Saturday 6th May 2023: Premier League: Anfield: Liverpool vs Brentford
As a football mad young boy there was nothing higher on my Christmas wish list that going to Anfield. On the King Charles III was coronated that dream came true… and became a nightmare.
The home fans showed their Jekyll and Hyde nature before the match, going from showing all other football fans up by lining up 13 rows deep to welcome the home coaches 2 hours before kick-off to dousing themselves in the shame of drowning out the National Anthem under wave after wave of boos.
Hearing 50,000 people joined together in a common cause can also be spine-tingling and it became so here as the boos broke on the beach of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Even from my perch in the away end I could not help letting a few lines of my childhood anthem slip through my lips.
Welcome Mr Hyde
As the game got underway it fell on the home player’s shoulders to choose which side of their fans nature they would indulge. It became abundantly clear long before Virgil Van Dijk picked up the first yellow of the match after just 5 minutes. Fabinho was extremely lucky not to join him minutes later after wrestling Bryan Mbuemo to the ground, as the Bee’s striker looked to break at speed.
The defensive midfielder would eventually end up in the book 2 minutes before the break for hacking Ivan Toney’s legs out from underneath him on the edge of the penalty area.
They had chosen the Hyde side of football and took their tactical cues for this match from the Netherland’s team of the 2010 World Cup. An agricultural style of football pervaded their play as they looked to weather an early swarm of Bees.
Weathering swarms and storms has become second nature to Liverpool as they have staggered their way through a topsy-turvy season though and once this particular storm had been beaten back the hosts took the lead in trademark ‘Mr Hyde’ style.
Van Dijk was once again at the centre of things, shoving his marker to the ground before nodding a chipped ball to the back post into the middle of the 6 yard box for Salah to shovel home from barely a yard out. There was a long break after the ball hit the net for a check, during which every player positioned themselves ready for a Brentford free-kick, before the goal was given.
Not the classiest way for Salah to clock up his hundredth goal at Anfield, moving level with Steven Gerrard for all time Liverpool goals in the process, but neither he nor the amassed home support will care about that. As the old adage goes ‘they all count’ and he already has enough worldies to his name.
The Equaliser That Wasn’t
Brentford reacted well to going behind and continued to push their hosts hard for the rest of the match. We thought that this never say die attitude had delivered justice to proceedings 5 minutes before half-time.
A ball upfield was flicked on by Toney into the Mbuemo’s bounds forward. The Cameroon international left Van Dijk in his dust as he hooved in on goal before skipping past the covering Trent Alexander-Arnold and chipping the ball over Alisson’s dive. Parity was restored to the scoreline for the full three minutes it took for VAR to rule the goal out for offside. From watching highlights it appears Mbuemo had lent inches offside, but these days it only needs to be millimetres, so it was 1-0 to Liverpool once more at the break.
1,300th Anfield Win
The second half can be succinctly summed up as loads of chances but no goals. Both teams went full attack in the second half in an attempt to bring forth a torrent of goals.
As Brentford countered the host’s threat with a brilliant display of teamwork and inspirational last-ditch defending their hosts reverted to type with more agricultural tackles and cynical playing of the ref.
Ibrahim Konate was the next home player to go in the book for slicing down Mbuemo as he burst over halfway in the 54th minute. Both of the hosts centre backs were now in the book and they were both lucky to still on the pitch as the game reached the hour mark. First Konate got nothing for taking Toney in a chokehold on halfway, then Van Dijk got away with clattering the Bee’s talisman in the back of the head with an elbow a few minutes later.
They also both survived Klopp’s hook as he chose to make just the 4 substitutions. Darwin Nunez was first to be sacrificed for his shocking profligacy, replaced by Luis Diaz. Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Kostas Tsimikas were the others brought on to drag their team over the line, with Diogo Jota, Curtis Jones and Andy Robertson the other players hooked off.
These changes worked as Liverpool successfully defended their slim lead through to the final whistle to rack up their 1,300th win at their home stadium.
“Can We Have A Referee?”
An effort helped in no small part by their constant timewasting, for which they were only punished once. Alisson picked up a card in the 76th minute for taking so long over his goal kick that even the deaf, dumb and blind man in black couldn’t ignore.
The amount of home team fouls the ref let slide through without punishment was incredible. Perhaps the vociferous nature of the home team’s constant whinging whenever he dared to give a decision against their team cowed the ref’s resolve to do the right thing, as the host’s were given free reign to be as agricultural as they wanted.
How the hosts ended the game with the full 11 man compliment left on the pitch is anyone’s guess? One thing that is not in doubt though is that seeing the team I idolised as a youngster betray the tenets of the beautiful game by so fully embracing the dark side of the sport had once and for all severed my love for Liverpool Football Club.
My past love for the team was tainted by their conduct in this match in a clear illustration of why you should never meet your idols. Your idea of what things will be like is always far better than the reality.
The Football tourist 