In his latest column, John Aldridge looks at Liverpool's win over West Ham United and why Dominik Szoboszlai is more important than ever
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot(Image: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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It would be pushing matters to suggest Liverpool didn’t deserve a comfortable victory against West Ham United on Saturday.
But there were enough concerns for Arne Slot to drum into his players there is still a lot of room for improvement during the remaining few months of the season.
One thing I was impressed with, though, was that we finally came out of the blocks fast. Perhaps Liverpool read this column last week when I was demanding they started games quicker.
It was just as well, really, because West Ham put up a good account of themselves. They had plenty of chances and that will be the worry for Slot, although to be fair Liverpool have been pretty solid at the back in previous weeks.
The game itself was a bit strange in the sense the final scoreline flattered us on the overall balance of play. But, to be honest, I actually enjoyed the game. It was a little bit old-fashioned in that it was end to end at times with not much control and a lot of set-pieces, but it helped that it wasn’t a robotic match the like of which we’ve seen far too often this season at Anfield.
West Ham came to play, and they were certainly more ambitious than those teams who defend deep and look to return with what they came with, although it did help that we scored early for once.
Liverpool scored five but could easily have had seven. West Ham, though, could have had four or five goals themselves.
There were some decent Liverpool performances and some average ones, and it was that kind of afternoon. You can’t always play well, but we did enough to get the win.
The negative was that we appeared to lack concentration at times. Certainly in defence, where we made a fair number of individual errors.
Ryan Gravenberch gifted West Ham a chance with a sloppy pass in a dangerous area while I’m not quite sure what Alisson Becker was trying to achieve when hitting the ball straight to Jarrod Bowen from close range.
The defence in general appeared to be hesitant far too often and made some very odd decisions rather than just dealing with the matter. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with just booting the ball forward and relieving the pressure a bit.
But we got away with it. Just like we got away with things at Nottingham Forest the previous week, although there it was the midfield that was the issue in the first half at least.
Better teams, though, will capitalise on it. I’m not having tiredness of mind as a problem, however. Liverpool have to hope their slackness was just a minor blip and not something more regular.
Szob story continues
If Dominik Szoboszlai hadn’t already done enough to underline his status as Liverpool’s player of the season, now he is very much the go-to guy at set-pieces.
It’s simplistic, yes, but dead balls are the key to doing anything of note in the Premier League this season. Arsenal could well win the title on the strength of such endeavours.
And in Szoboszlai we have a player who can whip in a great delivery, as was seen on several occasions against West Ham at the weekend.
Their goalkeeper was a bit of a flapper and the way Szoboszlai was whipping the ball into the six-yard box, it’s so hard to defend particularly when you have Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate attacking the ball.
We’d had all sorts taking corners in the recent past to varying degrees of success. But with Mohamed Salah also decent at knocking the ball in, it’s no wonder we’ve started scoring more often from such positions.
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