Liverpool Liverpool at the top of the league! Not the chant that many probably expected to be heard at Anfield almost full-time, but hopefully we’ll hear it on Sunday night too. The reds were dominant and well worth the three points here against European royalty, with even Jude Bellingham admitting afterwards that they were the second best. These are some off-field concerns, but there Liverpool were the better team and a 2-0 scoreline didn’t even flatter them. We look at the lessons learned from a freezing Wednesday night at Anfield in the Champions League.

Even the best miss them

A mate said to me on the way home, ‘What would be the chances of them not scoring either, let alone missing them both in that game?’ Mbappe has had his critics at Real, but when Robbo’s rashness gave him a chance in the second half, you expected him to bury it. However, he has not taken into account the sheer mastery with which Kelleher currently controls his goal. Salah has rightly received a lot of praise this season and you could hear the collective ‘yyyeeeeaaaaa….oooohhhhh’ in one breath from the crowd as he put it well wide. Ronnie Moran had a favorite saying for his favorite players like Rushdie when they did that, which was ‘even the best miss them sometimes son’. He would have applied that to one here.

Irish eyes smiled

Neither is Liverpool’s first choice, but they put in a performance that will live long in the memory here. Conor Bradley put through Kylian Mbappe with a tackle that shook his forefathers and drew war cries at Anfield, in a clip that will be replayed a million times. He also got an assist for the goal, was of the match and could even have been on the scoresheet himself. Nine recoveries and eight won duels tell their own story. Kelleher saved Robbo for the penalty and later, when he lost Brahim to save from close range, and it was great to see him receive so much appreciation from teammates for that crucial moment. We are so lucky to have these two on our team.

Masterclass in midfield

Anfield rightly gave Modric a respectful round of applause as he continued and one of the greats is likely to take his final bow on this ground. As great as he was, Liverpool had Alexis Mac Allister score a great goal and play so well, but the star of the show for me was really Toxteth’s best. After a brilliant performance against Leverkusen, Curtis Jones was great in this one passing accuracy of 93.1%, combined with the most dribbles on the pitch (3) and winning the most duels in midfield (6) said it all. He really shines on all these big European nights. Everyone is starting to realize that we have an elite midfielder on our hands.