Liverpool provide lesson in how to win
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 v Liverpool FC 2
Once upon a time Liverpool FC was the best football club in Europe. But for all their undoubted achievement on the field, as an impressionable teenager growing up in the seventies, they failed to draw any sense of affection from me. Yet they will forever be associated with the Brennand’s annual Whit Week holiday to the Langdales Hotel at Chapel Stile in the Lake District. For that week tended to coincide with the European Cup Final which in 1977 v Borussia Monchengladbach and in 1978 v Club Brugge Liverpool won. In an era when hotel bedrooms were not fitted with televisions as standard this presented a problem. How to ensure that we bagged the tv room before some old dear who held a candle for James Ellis on Z Cars nabbed the remote. On most evenings my mother and father would settle down in the bar to enjoy the odd gin and tonic before making it to the dining room for a relaxed dinner. But on the night of the European Cup Final it was straight to the table, quickly through dinner all the while keeping a wary eye on residents who might potentially scupper our viewing. No after dinner coffee before my brother and I were despatched to a mercifully empty tv room for an evening in the company of Jimmy Case, Terry McDermott, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish.
It is twenty eight years and counting (click here to see how somebody’s not hurting) https://sinceliverpoollastwonatrophy.co.uk/league-title/ since Liverpool last won the League title. Hard to fathom when you consider their previous dominance. But after years of being a nearly side Manager Jurgen Klopp at least appears to be creating a unit with the real deal feel. Perfect fodder then, given their performances against Manchester City and Chelsea, for Wolves to cause an upset.
Well. You might think that, but it’s not quite how things panned out. For much of the game Wolves matched Liverpool in terms of possession and chances created. It’s just that when those chances arose Liverpool took them and Wolves did not, Matt Doherty, Romain Saiss and Morgan Gibbs-White all perhaps guilty. The other stark difference was the speed with which Liverpool moved the ball in the final third, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane capable of going from 0-60 in a millisecond.
For the home side the game began promisingly as they moved the ball around with authority during the opening quarter of hour. Then against the run of play Fabinho played a one two with Mane and from the bye-line pulled it back to Salah who side footed into an empty net. It had the clinical edge that the top sides possess and though Wolves created chances during the remainder of the first half they never really troubled Alisson in the Liverpool goal.
1-0 down at half time that deficit remained until the 68th minute when the Wolves defence was caught napping. From a corner the ball fell to Salah who picked out Virgil van Dijk on the penalty spot. The Dutchman hit the ball first time beyond Rui Patricio’s left hand and into the net.
Though Manager Nuno rang the changes introducing Gibbs White for Joao Moutinho and Ivan Cavaleiro for Adama Traore there was to be no repeat of the fight back v Chelsea. Klopp’s Liverpool is a far more uncompromising adversary one in which winning trumps elegance and style.
Despite the defeat at the season’s half way point Wolves find themselves seventh in the table with a more than creditable 25 points. They are playing good football against the top sides in the country. Little surprise then, that on a wet miserable night, 31,358 turned out, the largest crowd at the Molineux since 1981.
Wolves: Patricio 6, Bennett 6, Coady 6, Boly 6, Doherty 7, Moutinho 6 Sub Gibbs White, Neves 6, Saiss 6, Jonny 6 Sub Vinagre, Jimenez 6, Traore 6 Sub Cavaleiro
Liverpool FC: Alisson 6, Milner 7, Lovren 6, van Dijk 7, Robertson 6, Henderson 7, Fabinho 6, Mane 7 Sub Clyne, Firmino 6 Sub Wijnaldham, Keita 6 Sub Lallana, Salah 8
Attendance: 31,358
Referee: Craig Pawson 7
©Mark Brennand