ANFIELD HAZE
Liverpool 1 West Ham 0
West Ham seem to have been losing to Liverpool by a single goal at Anfield for some years now. So how do we set about stopping the rot? Perhaps you have to consider stopping the scousers from scoring. That’s be a start, at least. They are unbeaten at home in 27 games. Well Zouma is back, so a back four, finally.
Nunez starts for Liverpool and looks a handful straight away, confusing defenders by wearing a shirt with ‘Darwin’ on the back. For an obvious fan of natural selection, he hasn’t started in a Liverpool shirt for some time, but then Hammers haven’t lost under floodlights for thirteen games.
A long ball from Thiago after quarter of an hour finds Nunez, who hits a blistering shot over Fabianski, but the keeper stretches out a fin to keep it out. Ten minutes later Nunez gets on the end on a pin point perfect cross from Tsimikas to this time head past Fabianski. Irritatingly it is another ball headed down that bounces over Fabianski’s outstretched hand. Guess that’s the only way you beat him these days other than by deflections.
A minute later, a slip by Johnson lets Nunez in again, but Fabianski beats out his shot to safety. Then, with five minutes left, Thiago chips a neat ball in that Nunez gathers off Kehrer to hit powerfully past Fabianski, but the ball comes back off the upright and he miscues the rebound.
Without a decent chance all half, Hammers then cultivate an opportunity to pull level from a Downes header through to Bowen who is fouled in the area by Joe Gomez. The referee says no. VAR says yes. Bowen fluffs it with a weak hit to the keeper’s right, which Allison telegraphs perfectly.
The second half is a more evenly-paced affair, but Hammers make some generous errors including one by Kehrer that lets Henderson in to set Firmino up for a toe poke deflected wide by Cresswell with the keeper beaten. Nunez is off in the 57th minute for Harvey Elliott, and doesn’t even notch up a full hour of play.
On 70 minutes, the first decent outfield West Ham chance is created from Downes and Rice which Benrahma wasted by shooting straight at Allison with the goal at his mercy. Jones then misses a clear chance for Liverpool before Zouma deflects a cross onto his own crossbar and away to safety.
With ten minutes to go, Scamacca hits a far post chance into the stratosphere.
In the final positive act of the game, Bowen creates a clear chance for Souček, whose goalbound shot is deflected wide by James Milner. Well, they beat Manchester City at the weekend, so what can you bloody do.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 2 Ben Johnson, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 24 Thilo Kehrer, 8 Pablo Fornals, 12 Flynn Downes, 28 Tomas Souček, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 20 Jarrod Bowen, 7 Gianluca Scamacca
Substitutes: 9 Michail Antonio, 22 Saïd Benrahma
