Liverpool 3-2 Man City: FA Cup final here we come!!
Mane sporting a new hairstyle
<The season that just keeps giving so far, first trophy available in the cabinet already and now into the final of a second, semi final of a third and just a single point behind in the league. It’s the stuff of dreams.
The game started on a sour note however, as referee Michael Oliver felt he had to cut short the minutes silence to remember the victims of Hillsborough, due to a large section of the City support chanting throughout it and this was no one or two morons either, it was a sizeable chunk of the crowd, prompting City to release a statement at halftime apologising. What an embarrassment to their club.
If anything however, it spurred our boys on. Last week after the City game I criticised us for too often being slow starters and pointed out that historically when we’ve had success against City, it’s been when we’ve overwhelmed them and scored multiple first half goals and that’s exactly how it played out today.
Konate on the scoresheet for the third successive game, he is showing himself to be a real threat from set pieces, just too powerful for Jesus and Ake to deal with and a couple of positional errors aside, I thought he had another very good game.
There were a few excellent individual displays, I thought Thiago was superb in the middle of the pitch, his quality and composure throughout and awarded with an assist for the third goal. I thought Keita was really good too, pressing well, neat and tidy in possession and Diaz was causing City all kinds of problems, imagine what he’ll be like next season when he fully settled in!
As is often the case in big games, the goalkeepers played a big part. City opted to stick with their backup keeper for the cup and they paid the price as he took too long on the ball, allowing Mane to slide in and score. A real howler in such a big game and a goal that gave us one foot in the final. Alisson on the other hand, despite some very suspect passing in the first half made two top saves, including his trademark brilliance in one on one’s, where he brilliantly thwarted Jesus, with the Brazilian clean through on goal. I thought it was telling though that Klopp immediately brought Hendo on after that chance. The gap between Konate and Van Dijk was huge and with no midfielder dropping in, Jesus had the freedom of Wembley.
I’ll finish with this week’s McMOTM however. Sadio McMane. There were many (myself included) questioning if Mane’s best days in a Liverpool shirt were behind him, after a string of lacklustre displays last season. He’s back with a bang this season however and his success with his country has breathed new life into the Senegalese. His two goals today epitomised everything about being a Klopp player in this LFC team. His first was about chasing down lost causes, putting in the work rate and getting your reward and the second was world class technique to volley the ball home with the outside of his foot, after some lovely build up play.
It finished nervier than it should have. Much as we did to them last week, City scored within a couple of minutes of the restart, however I thought for the majority of the second half we put in a really professional display and controlled City for the most part and we had the chances to put the game to bed earlier, Salah with the most obvious. It’s just not happening for the Egyptian at the moment, he badly needs a goal and we badly need him back to his best for the gruelling run in. The injury time goal conceded made for a nervy few minutes but there can be no doubt the better team won on the day. Whether this will give us a psychological edge in the title race or refocus City and make them double down remains to be seen.
No let up however as we move on to United on Tuesday. I expect more rotation with Hendo, Matip and Jota likely to come back into the team. We’re flying now though and United must be feeling more than a little trepidation about facing us, after scraping past Norwich today. Another 5-0 thumping will do nicely.
As for the boss, what is there to say apart from I’m so glad that Jurgen is a red… walk on!
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