The only king we care about

Our Egyptian king was once again the difference yesterday, as we laboured to a 1-0 win over Brentford, in a game marred by poor refereeing and play acting from the visitors. Salah (McMOTM) scored in his 9th consecutive home game, becoming the first player to ever achieve that feat and it also marked his 100th goal at Anfield and his 30th of the season. Not bad considering most are in agreement that he’s not had his best season.

We tried Gakpo in the 8 position and while he has the physical presence and pace to play there, it didn’t really work. Saying that, he’s been asked to play in unfamiliar positions since pretty much day one and considering he joined a struggling team mid season, I think he’d done well. We do need to address that position in the summer however, as Hendo’s legs look to be going, if not gone and there’s big question marks over the long term futures of Elliot and Carvalho.

There wasn’t a great structure to our team, Jones was popping up all over the place in the first half hour and then seemed almost invisible after, with Jota similar and Nunez having another frustrating game. He’ll be annoyed he didn’t score after Trent picked him out with a perfect pass after he’d made a good run in behind. You thought all he had to do was side foot it into the bottom corner but he made a right mess of it if we’re being honest. I’ll be really interested to see what Klopp does with Darwin next season, as at the moment he looks like a player we’ve massively overpaid for, who doesn’t really fit in the system.

Consecutive clean sheets is a step in the right direction, although you couldn’t exactly say we’ve looked defensively solid during those games and I suspect Brentford will be frustrated by their lack of quality in the final third. You can only beat what is in front of you however and we managed that.

The resurgence continues then and at the very least, we’re keeping United and Newcastle honest and applying pressure. I still suspect we’ve left it too late, as it would require a complete collapse from either of the two teams above us, for us to sneak into the top four at the last but at least we’ve made a fight of it, in what has been a season to forget.

Over to Arsenal and West Ham to do us a favour this afternoon.

Oh, and the inaugural McFanny of the match is shared between the ref and whoever decided to play the national anthem at Anfield 😉

Walk on!!