Key events
80 min Wolves win another free-kick, this time 35 yards out, just right of centre, but Cunha’s kick goes beyond the back post and Toti’s attempted flick actually allows Liverpool to counter … the attack halted by Semedo’s foul.
77 min Liverpool knock it about, taking heat out of the game – a few moments ago, we saw a graphic advising us that Wolves have taken the last 10 shots, but things have settled a little these last couple of minutes.
75 min “On Salah and the pantheon,” emails Jim Paterson, “I think he’s top five easy, maybe third max behind Henry and Shearer (Kane, Rooney and Ronaldo may disagree). I think your point earlier about him being the key player in this side is maybe why it’s easier to recognise his talent and why players like Keane maybe get a little less love in these rankings: they’re a key cog rather than the key player. Which is what made Henry so amazing: in an all-time great side, he was still clearly head and shoulders above everyone else.”
Yeah I’d not have Shearer anything like that high – he was amazing at Blackburn before the first cruciate and still brilliant after, but when I’m looking to split greats, I guess I value high-pressure games over numbers when playing with inferior talents.
74 min Cunha drives through midfield and looks to slide Munetsi through, but someone, I don’t see who, intercepts.
73 min A quiet period. Wolves need to get Gomes on the ball, because he has the eye and touch to find Cunha.
71 min Van Dijk misjudges the path of the ball, makes a challenge anyway, and is booked. Incidentally and if I remember correctly, Rio Ferdinand went two seasons at Leeds without getting cautioned, and did 50-0odd games around 09-09.
71 min Slot is concerned, replacing Diaz, an attacker, with Endo, a destroyer.
70 min Wolves are coming, Bellewgarde lifting a diagonal ball over the top that just defeats Cunha’s stretch.
68 min Just before the goal, Carragher noted that a better side than Wolves might’ve punished Liverpool’s carelessness in defence by now, and a game that looked and felt won is suddenly in the balance. No wonder Robertson is aghast at the concession of a corner, headed over the top by Gomes. There’s a different feeling around Anfield now.
WHAT A GOAL! Liverpool 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (Cunha 67)
It had to be him! With the game meandering to a close, out of nothing, Cunha accepts a pass 25 yards from goal, fools Gravenberch with a sway, dips inside, and curls a gorgeous finish around Alisson’s dive and just inside the near post, a yard off the ground. He is very, very serious; game on!
65 min Back to Bale, Nelson Calvinho has some thoughts: “Actually Madrid need the Mourinho asterisk. It was Mourinho who built the team that would go on to win several Champions League trophies (Varane, Coentrão, Di Maria, Modric, Ozil, Khedira…) Real barely made beyond the last 16 in the previous seasons…”
I’m absolutely certain only Mourinho had the relentless cruelty necessary to nab a league title off Guardiola’s Barca. Sadly, the experience broke his genius, but still, what a genius.
65 min Changes for Liverpool, Bradley and Nunez for Alexander-Arnold and Jota.
63 min A stray flash of Cunha, beating Alexander-Arnold to a risky pass from Gravenberch and punching a pass into Gomes, inside the box; he dips inside, then unfurls a curler … that wafts wide.
61 min Agbadou, who now knows more of what “oor league” is about, can’t continue and is replaced by Bueno.
60 min Agbadou, hurt making the challenge, is still down receiving treatment.
58 min VAR summons the ref
And he reverses the call. No penalty, and Jota can consider himself fortunate not to be booked for diving, I think.
57 min PENALTY TO LIVERPOOL!
Excellent from Gravenberch, talking of Vieira, striding through midfield and sliding to Jota who dips inside as Agbadou slides in wildly. But he doesn’t plough through his man; rather., Jota makes sure he clips foot on torso. This might be overturned…
55 min “Always think Viera gets a rough deal,” says Tom, “being in the shadow of Henry so to speak because of Henry’s goalscoring prowess. Peak Viera has to be
up there with anyone really although you mention Keane who won more.”
I love Vieira and I’m biased in favour of Keane, but I don’t think this is much of a comparison. United won more than Arsenal significantly because Keane was better than Vieira, and of the three titles Vieira’s Arsenal won, Keane did his cruciate in 97-98, missed just enough games for it to make the difference in 01-02 and was over the hill by 03-04. Wonderful, wonderful player though/
53 min I owe Munetsi an apology, I think: he swept a decent finish above Alisson’s dive, only to hit the keeper in the head, meaning the save that is even more Casillas than I thought. I’ve never seen anyone so good at stopping shots apparently by accident.
