Liverpool vs Bournemouth: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

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

After a slow start, Liverpool were sensational today, against the odds.

I'll focus mostly on the football, but ... to play against the 16 men of the opposition and the PGMOL – Paul Tierney assisted on VAR by the linesman who elbowed Andy Robertson (check this article for their objective data) – is hard enough, but to play with 10 is even harder. Tierney is a one-man Liverpool-wrecking machine.

A standard block tackle gone wrong – no force but studs up to block the ball – from Alexis Mac Allister was inexplicably a sending off, yet some of the same officials didn't see Harry Kane's two-footed lunge on Andy Robertson at Spurs in 2021 as more than a yellow. And what about Tyrone Mings on Cody Gakpo last season? Yellow card.

Different situations, but the consistency is frightening (as was the lack of a penalty for a handball by Chelsea last week).

Apparently that was less-bad than what we saw today.

Edit: Look at the video from the Kop (courtesy of Paul Machin), and it’s barely even a dangled leg.

To give a straight red – for a player not diving in, not leading with any force, but just trying to block the ball – is yet more evidence of PGMOL warped thinking, by a rookie ref and a dodgy VAR panel. It was far less violent and dangerous than today’s assistant VAR who got a one-game stand-down for elbowing Robertson but who didn’t get sent off by … Paul Tierney. (How do they choose these goons!? Answers on a postcard to Professional Goons, Masters of Lunacy.)

It was a bright start by the referee in at least giving a clear penalty (which the sensational Dominik Szoboszlai earned by drawing a late, lazy swipe, which I likened to the one Liverpool correctly conceded at Fulham at the start of last season) to the Reds. But they give with one hand, the PGMOL, and take back with two. Shocking stuff.

(And of course, Bournemouth have won more Premier League penalties in the Jürgen Klopp era than Klopp's Liverpool, for those who continue to think Liverpool get lots of penalties; literally any and every time one is given there’s an outcry.)

*Rant over*

Still, this is about the Reds fighting and battling back from a torpid start to absolutely hammer the shit out a team who had an extra man (or five).

If Liverpool’s midfield understandably lacked understanding, with three making their home Anfield debuts (with one sent off), and at times linking like strangers, the energy and effort from the team as the game wore on was outstanding. The slowness of last season was gone, and the bonds will build.

There were lots of stand-out performers to credit, as I will go on to do.

The majority of my analysis and the analysis of the others follows for subscribers only.