Andy Hunter was at Anfield, and his report has landed. Here it is! Thanks for reading this MBM.
Jurgen Klopp’s turn. “Everyone wants an analysis of the game. I will not deliver that, I am not interested today! We had to get through this. Big compliment to Watford and especially to Roy, who we could bring back when he is 80 and he will set up and organist a team in a really good way. We could definitely have done better but that is not too interesting today. We need maturity and desire, and the counter press was the best I have seen for a long time. But with the ball we could have been more creative. We were in control and I was really happy about it.” As for Gomez’s delivery from the right wing? “Joey did well defensively but offensively as well. We had some banter on the bench and I told [Alexander-Arnold] that it was not him, it’s just the position that makes the crosses!”
Roy Hodgson speaks to BT. “There was a lot to admire in the performance. I’m a little bit saddened by that VAR decision at the end. There was no appeal from any Liverpool player for a penalty. Jurgen and I had no idea what they were checking or what they were doing, so I don’t think that’s what VAR is about. VAR’s done some good things this season, but it’s not about giving a team a second goal in the 88th minute. To some extent it destroyed a feeling that 1-0 was a great result, and we might even have created a chance in those last two minutes. So that’s the only sad note for me, but I’m very pleased with the players’ performance. Today’s performance against Liverpool gives me some hope that we can ask Manchester City and Chelsea a few questions as well, because there’s no doubt it wasn’t a walk in the park for Liverpool.”
Diogo Jota, who scored the opener from Joe Gomez’s Trentesque cross, talks to BT Sport. “It was the beginning of a new cycle today. People were coming from all over the world, and an early kick off is not easy, but we did our job. I told Joe before the game he was going to get an assist! I was confident and fortunately for us it happened.”
Gomez adds: “That’s the nature of the Premier League. No game is going to be easy, and they put up a tough fight. They’re organised and well drilled, and it was tough until the end. Jots said that would happen before the game, so he might have spoke that into existence for me! We have to push each other each week. We have to train well and wait for our opportunities.”
Jurgen Klopp, more relieved than thrilled, punches the air in front of the Kop. That’s a huge result with consequences at both ends of the table. Liverpool go two points clear of Manchester City, who kick off against Burnley at 3pm. Down at the bottom, Watford remain in the drop zone, and have now played three games more than 17th-placed Everton, though their resolute display today should give them some hope for the remainder of their struggle.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 30 | 57 | 72 |
| 2 | Man City | 29 | 50 | 70 |
| 17 | Everton | 27 | -18 | 25 |
| 18 | Watford | 30 | -28 | 22 |
| 19 | Burnley | 27 | -16 | 21 |
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FULL TIME: Liverpool 2-0 Watford
It was tense and not particularly pretty, but it’s three precious points for Liverpool, who go top of the league for a couple of hours at least. Over to Manchester City.
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90 min +3: Jota dribbles down the middle and flicks towards Mane, just inside the box. Mane tries to round Foster, but doesn’t get enough on the ball and the keeper claims well. Three would have been harsh on Watford, who have been staunch and will take heart ahead of the rest of their relegation battle.
90 min +2: “Liverpool, Liverpool, top of the league,” sing the home fans, finally finding their voice. For a couple of hours at least, anyway. Manchester City will have an opportunity to address that situation at Turf Moor in about 40 minutes’ time.
90 min: Thiago comes on for Milner. There will be four added minutes.
GOAL! Liverpool 2-0 Watford (Fabinho 89 pen)
Anfield falls silent. Fabinho whips nervelessly into the top left. Never in doubt! Foster had no chance whatsoever. It’s only a surprise that the net is still attached to the frame of the goal.
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Penalty to Liverpool!
88 min: Yep. Kucka is punished for his idiocy. Why on earth did he think he would get away with that?!
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87 min: The referee goes over to the monitor. This will surely be given.
86 min: A corner leads to a game of pinball in the Watford box. Thiago has a shot but doesn’t connect properly. Kucka rubgy-tackles Jota at the far post! Now then, is that allowed? VAR is going to take a look!
84 min: Firmino twice has the ball at his feet on the edge of the Watford box. The first time he tries to release Mane to his right. A dismal pass puts paid to that. Then soon after, he shapes to shoot, feints, then eventually has a go, by which time Kabasele is on the scene to block. Some poor decision making by Firmino there.
82 min: Henderson lumps a thought-free ball down the middle to nobody. As Foster claims, Firmino waves his arms up and down, encouraging his team-mates to play it cool. Nerves are a-jangling all right.