51 min Saha is away, he passes into the far corner … and the flag’s up
50 min Ball into Bellgarde, who flicks beautifully, and Munetsi is in! He looks up, composes and, with the sight of Alisson advancing, panics, passing a tepid finish into the keeper’s dive. Good save, though – there’s a touch of Iker Casillas in how Alisson makes strikers rush and look poor.
48 min “Completely agree on the original Ronaldo, truly magnificent player! says Henry. “I may be biased as a Liverpool fan, but I find very few of our players to be irritating or dirty. That said, while I love his hard work, Diaz always needs to leave his foot in and exaggerate contact for penalties, and it drives me nuts! There’s already enough contact, there’s no need for it. Another point, Konate is a talented player, but his occasional idiotic decisions make me always feel that the defence with him will never be as secure as it should be. I mean, why go for that header?!”
Konate is one of those who shows how hard defending is – the raw materials are all there, but he can’t quite keep hold of them, hence the impetuosity we saw this afternoon. And at 25, you’ve got to assume he is who he is.
46 min A poor touch from Salah – it’s an epidemic! – and Bellegarde has space down the left, tucking back a cut-back that Quansah does well to intercept as Cunha looks to shoot.
46 min Half-time changes: Liverpool change Quansah for Konate, Wolves Bellegarde for Sarabia and Munetsi for Guedes.
46 min We go again…
“Are we allowed to nominate players from before Murdoch (BM)?” wonders Gary Lorrison. “Such as oh I don’t know Kenny Dalglish? Why use an arbitrary league name change due to a TV deal as a cut off point for year zero?”
Er, because it marks an epochal change in English football? Or maybe because I didn’t watch Billy Meredith, Danny Blanchflower, Duncan Edwards and George Best? But if we’re talking ever, Kenny Dalglish is a peculiar place to start.
Half-time email: “I’ve seen some interesting takes on Virgil Van Dijk over the years,” says Paul Roocfroft, “but suggesting he only looks so good because there are no decent strikers has to take the biscuit. Name the best quality of any of the best central-defenders in the Premier League era and VVD at least matches them. As fast as Ferdinand, physically as dominant as Vidic and Campbell, better passer than all of them, positionally as good as Terry and he is always available (except for the ACL). He simply doesn’t have a weakness and excels at pretty much every aspect of centre back play.”
Er, that’s not what I said? I said he’s done well to be around when the standard of strikers is less good than previously, a truth I assumed was self-evident given Messi and Ronaldo were way past their best by the time he was good. I don’t think he’s as good a ball-carrier as Ferdinand nor as good a last-ditch blocker as Terry and, while we’re at it, not as good as Vidic at hunting for headers to win, stopping attacks before they get going. Add to that all those three have more league titles than he does, and it’s silly to suggest he’s as good as they are at everything, though of course legitimate to consider him superior.
Half-time entertainment:
HALF-TIME: Liverpool 2-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Liverpool have been good enough; Wolves have struggled to create anything.
45+1 min Three added minutes.
45 min “I don’t think there has been a player in the Premier League like Mo, never will be,” says Kev. “Incidentally, I love Diaz and Gakpo has been playing a blinder this year. But I think Lucho is wasted as a false 9, hence the rumours about him going to Barca/Saudi.”
I agree Salah is unique, but so is everyone. I don’t think I could put him above Henry or Ronaldo, and of course it’s difficult once we move away from attackers – Roy Keane, say, dominated the league and won six titles, the ones his team didn’t win when he was at his peak coming in seasons he got injured.
42 min “To be clear,” writes Liam McCubbin, “it was not until Bale rocked up at Madrid that Ronaldo was able to bring out the Brasso. All the trophies he won there need the Bale asterisk*: golf, Madrid, Ronaldo Brasso … in that order.”
Ha! Bale is also one of the greatest international footballers of all time. I genuinely can’t think of many even in his postcode.
41 min Already, Quansah is warming up: Konate’s impetuosity is going to see him hooked at half-time.
40 min Cunha takes aim, curling over the wall … and just wide of the angle.
39 min Konate flings himself into a header with the ball long gone, clattering Cunha instead. Free-kick Wolves, 2 yards out, just left of the D, and with no second yellow shown – rightly so – Agbadou is booked for gesturing that there should’ve been.
