Stranger Things…
So, after a good win against Arsenal last week, the Reds went into the midweek game against Real Madrid with a pep in their step. This wasn’t the same Real of years gone by and they could be got at. An ageing midfield and their top 2 CBs injured. Easy peasy. Except for 1 thing… Liverpool went in to the big Champions League game with the Daddies of European football and absolutely capitulated. We rolled over and let Modric and Kroos tickle our bellies, pat us on the head and send us on our way. A 3-1 defeat at Bernabeu Junior really softened the cough of many Liverpool fans who thought we were destined to walk to European Cup #7.
Defeat in Spain put extra emphasis on getting back to winning ways in the premier League to try and chase down a top 4 finish. Our opponents - Aston Villa, a team who beat us 7-2 earlier in the season. A team who would fancy their chances of doing the double over us. But the Reds were not going to give them the same resect as Real Madrid. A good 1st half ended in familiar fashion - Liverpool not taking their chances, going in 1 nil down and on the receiving end of another dubious VAR call. Our season in Microcosm. But a 2nd half comeback, led by Salah and completed by a Trent Alexander-Arnold injury time winner put the reds back in the hunt.
We now go into the 2nd leg against Real with a mammoth task to overcome. And while Liverpool have made a habit of overcoming the odds on European nights in Anfield, an empty stadium will not give us the extra 10% it has previously. This all comes down to the players on the pitch and the man in the dug out. The least we should expect is to go down swinging, so hopefully we treat this Real team with the same disdain we showed their friends from Barcelona. Who knows, stranger things have happened…
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