81 min: A long pass for Mane down the right. He tries to whip a cross in, but can’t get his foot around the ball. Into the Kop it flies.
79 min: Dennis is robbed by Thiago out on the Liverpool left. The ball’s shuttled down the flank to Jota, who rolls inside for Mane. A scuffed shot spins harmlessly wide right. Liverpool just can’t find a nerve-settling second, and Anfield is on edge as a result. Can Watford do Manchester City a huge favour?
78 min: Watford make a triple change. Dennis, King and Cleverley come on for Hernandez, Pedro and Louza.
76 min: Gomez cuts in from the right and curls a delicious ball towards Robertson, romping in from the other flank. Robertson rolls across the face of goal, hoping to find Firmino for the tap-in, but Foster reads the danger well. Gomez’s delivery from the right has been magnificent today. Alexander-Arnold would have been proud of some of his crosses.
74 min: The game suddenly becomes an end-to-end affair. Hernandez latches onto a poor Gomez pass and breaks down the inside left. Liverpool swarm him. Jota then counters the counter, dribbling at pace down the middle, a one-two with Mane on the edge of the box only just failing to come off. That’s got the crowd going.
73 min: Mane crosses from the right, forcing another corner that comes to nothing.
72 min: Firmino wins a corner down the left. A brief surge of noise, but it comes to nothing. The tense home fans so desperate for a second goal that would calm the nerves.
71 min: James also had an album called One Man Clapping. It’s that quiet right now.
69 min: Salah, shaking his head sadly, departs. Mane comes on to replace him. The crowd serenade the Egypt international with a sympathetic reading of his James song.
68 min: Liverpool continue to probe. Watford continue to hold their shape.
66 min: Salah competes for an aimless floated pass and sends a weak header over the bar. On the bench, Mane pulls up his socks. He’s coming on.
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64 min: Liverpool stroke it about to little effect. Anfield, tense and sullen, isn’t exactly the sonic cauldron Klopp requested.
62 min: Fabinho comes on for Jones, who has a sore foot. “The popular consensus is that Man City have the superior strength in depth, and that probably is true,” begins Matt Dony. “But Liverpool’s bench today is, frankly, pretty spectacular. When was the last time they had a bench that strong for a league match?”
61 min: Henderson whips another cross in from the right. Jota rises high but can’t get enough on his header, which sails harmlessly wide left.
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59 min: Gomez dribbles past Hernandez down the right and is yanked back. Hernandez goes into the book as a result. Henderson takes the free kick and finds Jota. Another uncontested header flies over the bar. Jota shakes his head sadly. He knows Liverpool need to up their game.
57 min: Sarr drives down the left and cuts back for Pedro, who steers a shot inches wide of the bottom right. He holds his head in his hands, because the flag didn’t go up for offside, though I suspect VAR would have chalked that off had his shot gone in. Sarr looked to have gone a nanosecond too soon.
56 min: Salah tries to pick up the tempo and wins a corner down the right. It’s sent towards Van Dijk, who sends an uncontested header harmlessly wide and high. Good chance, that.
55 min: ... but Watford are entitled to do what they need to do. And at the moment, they’re causing anxiety to spread around Anfield.
54 min: Kamara takes his sweet time over a throw. Straight out of Jose Mourinho’s 2014 playbook.
52 min: Jota picks up a loose ball in the midfield and blazes one over the bar from distance. Jones, free on the edge of the box, is far from happy. Klopp isn’t made up either. Liverpool are a study in frustration right now.
51 min: It’s all a bit slow and mannered from a Liverpool perspective. Watford will be perfectly happy with the plodding pace of this game at the moment.
49 min: Anfield is quiet and tense. Welcome to the business end of the season.
47 min: Matip can’t win a header in the middle of a crowded box and Watford half-clear. Jones then flays a hopeless effort deep into the Kop.
46 min: Gomez sends another sensational cross in from the right. Robertson waits to head home from six yards, only for Kabasele to fling himself at the ball, sending a last-ditch header out for a corner. That’s an astonishing intervention, though Robertson was almost certainly offside. But now it’s a corner.
Liverpool get the second half underway. They’re kicking towards the Kop, which is just how they like it. Neither manager has made any half-time changes.
Half-time entertainment. Hot off the press!
HALF TIME: Liverpool 1-0 Watford
Liverpool are leading, but Jurgen Klopp will almost certainly have notes.
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45 min +1: Gomez is booked for clanking into the back of an in-flight Pedro.
45 min: There will be two added first-half minutes.
