Liverpool win yet again in the Premier League in an admittedly subpar performance against Watford at Anfield. Mo Salah was the difference with 2 sublime goals, both with his infamous right foot. Watford created a number of very good chances and on another day would have done enough to at least take a point and possibly all 3. The mentality monsters came out on top, though, and extended their incredible unbeaten runs at home and in the League.
Alisson had another strong performance between the sticks. The Brazilian was called upon on a couple of occasions, most notably went Gerard Deulofeu went through 1-on-1. Thankfully he came out on top each time and was one of the main reasons for achieving our 3rd clean sheet in as many games.
In defence, the two centre backs had solid games. Although Watford did get into scoring positions more often than we would like, the blame could not be placed too much upon Joe Gomez or Virgil van Dijk. Milner started at left-back and, understandably, was not at the same level as Robertson. We lose a lot down the left-hand side going forward when The Scotsman doesn’t play and looked a lot more dangerous when he came on for Wijnaldum in the second half.
The midfield was the main problem in this one. Henderson and Wijnaldum started together and it caused us a lot of issues defensively and in attack. Runs were not being tracked sufficiently, leading to the Watford attackers getting into dangerous areas regularly throughout the game. Jordan Henderson especially struggled with his defensive work and was also very poor going forward. Far too many wayward passes and poor decisions in attack hampered the team substantially.
In attack, all four of Salah, Mane, Firmino and Shaqiri were named in the starting line up. Shaqiri did well when he got the ball but wasn’t involved in the game as much as you would hope. Firmino was poor for 80% of his minutes and excellent for 20%. He was wasteful in possession at times and made the wrong decisions in promising positions. However, he did show the odd glimpse of brilliance, most notably with his pass to Mane before Salah’s first goal. Speaking of Sadio Mane, he was a menace for the Watford back four for the vast majority of the match and, but for a few millimetres, would have put us 2-0 ahead in the second half. Sadly, that was ruled out of a marginal offside. The real star of the game, though, and the clear Man of the Match is Mohamed Salah. Two goals, both very different but equally brilliant, sealed the 3 points for the Reds. He terrorised the likes of Kabasele all game long and deserved to be the match-winner. After an incredible finish with his right foot against Salzburg, he followed it up with another 2 sensational goals with his weak side. A two-footed Mo Salah – surely the most terrifying attacker in world football.
