On another day in another season a 1-1 draw with Chelsea would have been a fantastic result but after 90 minutes on Tuesday evening Reds fans were left thinking "what if?"
What if that free kick which wasn't a free kick wasn't actually given? What if we'd of beaten Swansea? What if Sadio Mane had of been around for a few extra games?
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| Image via skysport.com |
It's so frustrating because there was definitely improvement from Jurgen Klopp's side. A lively start to the game was quickly diminished after said free kick was awarded and David Luiz left Simon Mignolet dumbfounded. Maybe I've got a bias head on but it was never a foul to me, just a coming together. In fairness though even after the free kick was awarded there is no excuse for the way Migs was caught so off guard.
With the visitors in the lead the remainder of the first half saw a somewhat deflated performance from Liverpool who had let that Luiz goal go straight to their heads.
The second half was far better. It was clear we were still in this game but I once again found myself annoyed at the amount of touches being taken outside of the box. Trying to break straight through the middle just clearly wasn't going to work and it was no coincidence that when we did score on 57 minutes the goal was thanks to a cross and a header back over goal. If you put dangerous balls in like that you create dangerous chances and it just really frustrates me that we don't opt to do this more when our initial set up fails.
The header from Gini was wonderful but credit to James Milner who also worked hard to cause the initial melee. At 1-1 it definitely began to feel like we could take all three points, that was until Diego Costa was awarded an extremely soft penalty.
Costa is an absolute arsehole to play against, funny how he remains on his feet when it benefits him but is down like a sack of spuds if it doesn't? Thankfully Simon Mignolet was in the mood to redeem himself and made a fantastic save to deny Chelsea a second goal.
The Reds fought but they just could not find that all important winner. It's a difficult match to round up really because as I said at the start, on a standard occasion this would have been a great result and a great performance but really, in order to have any serious hope of somehow clinching the title, it had to be a win last night.
We can always be positive and pray that Arsenal do some damage to Conte but they lost to Watford on Tuesday evening so err... yeah...
Next up for Liverpool is Hull away.
P.s. If you've been under a rock and missed the transfer news Mamadou Sakho has gone to Palace on loan.