44 min: Gomez clumsily bundles Kucka to the ground out on the left. Hernandez comes across and tries to start a fight while Gomez is busy apologising. The look that spreads across Gomez’s face roughly translates as Oh For Goodness Sake. Nothing comes of Hernandez’s antics, or the free kick.
43 min: Henderson fails to find Jota on the edge of the Watford box with a simple pass. Goal kick. He screams in frustration. Liverpool may be leading, but they’re not clicking at the moment.
42 min: Salah has been quiet so far. He drops a shoulder and cuts in from the right, aiming for the top left. Kabasele blocks. “If he could get a run of games, then I think Gomez would show that he could be a starter at most clubs,” writes Mike MacKenzie. “While he can play CB too, it’s hard to displace one of the starting back four on Liverpool.”
40 min: The wrong decision by Jota, there, though you can hardly blame a 13-goal striker for taking it on.
38 min: A game of pinball breaks out from the corner. Jota has the ball at his feet on the left-hand edge of the six-yard box. If he rolls into the middle, Henderson has a tap-in. He opts to shoot instead. Foster blocks. A second corner comes to nothing.
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37 min: Liverpool clear the corner and break, Henderson finding Salah on the right. Salah can’t get past Kamara but settles for a corner.
36 min: Sarr robs Robertson and finds Pedro down the right. Pedro wins another Watford corner. Femenia to take.
34 min: The bulk of Liverpool’s play is coming through Thiago. Now he tries to find Jones in the Watford box with a pitching wedge down the inside-left channel. Should have taken sand wedge. Goal kick.
32 min: Thiago tries to steer one into the top right from the edge of the Watford D. Blocked. Watford are displaying some trademark Hodgsonian solidity.
31 min: Hernandez is thankfully fine to continue. Up he springs.
30 min: Hernandez bravely heads clear under pressure from Matip. He’s bundled over. The whistle goes for a free kick and the Watford man stays down. On come the physios. Time for a breather.
29 min: Thiago nearly releases Robertson into the box down the left. Sissoko comes over and executes a perfectly timed tackle. The crowd want a penalty; it’s just a corner.
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28 min: Hernandez and Pedro combine down the left but can’t quite get past Gomez, who is doing a fine job as Alexander-Arnold’s understudy so far.
26 min: Tell you what, though, Watford don’t look like a relegation team here. They’re snapping into challenges, and exude danger whenever they attack. Hernandez and Pedro are fizzing around everywhere.
24 min: It was 34 seconds between Alisson’s one-on-one save and Jota’s goal. That’s improved Liverpool’s mood all right.
GOAL! Liverpool 1-0 Watford (Jota 22)
... Liverpool go up the other end and take the lead! Gomez strides down the right and curls an Alexander-Arnoldesque cross in for Jota, who beats Foster to the ball, brushing a header across Foster and into the bottom left!
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22 min: Liverpool are nearly super irritated, as Pedro feeds Kucka down the left. He’s clear! He aims for the bottom left, but Alisson blocks sensationally. And what a big save, because ...
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21 min: Femenia curls in from the right. Hernandez goes up for a header. Gomez flicks out for a corner. That’s cleared by Salah, who is tapped on the head by Sissoko’s toe as a reward. Free kick. Liverpool are getting slightly irritated.
19 min: Henderson passes back to Alisson, who is in the process of finding Matip when Hernandez slides in late on him. The referee waves play on. Alisson is far from happy.
17 min: Jota lashes an overly ambitious long-distance effort into the Anfield Road end. A bit early for this sort of desperation.
16 min: Robertson swings it in. An easy claim for Foster. Anfield thoughts turn to Alexander-Arnold.
15 min: Kamara clips Salah from behind and it’s a free kick out on the right. It’s clumsy, because Salah was going nowhere. Liverpool load the box.
14 min: That’s the first meaningful save of the afternoon, and it was forced by Watford. Anfield is a little bit quieter now. Sarr, full of confidence, tears down the left and crosses, whereupon the flag goes up for an obvious offside. Roy Hodgson will be delighted with this start.
12 min: Sissoko and Femenia clip a couple of passes to each other down the right, winning Watford’s first corner of the afternoon. Hernandez meets the set piece at the near post, flicking a deft header towards the top right. Alisson reads the intention and claims without drama.
10 min: Sarr loops in from the left. Another easy claim for Alisson, but Watford look confident whenever they make it into the Liverpool half.
9 min: Salah and Jones combine down the right, the latter reaching the byline and sending a low cross into the mixer. Kamara does well to clear with red shirts closing in.
