Terrace Talk: Liverpool - I’ll never understand what Alisson was trying to do all game

Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson reacts during the Premier League match at Anfield. Picture: Jon Super

Here’s a little quiz to begin your working week. What is Liverpool’s first-choice XI? How many times have you seen it this season? Name another team that was ever successful without picking its best team once.

Okay, subtlety’s not my strong-point - but you get it, right?

There were gruesome yuks with the reaction to Brighton’s deserved win, from seeing the players that we finished the night with and then hearing ‘experts’ ask (with impressively straight faces) “what the hell’s gone wrong at Anfield?” I’m fine with waiting to see a proper team out there, and if it’s still so dysfunctional, doubtless Klopp will pay the usual price and we’d start all over again.

Everyone else is protesting they’re in the same boat. They’re not. Different boats, fewer leaks. Klopp’s not a tactical klutz by any means, but he does rely on quality, fitness, focus and motivation.

Losing to basement teams at home, decent performances at United, Spurs and West Ham. A complacent pattern’s emerging, sure, but you can’t swim with your feet and ankles tied. You can float for a while, maybe, which is what we did.

This didn’t all happen overnight. Events after Van Dijk’s injury gave us hope we wouldn’t be affected by it.

Coaching is glorified problem-solving. So, Klopp can’t unravel this one? It isn’t sycophantic to ask who the hell could, it’s common sense. As little as that applies to modern football, hopefully it’ll make a comeback for a man that supplied two of the greatest seasons in our history.

We’ve the same predicament as City had last season, the roles are reversed. When Liverpool beat them and pushed ahead in the table, it clearly discouraged them.

We were never 18 points better than them, anyone with a brain cell knows it, perhaps the opposite will be said now. Ignore the banter squad, who live for instant gratification and will crawl back under their rocks soon enough.

City’s Anfield hoodoo never had a bigger test than this. Even in the “Agueroooooo!” season, they clung to a point after the ignominy of a Charlie Adam goal.

Also, with a penalty winner beckoning in the last minute (was it only two and a half years ago?) Mahrez sent it over the bar, putting it mildly. That ball’s now Saturn’s smallest moon, with Gundogen’s orbiting Jupiter.

Not that it made any difference. So much for getting your best players back out there.

Once City shook off their own torpor, only one result was possible, but if your world-class goalkeeper decides to pass it straight back to them (twice) it’s not helpful. They don’t really need that kind of help.

I didn’t think Thiago and Jones were that great but taking them off at 1-1 was ludicrous. Salah’s pen was our big break, and pragmatism was called for. Was Klopp brave to go for three points, or foolish? Wise after the event, etc.

Sterling was troubling Alexander-Arnold all game, so even if Fabinho’s foul was a midfielder’s tackle, it’s still the overall problem facing any defender on that side of the box until Trent moves into midfield.

I can’t even get worked up about the differing reaction to Sterling and Salah pulling the same stunt; Englishman clever, foreigner devious, and it never will change.

If I live to be a thousand, I’ll never understand what Alisson was trying to do all game. If there’s no pass on, launch it; hardly rocket science, is it?

The shuddering shockwave of such unexpected mistakes meant whatever happened after was academic, same as at Villa. They ought to stay disciplined, but they didn’t and rarely do. No use crying about that when there’s plenty of other things to take issue with.

Just throw the new centre-halves in now and get Henderson back in midfield, accept you’re fighting for fourth and stop weeping and wailing.

We’re back in the real world. Unpack your bags.