Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Liverpool missed their opportunity to go joint top of the Premier League table on Monday as they were once again thwarted by Jose Mourinho. Once again Mourinho was the villain on Merseyside, not perhaps for anything he done personally but the fact that his tactics squeezed the life out of what was meant to be a titanic clash between two arch rivals.
It wasn’t just Mourinho that kept Liverpool at bay as David De Gea made the kind of save that probably won’t be beaten all season and the Spaniard was certainly not to be beaten earlier in the week as his acrobatics meant the game ended in a stalemate.
The only positive that Jurgen Klopp could take from that game is the fact that Liverpool kept their first clean sheet of the season, that said you get the feeling that Klopp would have swapped that defensive tightness for a pulsating win with goals at both ends.
With the bore draw well and truly behind us Liverpool focus their attention to this evening when they play host to a West Brom side who are unbeaten in their last four matches, although that statistic isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds with the last three of them being draws.
Manager Tony Pulis would have had ‘keeper Ben Foster to thank last Saturday after his string of saves kept Tottenham at bay for nearly the whole game only to see Dele Alli cancel out his former teammate Nacer Chadli’s opener just minutes before.
It was a well earned draw for The Baggies and Pulis will be hoping that Foster and Chadli for that matter are on same of form this evening for their trip to Anfield. Many people had Pulis down as the first Premier League manager to lose his job this season but after early pressure has subsided after the current unbeaten run that they are in.
The early season report will say that West Brom have probably matched their expectations or perhaps even slightly bettered them after picking up 10 points from the first 8 matches, the signing of Nacer Chadli has been an absolute revelation and he has already paid off a large chunk of the transfer fee that was paid for his services this Summer.
He and the rest of the West Brom are going to have to be at their best if they are to get anything from this encounter with Liverpool. Mourinho may have been able to squeeze the life out of the Reds on Monday but you do wonder if Pulis will be capable of the same.
I think West Brom’s unbeaten run comes to an end this evening as Liverpool continue theirs with a routine home win as they keep the pressure on the trio of teams above them, it would have to take quite the turn of results but they could even be top by the end of this match. Not sure that will happen but they will certainly take all three points.
