Liverpool 3-1 Sheffield United: Talking points as persistence takes Reds back to Premier League summit

Having spent around 24 hours staring at the back of Arsenal, Liverpool have retaken the top spot in the Premier League standings by beating Sheffield United 3-1 on Thursday evening at Anfield.

Darwin Nunez applied pressure on Sheffield goalkeeper Ivo Grbic to break the deadlock in the 17th minute, but the stadium went silent 13 minutes into the second half as Conor Bradley caused an unfortunate deflection to put the ball in his own team’s net. A stunner from Alexis Mac Allister restored Liverpool’s lead in the 76th, and in the 90th, Cody Gakpo reacted very well to a pin-point cross from Andy Robertson to set the final score.

The game

Despite the fact that Liverpool are firmly in the title race and the Blades sit at the bottom of the table, the three points took a harder route into the home side’s pockets than expected. With 84% of possession of the ball, there can be no question about Liverpool dominating the contest, and the fact that they took a total of 29 shots compared to Sheffield’s five comes as no surprise. But with that in mind, Jurgen Klopp’s team probably should’ve wrapped the victory in a much more comfortable manner.

Liverpool had no problems with grabbing possession and pushing the visitors far back for most of the game, but they frequently appeared to lack the creativity needed to break through the five-man back line which stood infront of Grbic. Darwin’s opener, a result of sheer perseverance from the Uruguay international, in a large way epitomizes the way they won this game.

Liverpool never really created what most people consider a big chance, but rather resorted to testing Grbic’s confidence with efforts from outside the box. But being always deep in the opposition half helped them in knocking on the door with sufficient frequency to eventually wear the Sheffield defence down and get the job done.

Blades doomed as title race remains fierce

Liverpool are now back at the top with 70 points racked up, two…

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Author : Veselin Trajkovic

Publish date : 2024-04-04 21:51:08

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