I’m going to bring up the ancient history again here because I know that most of the people reading this have little concept of Nottingham Forest as a top division club, to say nothing of one that was for a few years perhaps our greatest rival for success in that top division and in the European Cup (what they used to call the Champions League.) Even after they’d faded from the late 70s heights under Brian Clough, Forest was still the equivalent of a bogey team for Liverpool. Whenever it seemed like we were playing for something with some degree of importance (a key win for the league here, a late round of the FA Cup there), playing at the City Ground seemed to trip us up. As Opta mentioned on Twitter after today’s match, we hadn’t gotten a top division win at Forest since 1984. Of course, given that we’ve only played there in the PL once in this century and had beaten them there in domestic cup games as recently as two years ago, it sounds a bit less daunting. But when I first became a fan, ask me the side that I didn’t want to play away from Anfield and the answer likely would’ve been Forest. Like Everton, they stick in the brain if you had to grit your teeth about them way back in the day, no matter how much of an afterthought they may be now.
But, of course, as Jürgen often insists, no match can be considered less than any other, especially not given our injury situation and that we’re trying to get through a series of six matches in 17 days. (Today was our fourth in 10.) As we’ve all seen, that’s given us the opportunity to give a lot of time to players who otherwise might not have gotten it, like Bobby Clark who started today alongside Alexis Mac Allister as the 8s and the new version of James Milner, Robot Warrior in Joe Gomez, starting for the second time at the 6 after his successful venture in that slot on Wednesday against Southampton. In fact, Joe played at DM, swapping into CB when Ibrahima Konaté ventured forward, and at BOTH fullback spots, first at LB when Andy Robertson was subbed off, and then over to RB when Kostas Tsimikas came on and Conor Bradley came off. He’s totally plug-and-play now, especially given that he’s able to invert from either fullback position and essentially play as DM again in a double pivot or even move forward when Wataru Endo is at the 6. Joe Gomez scores his first goal for the club playing right wing. You heard it here first.
But, of course, the most impactful sub of the day was one Darwin Gabriel Núñez, who came in and did his “shit Andy Carroll” impression so well that, after the Forest fans were singing that at him (which, as you may have noticed, almost always leads to a bad result for the opposition), the traveling Kop joined in on the song when he scored the winner in the 99th minute. So, yes, please. Tell our striker who has 10 goals and 7 assists in the PL this season how poorly he’s doing. It only encourages him in the same way that it encourages us to hear everyone predict how there’s no way we can keep pace with Man City (we’re setting the pace at the moment, 4 points ahead) or that we don’t have the depth to make a difference (only club in the top 5 leagues of Europe with five players with at least 10 goals this season) or that injuries will derail our manager’s farewell [points to collection of teenagers winning trophies and league matches in the past ten days.] Even better, complain that the league is corrupt and is paving our way to the title because you don’t even understand the rules of the game. There are all kinds of ways to slay the demons that have beguiled us in the past. Winning games is the best way to do it in sport, whether they actually exist or not.
Nottingham Forest 0 – 1 Liverpool
Michael Caley seems to have retreated with his work behind a paywall, as he is no longer on Twitter and only rarely posts on Bluesky. I’ll have to think about if it’s worth shelling out for not only his visuals but also his written analysis, since I ain’t gettin’ paid around here, either. Meanwhile, Understat continues to do their thing. As anyone watching could notice, we basically had total control of the game and generated a lot of shots, but could only put two of them on target. That’s the same number of shots on target that Forest managed, so results that matter were pretty similar.
However, Caoimhin Kelleher is once again a key hero in the outcome, as he not only made two nice saves (one of which likely wouldn’t have counted, since Anthony Elanga was offside) but also has been drastically improving in his ability to retrieve and distribute the ball quickly, which is a hallmark of the starter whom he’s currently replacing. He was aided in that by a seeming quirk in the way we’re approaching the offense, in that Cody Gakpo isn’t playing the false 9 as much as Luís Diaz is. The latter was everywhere, from the right rear corner to the center circle and beyond. In the process, he basically made Cody invisible in the first half. I’m doubtful that the latter had a half-dozen touches. That might have been an adjustment made with the idea of keeping Robbo high more often to try to emphasize the offense on that side which hasn’t been overly productive of late. Or it might have been a way to try to get overloads in areas other than the left to try to create openings for Bobby that Forest wouldn’t have been as familiar with, as far as patterns of play.
