Liverpool Move 13 Points Clear With Nervy But Deserved Win

An excellent first half and a late salvo merited the three points, against Andy Madley's team

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

When I saw my mum last month, a couple of days before she died, I told her that Liverpool were 13 points clear.

But Arsenal had a game in hand. Still, 13 points was what the table said, and she died with that comforting lead. After I collected her ashes this week, which sat on the table as, on my birthday, on the 13th of the month (as I turned what feels like 113), “we” watched the match, the Reds made it 13 points again, but this time with Arsenal having zero games in hand.

(Note: I didn’t pretend that my mum was actually watching the game with me. But “she” was in the room, and will be until I get her ashes interred at the cemetery alongside my dad.)

It was Liverpool’s fifth win in the last six league games, which no one else bar Aston Villa can match. So much for poor form. Arsenal have won just two, with Forest three, Man City three and Chelsea three.

Today saw an admittedly poor, nervy second-half, not unlike the Wolves game, but Liverpool still outscored West Ham on the xG overall by +0.7, which is the average xG Difference for Arsenal all season long; Liverpool’s average remains up around the elite +1.3, and that’s why the Reds will be champions.

The peak-end rule meant the second half was more powerful than the first, but all’s well that (finally) ends well.

Both teams also hit the bar twice, and Alisson produced some great saves, without West Ham creating even one full xG. Liverpool conceded 0.9 in the game, which again, is the elite level champions average out at. The underlying numbers (mostly) don’t lie.

But Andy Madley was yet again horrific with his “biased” refereeing, and his usual massively negative Foul Balance against Liverpool. And James Ward-Prowse’s highly unnatural arm position should have been a penalty for the Reds at 1-0, but John Brooks is unlikely to do much for the Reds either.

Liverpool again had most of the ball, but Madley gave most of the free-kicks against the Reds, only giving Arne Slot’s men eight (a below average number for a home team), to the visitor’s 15. This is highly irregular, but you just had to watch Madley ignore fouls on Liverpool players for 90 minutes. Other refs do the same; Madley does it more.

Ever since Jürgen Klopp asked Madley to stop getting in they way of Liverpool’s players in 2022 it seems he’s just been out to screw the Reds by just ignoring fouls, as I’ve noted for a long time now.

I found it interesting when Neil Atkinson of The Anfield Wrap said right after the Everton game that someone beside him in the ground left early as he was sick of the refereeing (and Neil and his colleagues couldn’t enjoy the derby win as it was such a refereeing horror show), and it’s a form of torture to know these patterns and the PGMOL to do nothing about it; indeed, just keep on David Cooteing it. Good process, lads.

Liverpool, and Mo Salah, were great in the first half today, and that would have been enough to win the game, allied to the clear 2nd-half penalty that should have been given, for an accidental handball with the arm in the most unnatural of positions, in the heart of the box. Salah surpassed Thierry Henry’s 44 goal involvements in a Premier League-era season, to move on to 45.

As at Everton last season, Madley ignored fouls on Reds and gave far more to the other team until a goal went in against Liverpool. Once he stopped doing that in the final few minutes, Liverpool scored again, to win the game. Refs absolutely control the flow of games, more than a Pirlo or Alonso or Xavi. At Anfield, refs like Madley ruin the flow of Liverpool’s game more than a Tony Pulis team.

I don’t think run-ins are ever free of nerves, and it’s a mental distortion to forget how past titles are won, by all teams, across history. The best football is usually in the first two-thirds of the season, as I keep noting.

The last quarters of 1987/88, 1989/90 and 2019/20, in general, weren’t that great. They are Liverpool’s three previous titles, yet two of those seasons are rightly remembered as being properly special – supreme teams, consummate champions – because of everything up to that point.

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