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Xabi Alonso said he didn’t want to come to Liverpool as tourists and his Bayer Leverkusen certainly leave without any mementoes. Not a point. Not a goal. Not their pride. Not any hold on Luis Diaz, either, who hit a hat-trick. Leverkusen didn’t even see that much of the ball, as Liverpool translated almost 60% possession into a thoroughly convincing 4-0 win. It was fitting of a team first in this expanded table.
For all the inevitable focus on a former Liverpool Champions League winner who knew how to play a pass – and suffered a reckoning here – wins like this are maybe the moment when it’s worth going even further back into the club’s European history. There is a genuinely noteworthy reference, that actually came the last time Liverpool saw a talismanic and charismatic figurehead replaced by a more placid but possibly more calculating character.
Bob Paisley once spoke of a realisation he came to in the mid-70s, when he was still bringing the club out of the Bill Shankly era, and Liverpool hadn’t yet won any of their six European Cups. “We realised it was no use winning the ball if you finished up in your backside. The Europeans showed us how to break out of defence effectively. We had to learn to be patient and think about the next two or three moves when we had the ball.”
Is the last sentence not the perfect description of Arne Slot’s Liverpool, right up to how their control in the first half seems like conservation of energy as much as anything, allowing them to burst late on in games – and maybe the season?
There is another parallel, of course. The one criticism that was made of that Liverpool team – in part because it was one of the few you could make in good faith – was that they were occasionally boring. A theme of this season has been how “flat” Liverpool have occasionally been, especially in first halves.
The Kop didn’t care when that level of control was distilled into moments of mastery, when they just went to another level. So it was here, as Luis Diaz finally got things going after an hour with a delightful chip over the stranded Lukas Hradecky from just yards out. The vintage slide-rule pass from Curtis Jones further decorated a fine goal.
By then, they had Leverkusen where they wanted them – always three moves ahead. Cody Gakpo added real force to so much finesse with a thunderous header, before Luis Diaz turned a good win into a rout. One late chance was turned in before another was smashed in. Comprehensive.
It is tactical European football of that higher standard.
Not necessarily for Liverpool, of course. Jurgen Klopp played some of the best football in Europe alongside Pep Guardiola’s sides, and of course returned the Champions League trophy to this club for the first time in 14 years.
If it’s impossible for anyone to replicate Klopp, though, maybe this is the way to go. It is in-keeping with the club’s great history but also different. It can similarly make a greater difference for the future.
The way Liverpool suddenly go into overdrive does seem to be linked to how underwhelming they can be in the first halves of matches. That obviously sounds harsh for a team who have won 14 of 16 games this season in this manner but what is relevant is how they are using it to their credit. Slot’s Liverpool are so controlled that they can plan when to release.
It’s so reminiscent of teams with creators like Kenny Dalglish.
This team constantly exhibit such patience, which makes the soundtrack of so many old Anfield songs all the more fitting. “Bring on your Internazionale,” the Kop sang, and the evidence so far indicates they shouldn’t fear anyone – including teams closer to them.Such a quality might well be all the more important if this is to be yet another season that draws any title race out to 90 points, when the run-in becomes a test of endurance as much as nerve.
The opposition did admittedly influence some of this. Alonso came as if setting up to avoid the humiliation he ultimately endured, arguably making it all the more likely. Leverkusen set up with what was really a back five and three midfielders playing defensive.Liverpool still worked their way through that, having dragged them out of position for far longer. It was what Paisley spoke about, thinking two or three moves ahead.
One inevitable narrative that will come out of this is that it shows Liverpool were right to go for Slot, rather than Alonso. The crowd sang the name of both, which was deserved, and reflects how that would be as unfair as it was obvious. Alonso should not be castigated for choosing to stay in a lesser-resourced job, where he already worked a miracle. That was going to be impossible to sustain.
Slot, by contrast, is starting to look like he really can sustain this run. The football occasionally looks effortless, which in turn allows periods when Liverpool do look devastating. It has put them top of this expanded Champions League.
That’s something else that’s familiar from their history.