Johnny Nicholson: Brilliant Anfield bout makes up for a weekend of false VAR gods
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED: Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp appeals after Mohamed Salah is fouled leading to his sending off during the Premier League match at Anfield, Liverpool. Pic: Peter Byrne/PA Wire.
Much of the first half between Liverpool and Manchester City was like two boxers connecting with decent jabs but unable to really deliver a knockout blow. City were better defensively than offensively, but the game never really got going. Liverpool condensed the play in the middle of the pitch. Erling Haaalnd had three half chances, one of which - a header - probably should’ve been scored. But the second half was in a different class. City had a goal chalked off for a Haaland foul, much to Pep Guardiola’s chagrin. Diogo Jota should’ve scored with a header. Alisson saved well from Haaland. The gloves were now off as the two sides began to knock seven shades out of each other. This is the sort of football which justifies the Premier League hype, superior entertainment to any other game played all weekend. Indeed, it served to highlight just what drab fare is served up by so many games. City pressed hard, holding a lot of possession but Liverpool were dangerous on the break. When Alisson booted it long to Mo Salah, Cancelo over-committed, Salah rolled him and ran in on goal to score. This was delicious long ball soccer. From then on, Liverpool played a sort of rope-a-dope strategy, hitting City on the counterattack. Joe Gomez was immense. Jurgen Klopp was sent off for getting some serious radge on. Pushing and shoving broke out, fouls were made but not given and everyone went crazy. It was all brilliant entertainment and left us all with a lot to talk about. Virgil Van Dijk had a great game, Andy Robertson likewise and Haaland was kept in check as well as possible. And at the end of it all, Liverpool were still 10 points behind City. The real winners were Arsenal whose victory at Leeds left them four points clear at the top of the league.
Aston Villa played a good first half which left under-pressure boss Steven Gerrard holding his head in his hands as his team was repeatedly denied by Chelsea keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. Mason Mount scored, thanks to Tyrone Mings’ poor defensive header. Despite being a decent defender, Mings does seem prone to making such crucial errors. Villa have scored just seven goals in the Premier League and are clearly not ruthless in front of goal despite creating some good chances: 18 shots at goal, seven on target tells its own story.
Villa look like they should be a good team and they dominated much of the play against the Blues. They do go through the thirds quite well at times, but something's not right. Gerrard has been blamed for not getting the best out of them and he must take some responsibility, but I think, basically, the players are not really good enough to beat Chelsea. Danny Ings and Olllie Watkins as a striking partnership looks good on paper but it's just not working. They are not imaginative enough, while defensively, they make too many crucial mistakes. When push comes to shove, the team just doesn't have the consistency of quality needed. When Mings made a sloppy tackle on Mount to concede a free kick, 25 yards out, you just knew the classy Mount would put it in the top corner to make it 2-0.
At Elland Road, an electrical fault meant the officials lost connection with the TV cameras and their earpieces went silent, and thus VAR couldn’t work. Most fans would’ve been happy to see the game continue without the curse of VAR, of course. But the referee is now a useless empty vessel who can’t do anything without Stockley Park instructing them. VAR is now so important that they can’t play a game without it. It took half an hour to sort it out but no-one was thinking about Arsenal fans having to get back to London on a Sunday evening of course. Fans don’t matter, only Getting Everything Right matters now, even though VAR does not do that. The idea that all games have to legally be played with VAR is plainly ludicrous. VAR is a false God.
When CR7 was taken off in Manchester United’s game against Newcastle, he walked off the pitch shaking his head to show his disapproval. The fact his replacement Marcus Rashford missed two chances, the sort of chances that you could imagine Ronaldo scoring with ease made Erik Ten Hag's decision look even worse. But it was criticism very much made in hindsight. Ronaldo had done next to nothing to that point and as much as some pundits insist scoring goals is the be all and end all, that is old-fashioned thinking. You can’t play with 10 men on the off-chance that the 11th might knock one in if you’re one of the biggest clubs in the world. But every game United play always seems to be about Ronaldo. It must drive Ten Hag crazy.
