community shield and buildup to bournemouth
the hit
“Big Yellow Taxi,” Counting Crows (2002)
Don’t it always seem to go
that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?
8/10 | community shield | crystal palace 2, Liverpool 2 (penalties: 3-2)
Lineup: Alisson, Frimpong, Konate, Van Dijk, Kerkez, Jones, Szoboszlai, Wirtz, Salah, Gakpo, Ekitike. Bradley remained out injured, Mac Allister was relegated to the bench, and, most significantly, Gravenberch was absent due to the birth of his first child.
Strange game — one that saw some of our most reliable returners struggle and our newbies step up, most notably Hugo Ekitike. His movement and proficiency at linking play was a catalyst for more than just creating chances. It allowed us to keep the ball and dominate proceedings for much of the first half. His substitution in the second laid bare many of the issues we still need to address, namely our defensive positioning without the ball. Palace found joy playing over the top of our backline, who were caught too far infield, in no man’s land, far too often — especially VVD. (You’re goin’ nowhere Virgil and you’re takin’ us with you!) Hopefully we can chalk a really poor performance from the big man up to his recent return from illness.
The way we started, I thought we might roll the Eagles. A quartet of passes between Florian Wirtz and Ekitike set the latter up for his 4’ goal. Wirtz found Ekitike on the edge of the box with a line drive ball, who spun with a feathery touch of his left, took another with his right, and delivered a true striker’s finish, low, through bodies, into the far corner. Not too much power, but by the time Henderson saw it, it was too late.
The game opened up after that. Palace forced a great recovery tackle from Jeremie Frimpong and a slew of set pieces for us to deal with. A lovely Frimpong touch, early ball, and Ekitike back flick sprung a slick counter — Wirtz, to Salah, back to Wirtz, to Gakpo — but Gakpo was marginally offside. Moments later, Alisson Becker did what he does best, reading a 1v1 with Mateta and sliding the ball away with his legs. Virgil could’ve thanked Ali with a good read of his own, jockeying Sarr, who found himself in possession of the second ball on the edge of our box. Instead, he surrendered a soft but rightfully awarded penalty by dangling a lazy leg. Mateta converted no problem.
Less than four minutes later, Frimpong — outfitted like a mid-2000s Syracuse basketball player (headband, low shorts, low socks, big shoes) — brought down a long switch, exploded past Mitchell to the goal line, and clipped a ball to the back post… which looped over the keeper and into the side netting. Fortunate, but a reward for his attacking urgency. In fairness to Frimpong, for someone with a reputation as an offensive-minded fullback, he was phenomenal defensively.
The 56 minutes between Frimpong’s goal and Sarr’s equalizer weren’t great, but weren’t all terrible from a Liverpool perspective. Wirtz consistently looked like the most positionally aware, eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head player on the field, moving into open pockets of space, dropping perfectly weighted first-time passes, finding green grass with combinations or a ten-yard dribble before reassessing his options. Though we missed Gravenberch’s ability to turn and carry the ball, Jones and Szoboszlai helped control the tempo and Ekitike occupied the Palace backline.
When Ekitike went off, though, it was like we hadn’t realized how instrumental he’d been — hence today’s “Hit.” He and Jones made way for Endo and a clearly still-half-fit Mac Allister, who weren’t able to match the speed and intensity of the game. Palace’s Wharton (he’s a baller, by the way), who’d already had a great half, took advantage of the extra time and space. When Virgil gambled to follow a Palace player away from our box, Wharton clipped a perfect through ball into the vacated area and Sarr planted an unsavable side-footed finish in off the near post (Sarr, too, is a baller — good enough to play for any top-four team).
With the exception of a decent Salah chance in the closing minutes (one of his TWENTY-SIX touches over 90 plus extra time), we were hanging on for penalties.
The shootout was a fitting end to a frustrating game, one that showed despite the momentum of these quality additions, we still have holes in the team to address, gelling to do, and a mental reset needed. Putting the individual penalty misses to one side — and two of the three were brutal — my thought after the shootout wasn’t merely, “We need to practice pens more,” though we clearly do. It was, “Alright, lads, the parades are over. Preseason’s over. You want to be champions again? That sort of execution in crunch time won’t get it done.”
looking ahead to bournemouth: 8/15, 3pm est
A couple odds and ends to note.
We need Gravenberch back and Macca fully fit like SB needed water in episode 1.1.3. Unfortunately, Grav will be out due to suspension because of a red card in our final league game last season.
Thankfully, Joe Gomez is back in training to provide some cover at CB. At time of writing, we’re heavily linked with Marc Guehi and Giovanni Leoni (who’s SIX FOOT FIVE).
As thin as our own backline appears, four of Bournemouth’s starting back five from last year left for higher-profile clubs: Kepa to Arsenal, Huijsen to Real Madrid, Zabarnyi to PSG, and Kerkez. Assuming they’ll take a while to adjust to those losses, playing them early is a good thing.
Back at Anfield, first game of the new campaign, and Mo Salah loves scoring on opening day. Let’s regain our momentum.