Will Liverpool falter? I say Nein
Eight games and 12 points ahead, but nerves? We having them
If Jurgen Klopp had said, theoretically, at the beginning of this week he would be watching “Nein” of Liverpool’s remaining Premier League matches, you might have been forgiven for doing a double take. He would have meant nine. All nine remaining matches.
And now there are eight after a hard night at Anfield when Liverpool did just enough to see off a spirited and dangerous Everton. The eighth-last match is on Sunday at 3pm SA time, an early kick-off, a luxury this season, a season that has now feels interminably long. It had begun with a bang and a clatter, the dream of a quadruple and is now ending as a bit of a prang and a chatter. Nerves? We Liverpool fans be having them.
“Liverpool are living off the start and middle of their campaign, not its end,” wrote Mastin Samuel in The Times recently. “Arne Slot’s team are looking leggy now. They carry the same troubling ticks that Paula Radcliffe would display in those finals laps of a long distance haul, head nodding erratically, path straying. Sometimes, cruelly, she would be reeled in. That is unlikely to happen to Liverpool. There are some rotten teams in this league and Liverpool have to play a fair few of them: West Ham United, Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea. Liverpool require five wins and a draw to seal the title even if Arsenal win every game – although that run would include their trip to Anfield on May 10.”
It is now four wins and a draw to seal the title after the 1-0 over Everton on Wednesday night. Liverpool looked on edge, unsettled, the final pass uncertain, the first one cautious, Anfield felt anxious, Virgil van Dyk angrier and angrier, and Slot looking at his Casio calculator and figuring out the perfect time to bring Waturu “The Finisher” Endo on.
The Japanese player has become, along with Darwin Nunez, a cult hero at Liverpool, a “brilliant bit-part player” wrote Gregg Evans for The Athletic. “…that is partly what makes him so special. Every successful team needs a blend of characters and he stays in his lane and plugs the gaps when those in front of him in the pecking order need a rest.
“Endo, a player who wears a boxing-style mouthguard in matches not only to protect his teeth but because it helps him feel like a fighter and ‘get into game mode’. The 31-year-old Japan international is so dialled-in this season that it is almost robotic. Endo is the go-to guy when an extra layer of protection is needed and that is why he is gradually growing in popularity among those watching Liverpool’s season unfold from the stands. Never in the nine times he has been called upon from the substitutes’ bench to help see out a Premier League game by Slot have Liverpool dropped further points, and eight of those games have finished with them winning.”
There is a cheer from Liverpool fans when Endo appears. The end of the match is approaching, the drawbridge is being raised, the safety net has been raised and the dogs have been released. There are concerns. Trent Alexander-Arnold is gaga for Real Madrid, Andy Robertson’s game is off, Mo Salah hasn’t scored in a bit and Nunez is furiously erratic. But then, Curtis Jones showed on Thursday he can be the oil on troubled water, the eye in the storm. Van Dijk still has it in spades. Mac Allister is assured and inventive, and so on.
There are now eight games until the end of the season, starting with Fulham on Sunday, then the Hammers next week, followed by Leicester away, Spurs at home, Chelsea away, Arsenal at Anfield, off to Brighton and, finally Palace at Anfield. There are 12 points in it. I don’t care how many Liverpool win by. It could even be “Nein” for all I care.
