LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 16: Jurgen Klopp manager of Liverpool celebrates with Jordan Henderson of Liverpool after the Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on September 16, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
Recapping Liverpool’s five opening games of the new season – including highlight videos
So far this season, Liverpool have experienced more enjoyment than frustration. Ignoring one major blip, we’ve had a rather successful start to Jurgen Klopp’s first full season.
It’s pretty apparent that Klopp’s focus on team ethic has really hit home. For the first time in years the likes of Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge need to actually fight for their places in the side.
The manager’s aim of improving our attacking play seems successful, with players all over the pitch contributing with goals. I think it’s already clear he’s targeting our defence too. Of course he’ll have been trying to improve all aspects, but with our attackers performing I think keeping goals out is the new focus.
Liverpool currently sit 6th in the Premier League – tied on points with 5th and 4th. We’re a point higher than rivals Manchester United, but three points behind Everton.
In our run of fixtures, we’ve already beaten Arsenal and Chelsea away from home, grabbing a point from Tottenham away too. We demolished the Champions Leicester City on our first league game at Anfield this season, and with those four results we can be pretty happy.
Perhaps we’d have liked to win the game against Spurs, but the point was a good one nonetheless. So four games, 10 points. Where did it all go wrong? Why aren’t we tied with Everton?
Well, in typical Liverpool fashion we threw the game against Burnley away from home. The newly promoted side sat deep and rustled us. I’m still not over it. Whats even more worrying is that we’re still to play a ‘poor’ team in the Premier League following the Burnley game – so we might just lose against Hull next weekend.
Let’s recap those first 5 matches.
Week 1 – Arsenal
All the following videos can be found on an incredible Youtube channel by the name of Anfield Legend. The first game of this season starts around 3 minutes in.
What a way to start the season this was, eh? Away from home against Arsenal and we stepped up to win it. After going behind, some of the usual Philippe Coutinho magic pulled us back into it. That free-kick just before half time was one of the most precise I’ve ever seen, and Coutinho deserves so much credit.
Then not only did Adam Lallana score, but Coutinho also managed to bag a second in a period when Liverpool ran away with the match. Sadio Mane scored on his Premier League debut for Liverpool with a stunning solo goal, doing enough to help the Red’s see out the game.
Now the key thing to recognise in this match is that while we turned it up a gear and scored 4 goals, we still conceded 3. The majority of the first half wasn’t great, and conceding two near the end of the match was poor to say the least.
This game showed that while we can step up and beat teams, we still have some issues.
Week 2 – Burnley
Please can we just pretend this never happened…
In less than 2 minutes, Burnley scored. Yup, we conceded to Burnley in under two minutes. The effort by Sam Vokes was actually a quality shot, but Liverpool’s defending was poor and we paid for it.
Philippe Coutinho (buzzing with confidence after scoring that free-kick) then proceeded to blast shot after shot over the bar. Daniel Sturridge played on the right, and its clear he didn’t like it.
Andre Grey exposed our defence once again on the counter, scoring Burnley’s second goal. In response, people went onto his Twitter, scrolled back through the years, and exposed Grey for all the cruel things he said way back when.
Liverpool simply didn’t show up. Burnley sat deep and locked off our creativity. We got caught on the counter and that was that. This combined with the poor defending of week 1 sent fans into a crazy meltdown, because things didn’t look so promising at this point.
Week 3 – Tottenham
The commentary for this game made me laugh. As you can hear early into this video, the commentators made a deal about how Harry Kane hasn’t scored a Premier League goal in August. Wow, what a thrilling discovery. I’m sure the month effects whether or not he’ll score!
Funnily enough, he actually didn’t score in this game.
This match was one of those that I enjoyed, but found myself frustrated with. In all fairness, we played brilliant. The creative play between Coutinho, Roberto Firmino and Mane was a joy to watch.
Mane bullied Danny Rose until both resorted to diving on the floor in order to prevent further battling. He looked promising, but Rose gave 100% in order to try to keep him quiet.
For all our promising play, Vorm managed to shut it down. The Spurs keeper had a great game – sadly.
Cutting it short, this game caused conflict due to the new penalty rules on holding. I’m not going to debate what should or shouldn’t have been a penalty, because everybody will always disagree on each incident.
Liverpool were however awarded a penalty for a challenge on Firmino, which James Milner scored easily. Then Sadio Mane scored a second for Liverpool, but Adam Lallana was ruled offside. This call was SO close, and he actually looks pretty level, but the decision was made.
In typical Liverpool fashion, one big defensive blunder lead to a Spurs equaliser, and the game ended as a draw. I feel that this result showed our improvement, but it was one ruined by such heavy debate regarding decisions.
Week 4 – Leicester City
Here’s when we stepped up. Roberto Firmino scored two tidy goals, Adam Lallana blasted another, and Mane bagged a goal on his home debut.
So many things went right for Liverpool. Firmino, Sturridge and Mane provided a performance worthy of keeping Coutinho out of the team. This didn’t matter, as Firmino missed our most recent game and Coutinho came in to replace him, but I’m not sure if he’d have been starting otherwise.
The whole team worked brilliantly together, and we actually looked phenomenal. Leicester produced magic last season, but they’re not on par with the rest of the top teams. It was an impressive win, and we looked good, but it was still only Leicester.
The Lucas mistake was probably the only real negative, and even that is cancelled out for me by his involvement in the first two goals. He also showed good mental strength to step up and perform despite messing up.
A very very very good performance from Liverpool here, showing just what we can do.
Week 5 – Chelsea
Against a well-managed Chelsea side we faced a real test. We stepped up, looking sharp and pressing quickly. Our first goal came from Dejan Lovren, who tapped home a cross.
Then it happened. Jordan Henderson fired an absolute beauty into the top right corner from range. He has a habit of stepping up against big teams, and now has a pair of class goals against Manchester City and Chelsea.
The Blue’s got back into the game after Diego Costa scored his fifth of the season so far, but they couldn’t find an equaliser. Both teams showed moments of real skill, but Liverpool were the better side on the day.
This is a result that shows we mean business. We could have scored even more, we could have conceded even more, but we did what we needed to do.
Related Article: Liverpool’s five key players this season
Another great game, and another important three points earned.
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