{"id":587382,"date":"2025-11-22T19:50:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/587382\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T19:50:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:50:22","slug":"liverpool-0-nottingham-forest-3-match-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/587382\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool 0 Nottingham Forest 3: Match Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s agonising.
\nAnd it isn\u2019t good enough.
\nIt isn\u2019t good enough to have every setback lead to a collapse. Isn\u2019t good enough to see a Liverpool side see adversity and cower in the corner.
\nBecause that is what they did. One thing went wrong and one refereeing decision was harsh and from there they had little left to give.
\nWhat makes all this difficult is that it had been good enough. They were more than worthy of opening the scoring. Mo Salah was scintillating for 40 minutes and constantly on the ball. Alexis Mac Allister had a fabulous picture of the whole pitch. Milos Kerkez looked like the player we bought. Over and over Liverpool went at Nottingham Forest and Forest were hanging on, begging for any relief.
\nThe right hand side had Salah, Curtis Jones and Dom Szoboszlai working well. Liverpool could build out. One moment where Salah was found by Ibou Konate was exceptional and set the tone. Liverpool banged on the door. But.
\nThey are so poor once the goal is conceded. Konate is so poor the goal is conceded. But it spreads and it shows and it isn\u2019t the first time. It isn\u2019t the second time. It is, instead, the seventh time. The eighth time this season Liverpool have been a mess when they have gone behind.
\nThey have gone behind eight times.
\nLiverpool had to score first. This is the essence of this moment. I have seen football matches down the years for many sides but I have never seen one for which was more the case. Liverpool, this Liverpool right now have to score first. If they do they will win. If they don\u2019t they will lose.
\nThat is how you end up P12 W6 L6. This is a remarkable moment, presumably unique in the club\u2019s history. This can only be the case if it is essentially decided by the destination of the opening goal.
\nNottingham Forest do a great job of managing this particular coin toss. They show loads of spirit defending their own goal and just know they need to hang in for dear life. Know they need to get their chance.
\nDyche manages the emotions of a game very well. It is not a surprise looking back that Dyche wins two significant games against Klopp\u2019s Reds. One at home in 2016 and the one that ended the run in 2021.
\nBut the truth isn\u2019t that Nottingham Forest or Sean Dyche are in heads of The Reds \u2013 everything else is. The score, the league table, the pressure of being champions, the pressure of performing in the context of their price tags and wages, feeling hard done by from every referee.
\nAnd:
\nWhat Andy Robertson made clear in the week. And when he did, I just thought \u201cAh Jesus. Ah these lads.\u201d
\nYou see, the above, all the above that particular \u201cAnd:\u201d, I go \u201cfuck you\u201d. I say this is the ideal. The dream. I quote Shankly on pressure.
\n\u201cPressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week. Pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup Final. That\u2019s the reward.\u201d
\nBut what Robertson made clear in the week is that is all isn\u2019t just that. It could be that. It could be solely that for one or two. Footballers aren\u2019t homogeneous. They don\u2019t think with one mind. Great management means great squads think with one mind but Alex Ferguson once said he didn\u2019t like a dressing room where he didn\u2019t think it was just about to kick off. He knew dressing rooms.
\nArne Slot\u2019s current dressing room is much, much, much more complicated than that.
\nAnd while I\u2019d love to feel the energy someone is about to kick off, in the pub post match I have just been told from someone in the Main who stayed, that Mac Allister was amongst the last off the pitch, that Mac Allister was in tears.
\nThat I go:
\nDoes this feel like the reward?
\nWell, does it?
\nIt ought to have been months of \u201cBring on the Champions\u201d whatever the league table is saying. Us giving it the big one. It ought to have been always about to be a party one way or another but since the parade that has been so hard and I\u2019m saying this \u2013 just a gobshite with an office, a few podcasts and videos. Not playing, just living, pushing through, being asked to talk.
\nBut I\u2019m so angry they can\u2019t pull themselves together when something goes wrong on the football field, maybe because I just want them to rage against the dying of the light, be livid and devil may care because it is only a game, find some pot of \u201cfuck you, fuck you, and especially fuck you\u201d energy when they are busy trying to be serious, trying to be Champions, feeling every blow precisely because they don\u2019t want to snarl.
\nWell I want to snarl. I want to see them snarl. I want to see them rage. I want to see them play like it doesn\u2019t matter in the right way, not the way that makes them and us meek. I hate meek. I hate it when I see it in myself and I hate it when I see it in the people I love and I love them because they are the Champions. They gave us the gift of the 27th April and nobody ever, my whole life gave me a better gift. Nobody.
\nFuck off Liverpool. Say \u201cfuck off\u201d, Liverpool. Get mad as hell and back yourselves and one another and get backed by us. Set fire to something, get sent off, call the referee a cunt.
\nNow is the time for rage. The only way out is through. If the light at the end of the tunnel is a flamethrower then get a bigger flamethrower.
\nThe problem is that this doesn\u2019t see what grief does to your soul. You can be angry, but it\u2019s the wrong kind of anger. Its guilt anger. It\u2019s \u2018do I deserve to be alive when they are dead\u2019 distress. It\u2019s a fury that robs you of your sense of right and wrong. Because everything is wrong and you don\u2019t know if it will ever be right again.
\nIf I could say one thing to them it would be: the pain won\u2019t go but your judgement will come back. Your heart won\u2019t recover but your brain will. You\u2019ll never not think about how unfair this is and you\u2019ll never stop worrying about his kids. But one day, your brain won\u2019t feel so wild and so angry and be so fraught. Grief won\u2019t leave you, but you will learn how to put it to better use.
\nUse.
\nRight now Liverpool, be anything, show anything, find anything. Find something useful. Fight for each other. Fight for each other and know that even if the fight feels pointless now, one day you will look back and be proud that you made it through this together.
\nFight for each other and fight for us. Because the alternative isn\u2019t helping us and it is battering you.
\nNeil<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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