8 min: Thiago threads a sensational no-look pass down the inside-right channel to feed Jones, just to the side of the D. Jones has Firmino and Salah as options, but decides to hoick deep into the stand instead. As poor as the pass was sublime.
6 min: Samir rakes a long ball down the middle. Sarr can’t get past Van Dijk so decides to send a speculative screaming shot goalwards. The ball clears the bar, but only just. A little more dip on that, and things might have been interesting.
5 min: Van Dijk sprays a long diagonal towards Robertson on the left. Robertson nearly gets to the ball but can’t keep it in. Goal kick, but a thumbs up from Robertson for the ambition of the pass.
3 min: Sarr finds Hernandez down the Watford left. The resulting cross sails harmlessly into Alisson’s arms, but there’s an early sign that the visitors have come to play as well.
2 min: A decent atmosphere at Anfield, by the way, especially given the early kick-off. Jurgen Klopp’s request for the fans to make some noise is being met.
1 min: Just a few seconds in, and Liverpool snaffle possession. Jota bursts down the middle and is dispossessed at the cost of a corner. From the set piece, Salah tries to steer a shot into the bottom right, but it’s always heading wide. A fast start by the hosts.
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Watford get the ball rolling ... but only after the knee is taken. Warm applause greets the gesture. There’s no room for racism.
The teams are out! Liverpool wear their famous red, Watford sport their first-choice yellow and black. No pre-match patter with Roy Hodgson. We’ll be off in a minute!
Jurgen Klopp talks to BT. “One game at a time. It’s the Premier League. Every opponent deserves maximum respect, and usually you show that in the way you defend. That’s our starting point, then we can start our game. These games are like finals, that’s clear, we have to keep going. Trent Alexander-Arnold trained yesterday and looks really good but I think it’s sensible to keep him on the bench. He is ready to come on. Sadio Mane stayed in Senegal for another night and only came back yesterday. Luis Diaz is on the bench because he was in Colombia. We can bring them all on.”
Pre-match reading.
Both teams are coming off the back of a win, and Liverpool have made four changes to the XI named for the 2-0 victory at Arsenal. Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Curtis Jones and Joe Gomez are in; Sadio Mane, Luis Diaz, Fabinho and Trent Alexander-Arnold are benched. Alexander-Arnold returns from injury a lot quicker than expected, though.
Watford won their last match 2-1 at Southampton, and they make just one change to the starting XI selected for that. Ismaila Sarr, who ran Liverpool ragged at Vicarage Road a couple of seasons ago, replaces Emmanuel Dennis, who drops to the bench.
The teams
Liverpool: Alisson, Gomez, Matip, van Dijk, Robertson, Jones, Henderson, Thiago, Salah, Firmino, Jota.
Subs: Fabinho, Konate, Milner, Mane, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Tsimikas, Diaz, Kelleher, Alexander-Arnold.
Watford: Foster, Femenia, Kabasele, Samir, Kamara, Sissoko, Louza, Kucka, Sarr, Joao Pedro, Hernandez.
Subs: Ngakia, King, Cleverley, Masina, Sema, Cathcart, Dennis, Bachmann, Kayembe.
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire)
Preamble
Watford have only won once at Anfield. That was back in 1999, when Tommy Mooney’s goal was enough to see off a Liverpool side containing Titi Camara, Karlheinz Riedle, Vegard Heggem and, making his home debut, Sami Hyypia. They’ve been back seven times since, losing every game, to the cumulative score of 23-1. You’ll probably have this one down as a home banker, then, not least because Liverpool won the corresponding fixture at Vicarage Road 5-0 last October.
But history gives Watford a little succour, too. They’ve twice trounced Liverpool 3-0 at Vicarage Road during the Jurgen Klopp era, most recently in February 2020 just before the first lockdown. They also held Klopp’s side to a 3-3 draw down there on the opening day of the 2017-18 season, Mo Salah’s debut ruined just as Big Sami’s had been all those years ago. Roy Hodgson has also done a number on Liverpool at Anfield in the past, and no that’s not barbed reference to his brief stint as manager, rather West Brom’s 1-0 win in April 2012.
Liverpool, on a nine-game winning run in the Premier League, are strong favourites for the three points. But nothing’s certain when the pressure’s on at the business end of the season, you’re fighting for the title, and your opponents are battling to avoid relegation and have just won away at Southampton. No wonder Klopp wants the lunchtime crowd to make some noise. Can Watford spring a shock, or will Liverpool leapfrog Manchester City into top place? Kick off is at 12.30pm BST. It’s on!