Of course, in the end, it kinda wouldn’t have mattered if they were familiar with Mac’s patterns, anyway, since he was going to make things work no matter what they did. Six chances created is the highest total he’s achieved in a PL match in his career. Alfred returned to the stat game with some highlights of Mac’s performance:
That’s basically a perfect example of what you want your #8 to do; largely staying out of the defensive third, spraying passes everywhere there’s an opportunity, and blanketing the offensive third trying to create more opportunities. And, of course, the assist is killer:
Rather than blasting a shot into the (ahem) forest of legs in front of him, he takes the time to look up and see who’s still active in the box and then loft a perfect pass onto Darwin’s head for the winner. Attacking mid, par excellence. Also, take a moment to notice that the guy who made the tackle to get that ball to Mac was, as always, Wataru.
Speaking of Wataru, the above diagram was linked to by Andrew Beasley from theanalyst.com, which usually has some really interesting fancystat stuff, if you’re so inclined. Andrew was pointing out that the player that Wataru most closely resembles is 25-year-old Fabinho, at the peak of his powers. That’s pretty good, considering that he’s giving up 5 years in age to our former DM.
Speaking of age disparity, while we’re gushing about guys like Bobby and Jayden Danns (who deserve every bit of it, don’t get me wrong), let’s remember the kid who came on a few weeks ago against Chelsea and is now basically a regular member of the squad with all the expectations that that status brings and who is living up to it in every way. In a similar vein to Kweev, given the choice, I’d still want Trent Alexander-Arnold back next week for the City game because no one can pass like TAA. But I’m no longer concerned about it if Conor is still the starting RB because he’s proven again and again that he can not only handle the role, but excel in it.
But, yeah, Darwin. No one has scored more match-winning goals in the PL this season than him. That goal allowed us to equal the win total from last season with 11 games left to play. It’s also the 43rd goal contribution (22 goals, 21 assists) from a substitute for LFC this season; the most of any club in the big five leagues. It was also the latest winning goal for Liverpool in the PL era.
And back to the other end with Kweev. Again, the distribution has improved markedly, which is what we’ll need since trying to play through against City will be playing into their hands much of the time. It would be really great to have Mo Salah back to receive some of those long passes on the break… Interestingly, you don’t see Kweev really assuming command of the box like a lot of other keepers do. He generally lets Captain Virgil Van Dijk handle the organization, but he also doesn’t hesitate to come out to make a play, in expectation that someone else will provide him cover. He’s very much in control, just in a quieter fashion than, say, Alisson Becker.
And then we come to the stupid. As you might expect, there were many negative reactions to the end of the match, from Tory Forest fans to whiny Arsenal fans to caterwauling City fans. Many of the initial complaints had to do with the final interruption of play called by Paul Tierney. The reason he blew the whistle was because Ibou had gone down in the box with an apparent head injury and the official is obligated to halt play at that point, in the same way he did for Nicolás Dominguez, when Harvey’s shot into the box went right into his face in the first half. In that moment, the official stops play and, then, because the injury that resulted in the halt happened in the box, the free kick is given to the keeper, which it was in Dominguez’s case. In Ibou’s case, Forest’s Callum Hudson-Odoi had possession outside the box by the time the whistle had gone which, per the law, means that it should have been a drop ball to Forest after play resumed. Instead, Tierney gave the ball to Caoimhin to take the kick. I’m not sure if he did that because he intended to blow the whistle while the ball was still in the box and didn’t or if he just misinterpreted the situation. So, I think Tierney might have gotten that one wrong. Similarly, I’m not sure if it was because the injury happened in the box and he assumed that it was a foul and, therefore, a free kick… except that he hadn’t blown the whistle for a foul. Of course, the Forest fans were outraged that they’d effectively had the ball taken away from them which then led to Liverpool’s attack which became the corner that led to the winner. Of course, if the play had been called correctly, it would have been a free kick by Kweev, anyway, after Ryan Yates was sent off for a kick to Ibou’s head.
The other complaint was that we had been given NINE minutes of extra time, rather than the eight that showed up on the board. At this point, I wonder if these idiots have ever watched a game of football in their lives before this day. The time stipulated on the board is the minimum allotted. If there are more delays in extra time, then more time is added. As we can see above, there were definitely more delays; two of them, in fact, which earned cards, completely aside from the time added for Ibou to clear his head and get off the ground. But those idiotic complaints and those cards are basically an encapsulation of this entire match: It was one team trying to win a football match and the other one trying to make sure that neither team did. That’s not too far off the general approach of Nuno Espirito Santo as a whole so… good luck with that.
Off to Prague on Thursday. for our first match with Sparta since the 2010-11 Europa League round of 16. And then, on Sunday, it’s the season.
Extra Time 