One of the more surprising publishing successes under lockdown is called Klopp Actually by the comedian Laura Lexx. It is a fictional account of a suburban life married to the Liverpool manager.
They go to Ikea in their “nice Volvo”; he reassures her that her failure to be invited on to Mock the Week is not a sign her career is in meltdown. He fusses over her on Valentine’s Day. Lexx would have been proud of Jurgen Klopp on Monday night as he stood up to a menacing Irishman and defended his boys against charges of “sloppiness”.
“This game was absolutely exceptional, nothing was sloppy, absolutely nothing,” he told Roy Keane in the wake of Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat of Arsenal. “We were from the first second dominant against a team 100 per cent in form.”
Keane, however, had a point. Liverpool were in almost complete control against Arsenal but a scuffed clearance cost them the opening goal and Alexandre Lacazette squandered two one-on-ones to square the game.
After the second miss, the Arsenal midfielder, Mohamed Elneny, fell to his knees in disbelief. There was a similar feel to Liverpool’s opening game at Anfield, the 4-3 victory over Leeds, in which Virgil van Dijk’s uncharacteristic unforced error allowed Patrick Bamford to score.
However, if there is defensive sloppiness at Liverpool, it is everywhere in the Premier League. Never in the modern game have so many top-flight defences been breached so often. This season there have been only two draws and one of those was Chelsea’s comeback from three goals down against West Bromwich Albion.
The four goals at Anfield on Monday night meant the opening 28 games have produced 103 goals at 3.67 per match. To put this into context, the record for a Premier League season is 2.82 per game in 2018-19.
This season’s goals-per-game ratio has only been bettered twice since the Second World War. The last occasion was Tottenham’s double-winning campaign of 1960-61 when most sides played a 2-3-5 formation and three teams ended the season with more than 100 goals. Chelsea scored 98 and had a negative goal difference.
Sixty years on and the combination of playing without a crowd and a very short pre-season has changed the dynamics of the game. Defences have not had time to be properly drilled and the silence has given the Premier League the feel of a pre-season tournament.
Olivier Giroud noted: “The pitch feels bigger with no fans in the stadium. It is crazy to say it because it’s the same pitch but it feels bigger because the bearings and the points of reference are not the same.” The Chelsea striker added you could now hear every instruction from the bench.
For some forwards, the absence of a crowd has led to the lessening of pressure. In his first two seasons at Leeds, Bamford drew criticism from the crowds at Elland Road for failing to convert his chances.
Last season in the Championship, he scored 16 goals from 121 shots, more than half of which were off target. This season, without a crowd and against better defences, he has scored three times from six attempts, more than half of which were on target.
It may be that his game has matured but when Bamford was criticised by his own fans, his team-mates would point out how well he played in training. A fabulous volley that Bamford scored on the practice pitches at Thorp Arch which saw Marcelo Bielsa running over to embrace him is evidence of that.
Put another way, Bamford performed better without an audience and without a crowd he is suddenly and maybe coincidentally playing with real confidence. In this strange season, he will not be the only one.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2SanPXm
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