ANFIELD, LIVERPOOL // As Liverpool 2.0 comes together for Jürgen Klopp, it is going to be fascinating to see just how quickly it can iron out its flaws. Much progress has been made so far but the Reds are still weak in some areas and it took four spectacular goals to win this game thanks to some poor defending and slack play in attack.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s first-half free-kick might technically be an own goal but it was a stunning strike from distance. His second was not bad either, with an incredible Alexis Mac Allister strike from range and a Wataru Endō curler coming in between.
You will struggle to find a better collection of goals in one game — Luis Suárez against Norwich City might be one rare example — but they were almost canceled out by some terrible errors at the back. Things are, it would be fair to say, still being refined.
Here are the three moments Liverpool.com picked out from the Reds’ win over Fulham. It just about got the week off to a good start with Sheffield United and Crystal Palace, both away from home, to come in the next six days.
You can’t win the league in December but you can certainly lose it. And for large periods, it looked like Liverpool was doing exactly that. If you were looking for evidence that this iteration of the Reds is ready only for a return to the top four spots and not to properly compete at the top, there was much of that here.
But the character of the team (and the quality of the goals) was enough to turn things around. Trent Alexander-Arnold did not do many great things across the course of the game, but he smashed in a free kick (that has since gone down as an own goal) and then the winner. Those are the moments that really matter.
Fulham was unfortunate. As Marco Silva said at the final whistle, it is not often that Liverpool scores four goals quite as good as that. But they did here and found a way to win a match in which three points were vital.
The sloppiness and mental fatigue that Liverpool’s players displayed was more than a little worrying heading into a busy month. Too often, the ball was gifted back to the visitor when there was simply no need.
A lack of movement didn’t help him, but Ryan Gravenberch struggled and even Alexander-Arnold was ponderous at times. Mac Allister did pretty well but was sacrificed to move Alexander-Arnold into midfield, presumably also with the rest of a big week in mind.
Liverpool will need to be better and sharper in the away matches to come in a few days, and more clinical too. Darwin Núñez didn’t have the impact he would have liked, missing at least one decent chance and barely being involved beyond that, and $47m (£37m/€43m) Luis Díaz was relatively quiet.
Each of those pair will need to step up during this important period when Diogo Jota is out, and $44m (£35m/€41m) Cody Gakpo too. The Dutchman made a difference when he was introduced and regular goals, as we will come to shortly, might need to be the order of the next few weeks.
Liverpool already had five players missing and can now seemingly add Joël Matip to the list. The defender was replaced in the second half. He has, for a long time, been fit and able to play regularly.
Now, though, just when the Reds face a difficult schedule, he might be sidelined. The Cameroonian will undergo a scan but Klopp said that the injury would not be a quick one. Quite what that means remains to be seen.
The first signs of missing key men were there already today with Caoimhín Kelleher struggling with the first two Fulham goals. It would have been a routine victory with Alisson Becker, but instead was anything but. With the Brazilian set to miss at least the next three matches too (albeit one is a Europa League dead rubber), Liverpool might have to get used to scoring plenty to win.
