And breathe. After 90 minutes of rollicking, rumbustious entertainment, amid his frustration, Arne Slot could at least console himself with the sense he was vindicated in one respect. The Liverpool head coach had suggested Newcastle United could provide his side with a tougher test than either Real Madrid or Manchester City and, amid the drama on Tyneside, he was proved right. A fixture with a history of classics delivered another.
Yet if in the greatest of all, 1996’s 4-3, the final twist in the tale came at Newcastle’s expense, this time it was Liverpool who suffered. Caoimhin Kelleher, fantastic and almost flawless in his spell deputising for Alisson, came out for, and got caught under, Bruno Guimaraes’s free kick. Fabian Schar applied the far-post finish. Newcastle had a third goal of the night and became only the third team, after Nottingham Forest and Arsenal, to deny Slot’s side victory in his 21-game reign.
The temptation is to suggest that, with their dynamism and determination, their fearlessness and ferocity, Newcastle revived a title race that was in danger of a premature death. Certainly, they gave a little hope to the rest, though it took a colossal effort, with industrial quantities of dynamism and determination, to deny Liverpool.
“A big part of me feels we should have won it,” said manager Eddie Howe. And yet, as he admitted, there was also relief Newcastle did not lose. For Liverpool, too, the good and the bad could be balanced out. While there were defensive tremors from Slot’s side, conceding three times in a match for the first time in his tenure, there was also evidence of character and brilliance.
In a game overflowing with incident, packed with personal storylines, Mohamed Salah was magnificent: scoring two goals, setting up another, hitting the bar.
There was the brief but eventful intervention of Trent Alexander-Arnold: benched initially to spare his legs when Liverpool only have five fit defenders, he registered two assists in his cameo, the first a minute after coming on.
Kelleher was not alone in experiencing decidedly mixed fortunes. Anthony Gordon, the boyhood Liverpool fan who was wanted at Anfield in the summer, spurned a glorious chance to put Newcastle 2-0 ahead; that save marked the high point of Kelleher’s night. Yet Gordon was to score later, giving Newcastle their second lead of the night. “He made, again, some important saves for us, but he made the wrong judgement in the cross,” said Slot of his goalkeeper. “And still it was unbelievable how this defender, with his wrong leg, could score that goal.” Schar showed that classy finishes were not confined to the specialist scorers.
And while Salah was initially quiet, there was a time when this shaped up as Alexander Isak’s evening. “It was Alex’s best performance of the season,” said manager Eddie Howe. Isak was magnificent. Liverpool had kept Erling Haaland quiet on Sunday but another Scandinavian troubled them with his running and creativity even before he rifled in a 70mph shot. Any faster and it would have collected a speeding ticket. “A goal out of nothing,” added Howe.
Isak scarcely looked a player who had to limp off after a few minutes against Crystal Palace. Newcastle hardly looked the goal-shy side who mustered an expected goal (xG) of just 0.02 at Selhurst Park. This was a further reminder they can raise their game against the best. “We went toe to toe and matched them,” said Howe. “It was a big jump forward. We were more like us.” They went toe to toe with Liverpool, bringing a bruising physicality City lacked, allying it with touches of quality. They hassled and harried Liverpool to such an extent that Slot’s side collected five cautions, the costliest ruling Alexis Mac Allister out of the Merseyside derby.
The Argentinian had already come close twice from distance within seconds, first being denied by Nick Pope and then hitting the post. Then Newcastle struck wood, Jacob Murphy whistling a shot past Kelleher from Isak’s ball.
The Swede instead broke the deadlock. He took Guimaraes’s pass, his first touch enabling him to elude Virgil van Dijk, and rifled a shot into the roof of the net. It was a high-class goal from a high-class player. But Newcastle have not beaten Liverpool since 2015 and when Joe Gomez erred but Gordon missed, it gave the visitors a reprieve.
Slot has made a habit of telling half-time interventions and Liverpool emerged reenergised. They had a glorious finish from Curtis Jones, a cathartic thump lashed into the roof of the net after Salah teed him up. Jones scored on his 150th appearance and, but for a point-blank save from Pope, would have had another. Instead, Newcastle had a second, Gordon finishing after an Isak pass.
His goals have been rarities whereas Salah struck for a seventh consecutive league game, turning in Alexander-Arnold’s low centre. If the right-half of Liverpool’s defence, manned by Gomez and Jarell Quansah, looked fallible without the vice-captain, Alexander-Arnold was brought on to add another dimension in attack.
He did. He centred again when Salah spun, shot and scored. “Mo had a massive impact on the game,” said Slot. “What makes him even more special is that in the first 50 minutes you thought that he’s not playing his best game today and then comes up with 45 minutes of assists, two goals, hitting the bar, being a constant threat.”
After hitting the frame of the goal and scoring in successive minutes, Salah seemed to have assumed the role of match-winner. Newcastle had other ideas, Schar stealing in to finish. “Being 3-2 up it feels a disappointment to drop two points,” said Slot. But while Liverpool claimed an injury-time penalty when Mac Allister’s shot hit Dan Burn, so did Newcastle when Isak went down in the box.
So a draw felt fair. It remains to be seen if alters the course of Liverpool’s season. It is guaranteed to remain one of the games of the campaign.
