Darwin Nunez came in clutch for Liverpool at the end of a difficult match at Nottingham Forest, who will be kicking themselves after throwing away 99 minutes of hard work.
A lot has been said about Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp over the past few weeks. Praise for how Klopp’s team has been performing without several regular starters and several teenagers on the pitch is deserved but it looked like they had finally come unstuck and that the momentum would end against Forest on Saturday afternoon.
It did not. In fact, the momentum they have been riding has only gotten stronger. And in a game in which Dominik Szoboszlai and Nunez returned to the team off the bench. Oh, and Mohamed Salah is expected to return to training next week.
What is surely going to be their most testing period of the campaign has come to an end with the return of those three players, with Alisson’s absence barely noticeable given Caoimhin Kelleher’s performances in goal, and Trent Alexander-Arnold’s absence only allowing Conor Bradley to impress.
Szoboszlai’s dynamism in midfield has been a miss and is the area of the pitch Klopp has been most conspicuously short, while Salah is obviously their best player. Nunez, meanwhile, has the sort of unpredictability to cause problems for any defence in world football. Not to mention that he is Klopp’s only No. 9.
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The kids who have come in have done very well and have proven to Klopp that they are capable of contributing when he needs them to do so. Bobby Clark looks like a good option and a player with a lot of potential and the aforementioned Bradley is making Alexander-Arnold’s absence less of an issue than it really ought to be.
Liverpool are now four points clear at the top of the Premier League after Nunez’s 99th-minute winner at the City Ground. They are going to win the bloody lot, aren’t they? Klopp’s announcement that he will step down at the end of the season seems to have given a second wind to this group of players and if the German is ‘running out of energy’, this has not been rubbing off on his players.
The win at Forest is another mentality monsters moment and proof that Klopp’s players will fight until the end of every game, until the end of his reign at Anfield. We probably knew that anyway. But every time you see it in practice… you can’t help but be impressed.
Despite their underwhelming performance against Nuno Espirito Santo’s side, there was a feeling of inevitability to Nunez’s last-gasp winner. That is the feeling this Liverpool team gives you. Even when they are not playing at their best and without several crucial players, they get the job done. It won them a sodding trophy last week, for crying out loud. Although they always should have beat Chelsea…
Forest actually had the better chances to score in a game they set themselves up to strike the Reds in transition. Anthony Elanga and Callum Hudson-Odoi’s pace on either side of Divock Origi looked like it would hurt Liverpool and the former really ought to have on the two occasions he missed when he simply had to score, especially when one on one with Kelleher in the first half.
After an opening 45 minutes dominated by Liverpool that Forest felt they should have been ahead in, the visitors came out of the traps flying and Klopp turned to match-winner Nunez in the 57th minute.
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool were relentlessly knocking on Matz Sels’ door in the latter stages of the match and the breakthrough came when Forest decided to try and dribble out after recovering the ball on the edge of the box, something that will make Nuno want to implode, if he didn’t in the dressing room after the game.
Every counter attack from the hosts was direct, they would always go long, even punting it to nobody when under pressure; but Hudson-Odoi attempted to channel his inner Lionel Messi, got tangled up with Taiwo Awoniyi, and the loose ball fell to Alexis Mac Allister, who delivered a delicious ball for Nunez to simply guide it past Sels to send the visiting fans behind the goal into raptures.
The match was won from that silly decision by Hudson-Odoi but the mentality monsters that are Liverpool will not give a damn. They will finish the weekend top of the Premier League and are going to be in a much better place next weekend, when they face none other than Manchester City. At Anfield and with Salah, Szoboszlai and Nunez fit, you have to say they will be favourites.
There is a Europa League match at Sparta Prague before that, but the kids will play that and probably win at a canter, such is the nature of this season for Liverpool.
It has been a truly remarkable run of form from a depleted team. They clearly recognise that this is another title race in which dropped points of any kind against teams outside of the top three is unacceptable. You get that feeling with both Liverpool and Arsenal. Manchester City can draw at home to West Ham but that will probably be the kick up the backside they need, whereas a result like that for the other two title challengers will seemingly be the beginning of the wheels falling off.
Liverpool might have been favourites against Forest and Chelsea despite their injury problems, but you have to respect the fact that they have not tripped up once – in another brutal title race – with so many players out injured.
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