Liverpool: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – EPL Gameweeks #18 & #19
The Hammers crushed, and the Gunners hushed. The claret and blue beaten by two. A decent week in fantasy, but points galore got nobody. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly at Liverpool FC for EPL and FPL Gameweeks 18 and 19. Merry Christmas!
The Good
Booking their place in the Carabao Cup semi finals. The Reds crushed West Ham 5-1 in Thursday in their quarterfinal game. Two goals from Curtis Jones and one each from Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah proved far too much for David Moyes’ Hammers.
To be honest, I thought this was going to be a harder fixture than it actually was in the end. I was surprised by how bad West Ham were… or how bad Liverpool made them look!
The team will now face Fulham in the semifinals on Wednesday 24th January for a place in the final. If Liverpool play as they did in this game, I struggle to see how Fulham can contain them. Still, the Cottagers have nothing to lose so they will for site make things difficult for Klopp and company.
The (Not) Bad
Drawing with Arsenal at Anfield on Saturday. The reason why this isn’t simply Bad is because Liverpool didn’t lose, plus it was against an Arsenal side that have undoubtedly improved since last their coming second last season.
To be fair, Liverpool had the slightly better chances with both Harvey Elliott and Trent Alexander-Arnold hitting the woodwork. Mo Salah didn’t disappoint and scored a blinder after the Reds went behind to an early Arsenal goal.
The game wasn’t without controversy of t, and Liverpool had what seemed like a stone wall penalty turned down when Martin Ødegaard seemed to handle in the area. Despite public opinion and that of Social Media, the decision was upheld. Apparently die to the fact that Ødegaard was falling when his hand hit the ball a this isn’t classed as handball according to the rules.
In all, a fair result. This was a really top notch game of football with neither side giving in to even the slightest hint of defence, unless when absolutely necessary. The emotion shown by both managers at the end showed what a tough game this was.
The (Sm)Ugly
The hard-earned 0-2 win over Vincent Kompany’s Burnley side at Turf moor yesterday. Liverpool took the lead through Darwin Núñez after x minutes and went in looking good value for the lead at the break.
When substitute Harvey Elliott struck home midway through the second half, this looked as is the Reds had sewn up a good victory… enter VAR stage left. Referee Paul Tourney spotted Mo Salah in an offside position and impeding the home keeper James Trafford, so this back to 0-1.
Burnley were however, were determined to give their fans some festive cheer and started to ask some serious questions of their visitors. In fairness, but for a little more quality, this could well have been a very different ending for Jürgen Klopp’s men.
Chance after chance went begging for the hosts until the game was settled in somewhat clinical but cruel fashion. A neat back heel from Luis Diaz to the back-from-injury Diogo Jota, was dispatched through Trafford’s legs to effectively end the game.
Liverpool now lead Arsenal by two points at the top of the league at the time of writing, with the Gooners yet to play West Ham on the 28th December.
