Job done!

It’s 10pm so just a quick summary of a post match article.

A much changed team for the game, which could have backfired and once upon a time, changing 8 first team players would’ve almost guaranteed us a loss, regardless of our opponent. How often during Rodgers and even Rafa’s tenure, did we lose to dross in the domestic cups and Europa league when attempting to rotate the squad? More than I care to remember.

Since the second half of the Klopp era however, our squad depth and the quality of both our backups and youth players has improved immeasurably. The likes of Gomez, Tsimikas etc are proper quality backups and now when the likes of Morton, McConnell et al come into the team, you can see they’re good players and having the same system coached throughout the age levels makes it much easier for them to come into the first team. I want to give a shout out to Endo in particular though, he’s barely played under Slot yet still looked sharp and fit. His attitude is second to none and he came in tonight and did a job. I feel for Endo and if it was me, he’d have had more minutes than he has. There’s always a place in a squad for a player of Endo’s skill sets in my opinion but I get it, Slot likes a different type of midfielder which is unfortunate for Endo but his professionalism is second to none and deserves to be recognised.

Prior to the opening goal, it looked like it was going to be a first half we’ve become so used to – loads of possession but do nothing with it. The goal came through a combination of Darwin’s endeavour and work rate and Southampton’s poor defending. He may have been offside and let’s be honest, if we had to bet on it… but with no VAR the flag stayed down and he’s clean through. He continued to ride his luck as his first touch wasn’t great and had the keeper not slipped, he’d likely have got something on it. He did slip however, giving Darwin time to finish. I don’t mean to be hyper critical, it’s just I could see how easily it could’ve been a typical, frustrating Darwin situation. The cycle he’s been stuck in of either being offside, a poor touch squandering a good opportunity, poor finish or whatever. When you get stuck in a cycle like that, it becomes psychological. You think too much about it, you try too hard to get it exactly right and so on. When you’re in the zone, you just DO!! It’s natural, it’s instinctive, you don’t need to think about it. Darwin’s a million miles off that and so I hope the goal tonight has shown him that he doesn’t need to be perfect to get his goals at this level. We’ve seen the quality he has at times, that goal against Newcastle, the audacious lob etc. Generally can’t score a one v one with the keeper to save his life though. The Darwin conundrum continues. Not a hope in hell he’s keeping a fit Jota out the team though.

Second goal was some nice build up from Gakpo, who’s quietly gone about becoming one of our most effective players this season. Pleased for Harvey to get a goal on his first start since injury. He was in the form of his life before he got injured so hopefully he can rediscover that quickly. The goal can only help with the confidence side of things.

Elsewhere it was good to see McConnell and Danns get some minutes, we’ve got so many good young players these days because they knew there was a pathway to the first team under Klopp. That door has seemed more closed up to now under Slot so I’m pleased to see our most promising youngsters all get some minutes.

The lesser spotted Chiesa finally made an appearance too and after a few early moments of very apparent ring rust, he grew into the game and was unlucky with an excellent shot and blocked rebound effort. That showed the technique and quality he has. Needs to stay fit now though and acclimatise to the intensity of the English game. Looks a little lightweight as well and was too easily shrugged off the ball a couple of times. Most of you know my feelings on the importance of upper body and core strength and how much of a bugbear of mine it is to see players not improve in that department, as it’s the easiest thing to work on physically. Hopefully he’ll recognise that himself, he needs to be stronger to thrive in this league and need look no further than Salah to see how important having that upper body strength is, if he hopes to fill his shoes in more than the league cup.

Anyway job done and with eight changes, that’s all you can really ask for. In true LFC style, we made the game nervier than it should have been in the final quarter of the game but if there’s one aspect of our game that I think has improved more than any other since Slot took over, it’s been our ability to see out one goal leads, especially in the last minutes of stoppage time and we did that again tonight.

Spurs on Sunday then and that’s likely to resemble a basketball game. Hopefully we can use our experience and Slot’s tactical nouse to exploit their naive style but they’re also capable of scoring great goals so it should be an exciting game.

Anyway that’s all for tonight troops. No proof reading of the article, Robbo McMOTM, Red’s on taxi duty and onto the next round we go. Walk on!!