Good Tuesday morning, TSFers. It’s a brisk fall morning here in D.C. but the general feeling is that we’re in the midst of a false fall and that we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled muggy humidity soon enough. Permit me a few minutes to rant myself into exhaustion about…
Newcastle 2 – Liverpool 3 What a colossally dumb game. If you’re Newcastle, how on EARTH are you that disorganized and easy to play through in second half added time? You’ve played the entire half a man down, you just equalized
at 2-2 in the 88th minute, and you’re protecting a point. PARK THE DAMN BUS! SHUT THE GAME DOWN! It’s football malpractice. Their midfielders chased the ball and totally lost their shape. They left way too much space between the lines. And for some reason, they had only three across the back. If there was any justice in the world, Newcastle would miss out on a Champions League (or Europa League) place because of that dropped point.
When was the last time a “big” club playing Arsenal were that naive? It really feels like the Gunners get the absolute best from opponents while Liverpool (and Manchester City in those two seasons) got to play clubs that inexplicably had tied their shoestrings together. Newcastle always look like the second coming of prime Barcelona against Arsenal and play at some level less than (or significantly less than) that against other top clubs.
I’m sure there is cognitive bias in play, but I’m struggling to remember when someone did something as daft as Anthony Gordon did challenging VVD like that to earn the red card against Arsenal in a key match. What I can remember is Arsenal players getting boots raked down the back of their legs and opponents staying on the pitch. Or Bruno Guimaraes intentionally targeting Jorginho with a forearm blow to the back of the head and staying on the pitch. Eddie Howe’s side plays out of control and often dirty and rarely get punished for it. But all of a sudden, we’re enforcing the Laws and it just so happens to benefit Liverpool.
Arne Slot’s side should have dropped points yesterday. They didn’t and that’s incredibly frustrating, particularly because of how it happened.
I guess the silver lining is that Liverpool look vulnerable. They’ve blown 2-goal leads in consecutive matches. Of course, you don’t get out to 2-goal leads without being at least decently strong. They needed a 100th-minute winner from a 16-year-old to win against a Newcastle side playing with 10-men for an entire half that had pegged them back down a man, a Newcastle side playing without Alexander Isak, whose head Liverpool are conveniently messing with as player and club flirt with a transfer. They are still ironing things out.
So who is ready for Liverpool to play as well as they will all season against Arsenal on Sunday?
I hate this stupid sport.
