The Premier League is upon us. The champions of the Premier League versus the champions of the Championship. Jurgen Klopp vs Marcelo Bielsa. The stage was set for a highly anticipated battle of champions. And wow did it deliver.
The first half couldn’t have started much faster. 4 minutes in Salah’s shot hit the arm of Robin Koch and it was a pretty obvious penalty decision. Salah rifled the spot kick down the center of the goal to put Liverpool in the lead. Only eight minutes later Jack Harrison, on loan from Manchester City, made it 1-1. A long ball from Kalvin Phillips found Harrison who touched it brilliantly around Trent Alexander-Arnold and then a little luckily through Joe Gomez, before firing into the bottom left hand corner. Another eight minutes later the handy combination of an Andy Robertson corner and a Virgil Van Dijk header struck gold again for Liverpool. But only 10 minutes after, Leeds found themselves level again through a big mistake from Van Dijk and a solid finish by Patrick Bamford. Then a mere 3 minutes later Salah pulled out a worldie of a half volley to give Liverpool the lead. A free kick was whipped in and cleared rather poorly by Leeds. It fell to Salah and his first touch set it up, before he unleashed a missile perfectly into the top corner. After twelve more minutes of end to end football the 5-goal half ended with Liverpool in the lead 3-2.
The second half was drastically different from the first. Both teams kind of took their foot off the gas and it became a calmer game. There were once again chances for either side. However, it was Leeds who would score next, finding yet another equalizer through Mateusz Klich in the 66th minute. Klich made a great run through Liverpool’s midfield and defense and Helder Costa picked him out with a sublime pass. From there it was all quality from Klich, who’s deft touch with the outside of his foot set him up for a powerful volley of his own that flew past Alisson.
After the goal the game turned to Liverpool attacking a more defensive Leeds team. Bielsa and the team were clearly fine with a draw at the home of the defending champions. However, it didn’t stop them from having some dangerous counter attacks and spells of possession when the opportunity presented itself. Liverpool continued to send more and more bodies forward and they eventually got their reward. After a good Roberto Firmino chance was blocked, the resulting corner went high in the air and Fabinho got to the ball before Rodrigo. Rodrigo showed some forward’s defending as he brought him down in the box for a clear penalty. Salah stepped up again for the chance to complete his hattrick and that he did, sending the goalie the wrong way and finishing to his left. This goal scored in the 88th minute, would be enough to see Liverpool come out winners with a 4-3 score line.
What a start to the season for Liverpool and Leeds United. A 7-goal thriller with great attacking football from both sides. I was very impressed with Leeds as they basically took Liverpool’s game and shoved it right back in their face, being really successful while doing it. If the team continue to play like this, they are almost definitely here to stay in the Premier League. The only worry is the track record of newly promoted sides attempting to play attacking football. Last year Norwich tried to play forward thinking soccer after winning the Championship and they ended up in last place. Sheffield United on the other hand played defensive soccer and were legitimately fighting for European football. Can Leeds play attacking football and succeed? I think so. Off of today and all the talk around Leeds, they are a much better team than Norwich and will cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams this season.
Liverpool came out victorious but won’t be happy they let in 3 goals. In my opinion Liverpool played really well. The attack and midfield looked really sharp, as the problem from the end of last season of a lack of urgency didn’t seem to be a problem at all. Salah did score three goals, matching Teddy Sheringham’s record of scoring in four consecutive matchweek one games, but I was even more impressed by his involvement in the buildup play. I think Mané was not at his best but still very solid and looked very comfortable on the ball. I was impressed by Firmino as he seemed more involved than he was at times last season. His performance in the preseason game against Blackpool was one of his best in a while and I think this performance was a good one as well. He did underperform a little bit last year with goal contributions which gets a lot of stick from rival fans. He along with Salah seem to possibly be back closer to their best.
The midfield didn’t do anything special but didn’t really underperform either. Gini Wijnaldum arguably should’ve scored with a couple of chances falling his way. Naby Keita didn’t quite have as much involvement and influence on the game as he has recently, but he was still influential just to a smaller extent. I thought Curtis Jones came on and impressed as well.
The only problem Liverpool had was their defense. It’s a worrisome sign as defense was a key in Liverpool’s title winning campaign last season. In this game, multiple defensive errors caused Liverpool to concede 3 goals. One positive from the defensive performance is the team as a unit didn’t defend poorly. It was more individual mistakes that were the defenses downfall. Virgil Van Dijk made a big mistake that led directly to the second goal. The first goal could arguably be blamed on Alexander-Arnold, but it was more a good goal from Harrison than poor defending from Alexander-Arnold. The third goal was also more a great run and finish from Klich than poor defending, but you could argue one of Wijnaldum or Jones should’ve tracked his run better.
All in all I think it was more of a great performance from Leeds, than a bad performance from Liverpool. However, the mistakes at the back definitely didn’t help Liverpool’s cause. The key is that Liverpool looked really sharp on the attack. The problems in defense were individual errors which are fixable problems that I think will be solved with time as the season progresses. Liverpool have been criticized for their quiet transfer window, but I think we saw today why Liverpool didn’t need a big transfer window. People seem to have forgotten Liverpool won the league by 18 points last year, and they basically kept the same exact squad. That seems like a fine squad to me. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Liverpool’s next game is in 8 days’ time on Sunday, at Stamford Bridge, against the busiest team in the transfer window, Chelsea FC.