It’s unusual for a team to have 25 shots at goal in a game, even more unusual for 21 of them to miss the target. But this was West Ham’s record at St Mary’s as they plodded their way to a 1-1 draw against a less-than-impressive Southampton side that finds itself down in the boondocks in 18th place while the Hammers are 12th, just three points above them. It would not be difficult on this form to see both flirting with relegation all season.
Football is a mercurial sport. Crystal Palace have some good footballers and so do Leicester City but watching this absolutely turgid draw at the King Power Stadium you would never have known it. Twenty two players ran around for an hour and a half, achieved next to nothing, picked up a ridiculous amount of money for doing so and went home again. This simply isn’t some sort of fantastical elite football and the fact it is sold to us by broadcasters as such and tickets are charged at a rate which implies it is amongst the best of the best, is close to being a contravention of Trading Standards Act. We all know this is because of the very nature of football. The lowest can sometimes play like the highest and highest sometimes like the lowest. And we don’t really mind. It’s baked into our appreciation of the game. But broadcasters are reluctant to taint the Premier League brand with the dirty truth that a lot of their football is melt-your-eyes boring and the players are immorally over-rewarded for playing it, to such an extent that it sours many people’s guts. Such games as this are quickly forgotten, so quickly, you’d think they never even happen in the self-appointed ‘Best League In The World’. They do. And often.
Gary O’Neill stepped in to replace the downtrodden and somewhat hapless Scott Parker after Bournemouth took a 9-0 shellacking at Anfield. Since then the club has been on a six-game unbeaten run. Had they beaten Fulham, and at 2-1 up it looked likely, they would’ve gone up to sixth - a remarkable recovery. That they came away disappointed with a point after a controversial Aleksandar Mitrovic penalty equalised the scores, shows how they have moved on under the temporary coach. Surprising then that O’Neill hasn’t been given the job yet. The concern of fans should be that owner Maxim Demin, in his attempt to sell the club, thinks that a bigger-name manager will make them more attractive to buyers. This is the sort of delusion people who know nothing about football often have. He’s wrong. What makes a club attractive is being successful on their own terms, and currently, the Cherries are exactly that. So give O’Neill the job. He’s proved himself already.
As we saw at Elland Road, the story is so often about VAR these days. As with every Premier League weekend, contentious VAR decisions, often made after considerable delay, often without immediately informing the paying fans what was going on, dominated results. This loathsome system, I refuse to call it technology because it isn’t technology, it is a bloke looking at a TV in some darkened and sordid little grief hole, makes inconsistent decisions that are as bewildering as they are stupid. Everything it promised to do has proven beyond it and it has just created more controversy. In the Nottingham Forest v Wolves game there were four VAR penalty calls, one took over three minutes. During the second half of that game, which had eight minutes of extra time, the ball was in play for just 18 minutes as players waited for one VAR call after another. It has not made football better or more fair, quite the opposite, no-one even really understands when it operates and when it doesn’t, so why are we persisting with it? And I haven’t even mentioned how it has blunted and neutered our emotions every single time a goal is scored.
A second-half tactical shift won Saturday's game for Tottenham. That’s what Antonio Conte is paid for. Spurs had started really well, knocking at the Everton door with some aggression. But one thing that Frank Lampard has done for the Toffees this season is tighten them up and make them harder to beat. Basically, he’s made Everton into a decent version of Sean Dyche’s Burnley, which is something, I suppose. However, Conte’s switch to 3-5-2 in possession and 5-3-2 without the ball and the introduction of Yves Bissouma after Richarlison went off injured, reinvigorated the team. Harry Kane won a penalty by making sure Jordan Pickford collided with his foot and from then on Lampard’s team found it hard to compete. Pierre Hojbjerg scored a second late on. As per usual, it was a patchy performance from Spurs, but ultimately a successful one, largely thanks to Kane, who was making his 400th appearance. He hauls the team through difficult periods in games more often than he should have to.
An Ivan Toney double beat Brighton. With a month to go until the World Cup, Toney is making an irresistible claim for a place in the England squad and will surely be included. He’s third in the Premier League goalscorer charts behind Harry Kane and, of course, Erling Haaland. England are hardly blessed with a plethora of great strikers from which to choose as back up to Kane but Toney is the man in form and is the best of the rest.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
