John Aldridge discusses what went wrong against Luton Town in the second part of his weekly Liverpool column, why Darwin Nunez can remain confident, and Luis Diaz’s emotional contribution.
That Liverpool performance was atrocious. For the majority of the game, the midfield was virtually non-existent.
When you have one player who doesn’t play well, you can overcome it as a team, but when you have two in Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai who have barely played together, you’ll struggle. Mo Salah was also not at his best.
It’s the same thing when we go away to so-called lesser teams and shock them. You just have to win them, get that first goal. To score the first goal, you must play well and approach the game correctly.
We go to Newcastle, where we are 1-0 down, and we get results. We were unlucky at Tottenham, but we’ve been playing the lesser sides since last year, so I’m not sure what’s going on. With all due respect, one thing they have is a fighting spirit. It’s their cup final against Liverpool, but we have to win.
Manchester City will go to Luton and win 4-0, and that is something we will not be able to do. They may lose at Newcastle, but they beat these lesser teams. They need to start treating them like the bigger teams, because we have something in our DNA that is preventing us from beating them right now.
First and foremost, you must win the battle. They will fight, they will go through a brick wall, and Liverpool cannot shirk anything – they must match their battling – and when you do, you will rise to the top and win. If you can’t compete with these teams, you’ll struggle to win the championship.
Having said that, if we take our chances and score the first goal, we will easily win the game. That’s all. People talk about Darwin Nunez, but I don’t mind because if he can get in there four or five times a match, he won’t miss that many.
Some missed opportunities were bad, and he snatched at others, but he’s in there. Take it from me, ask Robbie Fowler or Rushy, we’ve all been in that situation when we’ve had off-games, as long as he keeps getting in there, he’ll score a bag full of goals, and that’s what we want.
To end on a positive note, it was fantastic to see Luis Diaz get on, score, and show his emotions to the entire world. It may have been pushing him, but I thought he should have come on at halftime rather than waiting 65 minutes.
The goal meant a lot more than usual because it puts this militia in context and gives them the PR they deserve, which is nothing. They’ve done themselves no good all over the world, no matter what they’re fighting for, by doing what they’ve done.
You don’t get ahead in life by acting like that, and they’ve made themselves look pathetic. The sooner his father returns home, the better, and he demonstrated to the world on Sunday what he is all about. Magnificent. Man of the Match for his efforts here.
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