Liverpool stuck their chest out and showcased to the world why they are still top of the Premier League table with a stunning win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Jurgen Klopp made further changes to his XI at the City Ground, with a new-look midfield, including youngster Bobby Clark starting, alongside Joe Gomez and Alexis Mac Allister.
Only one of those players has experience in that role and that’s the summer signing, so it wasn’t a surprise that Liverpool couldn’t find those killer moments for the majority of the game.
Tim Sherwood acknowledged Alexis Mac Allister for supplying the assist for Darwin Nunes’s winner, but he was critical of Joe Gomez.
The former Tottenham and Aston Villa boss stated that the 26-year-old ‘isn’t great on the ball’, as he told Premier League Productions.
Joe Gomez ended up playing the entire game and proceeded to watch the chaos unfold after the full-time whistle.
Regardless of the controversy regarding that winner, three points are three points and this was the performance of champions, according to Tim Sherwood.
Joe Gomez in midfield
“That’s what champions do, scoring late goals, it looks like they are never going to concede with Van Dijk and Konate at the back there. Kelleher, he deserves a mention as well,” said Sherwood.
“I said in the first half, they lacked midfield players today, who can see a pass. There was only Mac Allister who was in there. Clark does the best he possibly can.
“Gomez isn’t great with the ball. The vision and the range of passing needs to be correct to feed your attacking players. Mac Allister got on the ball in the second half, he changed it up a little bit, getting deeper so he could tick it going forward.
“He found some passes, but none more than that one.”
Injured played returning
The massive plus for Klopp is that his team have managed to win the League Cup and still rack up the wins in the Premier League whilst key players have been sidelined.
But now a number of them are returning, including Nunez for the winner, Dominik Szoboszlai got around 20 minutes, whilst Mohamed Salah doesn’t seem far behind.
With a certain title showdown against Manchester City around the corner, this is huge of the highest order.
Liverpool will be well aware that, if they can beat the Treble winners, then winning the title in Klopp’s final season will become even more of a reality.