38 min Looking again at the penalty award, Diaz gave Agbadou a little shove, but I’m glad VAR didn’t intervene: it needs a higher bar to overturn, and football is a chaotic game in which bodies collide, inadvertently or on purpose.
GOAL! Liverpool 2-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers (Salah 37 pen)
Salah stutters, runs up, then curls high and middle as Sa dives right.
PENALTY TO LIVERPOOL!
A long ball, a careless foot wavesdat it by Agbadou, and Sa has a split-second to decide what to do, committing himself as Diaz latches on, knowing if he can just get a touch, the inevitable cleaning out will follow. He does and he does, gloves introduced to boot, and Salah has a chance to double his side’s advantage.
34 min Back to the Ronaldos, to be fair, I should also say that I was in the Olimpico the night Cristiano scored that header against Roma, and then too I was absolutely staggered, barely able to believe what I’d seen.
34 min Again, Wolves get a good head on a corner; again, it falls to Alexander-Arnold, who slices over the top.
32 min Here come Liverpool again, a fine ball out to the right by Szboszlai collected by Diaz, who pulls back, and though Sa gets a strong hand on it, Jota collects – though not when and where he’d like – momentum taking him away from goal before he swivels into a shot that’s blocked behind.
31 min Cunha threatens to counter, Konate hauls him back, and is booked.
30 min “Another unpopular opinion re Ronaldo,” writes David Walsh, “is that the best Ronaldo was 96-98 and Brazilian.”
I agree. I’ve never seen as shockingly brilliant a player as Ronaldo Nazario – I could not believe my eyes the year he was at Barca. Here are some words I wrote on him.
29 min The ref chugs over to the Wolves bench and shows someone, Vitor Pereira I think, a yellow card for mouth after a free-kick his side didn’t get. That’s two in two games for Never-bite-yer-tongue, as he’ll surely soon be known.
27 min Szboszlai picks up possession 23 yards out, right of centre, and fizzes a low show … just wide of the far post.
26 min “Contract predictions,” begins DDJ Stephens. “Trent will go. Mo will go. Virgil will stay. Trent will depart a legend, but Bradley is ready to step up and his wages would be a fraction of anything offered Trent to stay. That’s Edwardsball. Same applies to Mo. Of the three, Virgil is right now the most irreplaceable, but this next close-season will be the proper post-Klopp change of guard and most defining moment of Slot’s tenure. Winning the prem will buy him plenty of well deserved credit for the future too.”
I know what you mean, but if you take Slah out of this time, you’re losing its key factor. Vasn Dijk is good, but a goal and assist machine is almost irreplaceable.
25 min Wolves win a free-kick in centrefield and send men forward then look to spring behind Liverpool’s high line; they cannot, the ball easily cleared and flag up in any case.
23 min Liverpool come down the left, Diaz’s cross intercepted by Toti, then joined ion his desperate lunging block by Agbadou, who blocks Jota’s shot while his mate takes a knee to the head. That should be good for blowing away cobwebs and reminding him he exists.
21 min Liverpool win another corner … and Jota is first to rise, but heads over the top.
20 min “TAA has already won the PL and Champions League with Liverpool, plus the Super Cup and the Club World Cup, plus the EFL Cup and FA Cup, writes Rick Harris. “He has nothing left to prove at Liverpool so it is a no-brainer to go to Real Madrid where he will grow as a person and have similar success to that which Ronaldo achieved.
Tangentially, an unpopular opinion: the best Ronaldo, was 06-07 Ronaldo, when he was still looking to go on the outside and have fun. After that, he became a relentless, remorseless accumulator, just as brilliant but less well-rounded and entertaining.
18 min On Sky, Jamie Carragher is back praising Van Dijk for averting the break, but really, Sarabia passed him the ball – he didn’t have to do anything, though I guess he was there. Just the other day, Carragher said they needed to invent a higher level of football for Van Dijk because he was so much better than everyone – yes, he really did. Brilliant player, of course, but one who’s done very well to be around at a time the standard of striker is relatively poor.
18 min Wolves thought they were going to play on the counter; instrad, they’ve been done by a counter.
GOAL! Liverpool 1-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers (Diaz 16)
Liverpool go straight down the other end and score. Robertson feeds into Jota on halfway, who turns his man beautifully and feeds Diaz, who spreads crossfield to Salah. Salah’s touch, though, is poor – not words anyone ever supposed to type – Toti stretches to intercept, deflects the ball into the middle, and Diaz reaches it before Sa, bundling by the keeper and in.
