For me, the story of the night was Kerkez and Frimpong. Not just because they defended well, but because they did the hard bit first and still found the energy to be a proper outlet.
Greenwood and Gouiri kept trying to isolate them, drag them into little duels, and see if they could get a yard. Maybe once or twice they did. Mostly they didn’t. It was proper full-back defending: stay on your feet, show them where you want them to go, be strong at the moment of contact.
And then, on top of that, they still got forward with real purpose. Not the pointless overlap where you end up recycling it back to the centre-half. Actual thrust. Actual quality in the final action. There were crosses and cut backs that looked like they’d been practiced, and one of them ends up forcing an own goal. That’s full-backs doing the job at both ends without looking like they’re drowning.
The real trick was the cover behind them
The reason they had that freedom wasn’t magic. It was Mac Allister dropping in alongside Virgil and Gomez, basically giving us an extra layer in the build-up and an extra body ready for the counter.
It just worked. Suddenly the full-backs can go because someone is thinking about what happens when we lose it. That’s the bit Liverpool sides have always needed when we’re trying to play on the front foot: a safety valve that keeps the rest of the structure honest.
If Arne Slot wants Gravenberch arriving higher and playing with that forward momentum, then Mac Allister doing this becomes vital. You can’t have everyone sprinting towards the box and then act surprised when one straight pass turns into a breakaway.
Counter-attacks: we actually respected them
It also felt like one of the first games this season where we properly pinned a midfielder back to deal with transitions. You could see it in the spacing. When the ball went wide, there was still a red shirt sat in the middle, ready to slow the game down if it broke the other way.
The one time they did get a clean break was telling: Mac Allister steps forward, gives it away, and suddenly it’s open grass. We got away with it because the shot was skied, but the lesson’s obvious. This is why the balance matters.
A blueprint that suits this squad
Hopefully Slot looks at that and thinks: right, that’s the plan with this set of players. Let the RB and LB off the shackles, but leave someone home. It isn’t rocket science, but it is coaching, and fair play if he’s landed on the right blend.
Because for the first time all season, I watched us and thought: that’s actually a very good performance. We controlled the feel of it, we looked composed, and if we’re being honest it could’ve been five or six.
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