Missed the game as I was stuck in buck nowhere due to a train failure and with no connection. How did the back likes of matip and virgil look scouse? Watched extended highlights but **** Salah is just a machine.
That sucks mate. Sorry.
I’ll preface this by saying that Norwich, naturally, didn’t give them the hardest of games. But the longer the game went on, they looked like they’d never been away.
Slowly eased themselves back in, with a few natural lapses in concentration that Taimikas in particular covered round and cleared. One miss-communication when Pukki split them early but showed why he’s the level he is with an extra touch taking him wide for a relatively routine Alisson save. (Who made a blinding double save their only real chance at the death to preserve the clean sheet and highlight his return to normality and his best again after all he endured personally last year.). But they grew stronger and stronger as the game went on. Both comfortably completing the full 90 back with another clean sheet together.
Matip was Matip. Long legs extending and cutting balls out. Striding forward in his mad but brilliant style to aid the attacking play. Nearly scoring from one forage into their box.
And then there was the return of the big man. Organising the back line like the maestro he is. Winning header after header both ends. And as conposed and dominant on the ball as ever. The diags were back in force the more the game went on.
Honestly mate, even accounting for the opposition, after slowly easing himself back in, it was like he’d never been away.
I won’t lie. It was quite emotional watching him.
As I’m sure it was for every opposition forward/ fan in a completely different emotion …..
Sick despair at the Worlds best being back at what he does better than anyone.