All last-gasp winners seem significant but Fabio Carvalho’s 98th minute drive into the roof of the Newcastle net might be the moment that ignites Liverpool’s season. Jurgen Klopp valued it at seven fist pumps aimed towards the Kop. “We will remember it for years,” he remarked afterwards.
Had Carvalho not scored – and since Andre Marriner had added just five minutes some Newcastle players thought they should already have been in the showers – Liverpool would have looked precariously placed.
Titles cannot be won in the opening few fixtures but they can be lost. Perhaps Fabinho, who will be even more pivotal in the Liverpool midfield after Jordan Henderson’s withdrawal with a hamstring injury, summed it up best when asked to express his emotions when Carvalho scored. “Passion and relief,” he said.
Without it, Liverpool would have beaten nobody other than Bournemouth and their start would have been the worst since 2014 when after five games Brendan Rodgers’ side found itself below Hull and seven points adrift of the leaders, Chelsea. Having almost won the league a few months before, it was a beginning from which Liverpool did not recover. They limped home in sixth, 25 points off the pace.
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“It is a massive boost from a frustrating night,” said Klopp. “It was one of the best nights we have ever had; that’s how football is. The last two games have brought six points but we have to improve.
“We know we have to improve. When we play football, we are a really good team even here against an opponent who threw everything between us and the goal. That’s what we have to do – play football but you cannot force it and the next game will be a proper fight.”
The next game is the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park. Frank Lampard will likely employ the same tactics he did in the narrow defeat at Anfield in April. The Everton manager will order his team to deny Liverpool time, space and opportunity and hope his threadbare attack can snatch something. He does not, however, possess a forward of the ability of Newcastle’s Alexander Isak, who but for a marginal offside might have scored twice on his debut.
Klopp argued that Liverpool’s problems against Newcastle came from too many – highly inaccurate – long balls. However, this season his difficulties have been defensive. Liverpool have now conceded the first goal in four of their five games.
On Wednesday night and in the defeat to Manchester United, Virgil van Dijk did not look what he has been for the past few years; the best centre-half in the world.
At right-back, Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was eventually substituted, looked a liability.
Before the 2019 Champions League final, the Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, thought Alexander-Arnold was Liverpool’s weakest point. Pochettino’s players performed too feebly in Madrid ever to test that theory but Liverpool’s formidable list of upcoming opponents – Everton, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City – might fancy their chances.
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