him considering his quality. Dom is often accused of being inconsistent but personally I don’t think he is – he’s consistently average and 4 goals in his last 45 games would back that up and despite his goal, today was no different. We see flashes of his quality but nowhere near often enough and I suspect he’s been quite fortunate this season that we both failed to land Zubimendi in the summer and Harvey has been injured. If Harvey had stayed fit and showed the same form from the tail end of last season and in the preseason games, I suspect Dom would have been warming the bench more than he has been this season.

Having got our noses in front though, I thought we’d go on to win comfortably but it wasn’t to be. Van Dijk lost possession after a foolish and unnecessary foray into midfield and then (as much as it pains me to say it) the dreadful on the day Robbo made a clumsy challenge and conceded a suspect penalty. It’s very rare these days that ref’s make a tight call like that, they generally leave it to VAR, however on this occasion the ref gave the penalty, VAR decided it was inconclusive and so the on field decision stood.

That wasn’t to be the end of our defensive troubles, as we were left woefully exposed to a Southampton counter and conceded a second. Thankfully it wasn’t long before Salah either levelled with a very cute finish or a terrible first touch which luckily went in, I’ll let you decide. A penalty of our own for a clear handball was enough to secure all 3 points in what had been a very difficult afternoon.

City next week then and should we win that, we’d move 11 points clear of them and into what should be an unassailable lead over them by December, something I doubt even the most optimistic of fans would’ve predicted at the start of the season.

For all our good results though, we’re not without our issues. Darwin was awful again and patience amongst the fanbase is starting to wear thin. Thankfully Jota shouldn’t be too far from returning from injury and off the field, Salah’s inevitable cryptic nonsense around his contract has started again. Sigh…

That aside however and we’ve got to be strong favourites for the title now. Whether the club will make any moves in January remains to be seen but if we can keep the majority of our players fit, the league is very much ours to lose. Walk on!