Date published: Wednesday 27th February 2019 10:00
Ah, now, that’s more like it. After a frustrating showing against Manchester United on Sunday that cast further questions about their ability to keep going to the end, this felt a lot more like the Liverpool we’ve become familiar with this season.
Roberto Firmino missed the Reds’ 5-0 win over Watford with an injury he sustained in the Manchester United game, but Sadio Mane proved a more than able deputy through the middle of Liverpool’s front three, with Divock Origi taking up the Senegalese’s habitual position on the left.
Mane’s two well-taken goals – a header and a back-heel, both scored within the first 20 minutes – were reassuring to the Liverpool fans, coaches and players at Anfield for a number of reasons. Most obviously, Mane himself typified Liverpool’s performances in their back-to-back goalless draws against Bayern Munich, but he was back at it straight away here.
For those, too, who worried Liverpool’s comparative lack of strength in depth would prove costly, pulling off such a convincing win despite the absence of their first-choice number nine will have been hugely reassuring, especially as Origi got himself on the scoresheet midway through the second half.
But the biggest takeaway of all was how much Liverpool have missed Trent Alexander-Arnold in recent weeks. The absence of any right-back whatsoever was clearly always going to be an issue, and James Milner, Fabinho, and Jordan Henderson all filled in to quite literal mixed results: a ludicrous 4-3 win over Crystal Palace, back-to-back 1-1 draws with Leicester and West Ham, a 3-0 win over Bournemouth, and Sunday’s goalless draw at Old Trafford.
This was Alexander-Arnold’s first league start since he picked up a knee injury just prior to their 1-0 win at Brighton on 12th January, a game in which he played 90 minutes regardless. After playing 13 minutes against Bournemouth and the full 90 against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the right-back was not risked for the United game, with Milner filling in again.
Even in such a comprehensive victory.Alexander-Arnold was Liverpool’s standout player, laying on both of Mane’s goals and Virgil Van Dijk’s first with a set of excellent crosses. He was helped by Mohamed Salah, who didn’t get onto the scoresheet himself but looked much more like his usual excellent self, creating space for Alexander-Arnold to run into with some superb dummy runs and link-up play.
Watford were poor, but even at their best they would have been unable to resist this attack. Liverpool needed an impressively red-hot like this to turn their recent splashes of cold water into the steam required to propel them over the line, and this was unmistakeably it. Ten games to go, and that single point lead at the top remains.
Steven Chicken is on Twitter
