It’s five minutes in. Aston Villa half-clear a corner to around 40 yards from goal, dead centre.
How many right-backs will shun the easy back-in-the-mixer option to ping an outside-of-the-foot pass and find a teammate on the flank?
And how many left-backs will make a surging run down the right-hand side, then meet the pass with a perfect first-time touch with the outside of the boot for your striker to slot home?
They’re an extraordinary pair, are Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.
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The former, off the back of his 33-minute World Cup stint with England in Qatar, fed the latter, now the Premier League’s assist king among defenders, to tee up Mohamed Salah for the first of Liverpool’s goals in their 3-1 win at Villa Park on Monday night. The luxury of having such quality in your full-back positions has been spoken of many times before, and it just never gets old.
Liverpool are fresh now too. After a 2022 in which they have played almost every game imaginable, they finally got six weeks off while the global attention was focused on Qatar. Sure, Alexander-Arnold was in the England squad, but he only got one sub appearance in the group stage and Liverpool can only benefit from that.
There was a freshness of thought all across the pitch for the Reds, a spriteliness to their movement as they returned to Premier League play after six weeks. The kind of stodginess which had been in their step all too often in the 10 months prior to the World Cup was not evident at Villa Park until the home side stepped things up early in the second half.
Darwin Nunez’s movement was a thing of beauty as he time and again ghosted into space in the final third, but whatever he tried to control the ball with – his toe, his head, his instep, his chest – it just didn’t happen for him. If he could finish even a quarter of his chances, he’d be the hottest prospect in world football right now.
The Uruguayan has just nine goals in 20 Liverpool appearances. If the ‘just’ in that statement feels harsh so be it. The truth is that he could be averaging two goals per game rather than two games per goal if he could just show a little more composure when it counts. He demonstrates so much quality in making opportunities for himself, so much creativity in his movement, but clearly has plenty to do mentally to stop wasting chances with such regularity.
Up alongside him there was a rare start for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The last time the former Arsenal attacker started a league game for Liverpool, Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, Liz Truss was the future of the Conservative Party and His Majesty The King was plain old Prince Charles. ‘The Ox’ didn’t look out of place, despite having played fewer Premier League minutes this season than Alexander-Arnold managed in Qatar.
Liverpool scored a second shortly before half-time when Virgil van Dijk poked home a deflected effort at the far post, but Ollie Watkins headed Villa back into it on the hour mark. Sure, Liverpool conceded a few chances but they always looked likely to score more than they would concede. That can be the way when a great attacking team really goes for it away from home.
And Jurgen Klopp’s side will continue to really go for it. The concern was that their exertions in winning both domestic cups and reaching the Champions League final as well as pushing the 2021-22 title race to the final day had left them cooked. And they looked it for far, far too long.
Even against Unai Emery’s side they had a dip in energy levels after half-time which threatened to undermine their excellent performance. But on came Naby Keita and Harvey Elliott for Oxlade-Chamberlain and Thiago Alcantara, and suddenly they had control over the game once more.
They made another double-change 11 minutes from time and it immediately paid dividends, 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic coming on and mopping up after Nunez’s cut-back from the bye-line had caused problems. Ben Doak, a year Bajcetic's junior, gave the visitors an even younger look when making his league debut late on.
The same old Liverpool is in there somewhere. This wasn’t the clean turning of the page their fans would have been dreaming of, but nonetheless it was clear proof that this iteration of the greatest LFC era in three decades has some legs in it and plenty of youngsters ready to step into the breach. They have far too much quality not to have another real dig at glory.
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
