West Ham vs. Liverpool: *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.

Paul Tomkins

Funny that, after an intense game for the Reds about 60 hours ago, TNT should spend the match moaning about lack of atmosphere, lack of intensity, and ponder everything but their awful schedule and kickoff times.

As if we’re morons. As if we don’t know that they’re running the players into the ground.

The title was gone anyway, and Liverpool have hit the wall with injuries, fatigue, lack of rhythm to returning players, poor finishing, terrible officiating, and just bad luck.

Also, a run of facing anti-football, flow-stopping teams. Roadblock teams. Big, low-block, into the mixer, set-piece teams. Teams you’d pay to not have to watch, and who ride their luck, and excel in stopping others. Teams who are increasingly rare, thankfully.

(After half an hour today it was a reasonable 3-3 on free-kicks, albeit with the Reds having 74% possession. With the exact same possession at Goodison, after 38 minutes, it was nine free-kicks to Everton, and just one to Liverpool. You can’t fight that kind of game-altering from officials, as no one pays attention, nor do they give a shit about it, if it’s not their team.)

Jürgen Klopp simply had to rotate. The same players cannot keep playing every few days, and this was the last in that insanely dense run.

Yet again, another big early decision went against Liverpool with Lucas Paquetá not sent off for what Peter Crouch thought was a red card offence; it wasn’t even a yellow, albeit this is normally the case against Liverpool. Curtis Jones wins the ball at Spurs? Red card. Ankle-breakers nowhere near the ball? Nothing doing.

Then, the Reds’ woodwork hits taken up to now around 25% more than any team in Europe’s top five leagues. Close, but no cigar. (More on that later.)

A weird moment, too, when Cody Gakpo could have tapped into the net, but was too honest, albeit Anthony Taylor was fudging it madly; while he had at least awarded the Reds an early penalty, only for an offside to be given, with none of the insanely wonky lines seen at Goodison to allow their opener on Wednesday night. (A line that literally went off at three different angles.)

EDIT: did Taylor blow his whistle to stop Gakpo? I’ve no idea what was going on!

If so, as this article suggests, it’s just another awful bit of PGMOL shithousery.

Plus, a weird spat between Klopp and Mo Salah, who is surely now leaving, if this is what we’re in for in the final year of his contract.

True club legend, a joy to have seen for seven years, but a fading force; and for the sake of the club, don’t put that melting and sulking issue into Arne Slot’s in-tray.

Have Salah gone by then, given that I feared a circus sideshow even before today’s unseemly scenes.

Clear out the ageing egos, and refresh with the next generation, who have largely excelled but obviously made some rookie errors.

Once someone like Salah is arguing with a manager like Klopp, before even getting onto the pitch, you fear that their time is up. The ‘toxic rot of the ageing superstar’ (as I dubbed it several years ago) only gets worse, not better.

(I recently shared the data on how poor Salah’s shooting is from anywhere but close to goal now, for the past two years. His other numbers are all way down, and he’s in the bottom percentile – 1 of 99 or 2 of 99 – in three of the defensive metrics across the top five leagues, and barely into double figures for the other two on FBRef. In other words, he’s a passenger for too much of games these days. Once the goals go, he’s mostly gone, unless some drastic reinvention can be worked.)

The key is to secure top four, and that’s 99% done with a point today, away, against a team with a week to work on disruption.

I felt that there were some really good displays, and another 28 shots, but for various reasons, including the red-zone the team was not balanced, lacking key attributes that would otherwise be present.

The rest of the article continues below.