Well, Man United fans – there’s your man, Jose Mourinho, beating Liverpool with long-ball football that made 1980s’ Wimbledon look like the Brazil 1970, and nine-man defences. Is that really what you want? Good, because you can keep it. The truth is that a team/squad that costs twice as much as Liverpool’s couldn’t even go head-to-head at football, just hoofball.
You may not care now, in the aftermath of a victory, but you booed your own manager when he took off your only good attacker on the day – Marcus Rashford – and brought on yet another fucking gormless giant, to make for what must be the tallest midfield of gormless giants ever seen in English football and perhaps the whole world, in the history of football (all three stand SIX FOOT FOUR, no less).
Liverpool had 13 corners, to United’s one. At Old Trafford. And United rode their luck on about half of them. Genius, or timid?
What a “tactical masterclass”, hanging on for dear life despite a ton of expensive players, and stuffing the box with every available giant. Enjoy your tears of joy for they shall turn to tears boredom; you’re stuck with that miserable man and his grimly effective but utterly dismal football. You get the points today, sure, but you have to watch that utter horseshit football. Three points is a small price to pay to avoid that, in all honesty.
And the ref missed three penalties for Liverpool, two of which even Gary Neville called, and in a fine display of homerism, Rashford didn’t get booked for diving in on two occasions, kicking the ball away, and also for going into the crowd, which is an automatic booking. (Whether or not it’s a fair rule, it should be applied 100% of the time. Same as when Bobby Firmino takes off his shirt.) Antonio Valencia only got a yellow for an outrageous kung-fu kick on Sadio Mané (oh the irony) – chest high; Alexis Sanchez was allowed to deliberately block quick free kicks, and the game was stopped as Smalling had a diddums on his leg. What a farce.
As much as I’ve hated VAR this season, I hate incompetent officials even more. Craig Pawson must be on a nice little earner today in the carpark afterwards. If Trent Alexander-Arnold’s inexperience told in the first half, it was never more so than when getting up after being fouled by Rashford, instead of rolling around like Sanchez. The officials gave United everything.
Still no penalty in the Premier League for Mo Salah, although in fairness, Neville only said he was fouled twice in the box in the clear incident today; first tripped, then wrestled over. Yes, you can keep Salah quiet by hauling him over, although it’s up to the officials to have the balls to give those calls. I’ve been saying all season that there must be some anti-foreign agenda from refs, as against Newcastle he was kicked over in the box, and then kicked and dragged back when clean through and nothing was given either time. It all began against Burnley at Anfield in the autumn, where he was tripped repeatedly in the box. An English player sneezes and a penalty is given. It’s well beyond a joke and overall costing Liverpool 10-12 points this season.
But fuck it, I’m proud of that Liverpool display. United reminded me of Liverpool under Roy Hodgson, when beating Chelsea 2-0 at Anfield in 2010, with a flat-back eight, and relying on Fernando Torres to curl in a couple at the other end. A very similar game, it seems, and that victory told me that Hodgson (whose football was awful) had to go – it was just not acceptable to play that way at home. It only got worse.
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