This reminder that Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool are mere mortals after all arrived at the perfect moment for Steve McClaren. As Merseyside reflected on an afternoon that made all the recent talk of an Anfield title challenge seem a little silly, Newcastle United’s manager quite possibly saved his job.
The former England coach’s taut, tense body language betrayed the reality that, had his side suffered yet another stumble, McClaren could well have been sacked. Instead he not only choreographed a most unexpected win but saw Newcastle keep a rare clean sheet.
It might have been different had Alberto Moreno’s exquisite 79th-minute volley not been ruled out for offside, when television replays suggested it should have stood. Not that Klopp made too much of a fuss about that particular piece of officiating on a day when his players produced their worst performance since he succeeded Brendan Rogers.
It had been an awful day at the office for the German but, creditably, he possessed sufficient class to recognise that this was potentially a watershed moment for an old Bundesliga adversary. Once Georginio Wijnaldum had quite sublimely put the result beyond doubt, the German stepped over to the home technical area and embraced McClaren, who spent nine months as manager of Wolfsburg in 2010-11, with real warmth.
An hour and a half earlier the Yorkshireman would not have dared to envisage it ending this well. Jordon Ibe’s pace on Liverpool’s right flank posed his nervous team – and Paul Dummett especially – persistent problems.
Fortunately for McClaren, Liverpool lacked end product. So much so that a close-range miss on Christian Benteke’s part and a shot, curled just over, by Ibe represented the sum of their first-half threat. Perhaps it was a little bit of complacency, a sense that their mere presence on the pitch would be sufficient to beat Newcastle, but collectively they rarely matched Klopp’s dynamism in the technical area.
In mitigation, the injury that sidelined Philippe Coutinho and the physical fragility that ensured Daniel Sturridge began on the bench hardly helped the Liverpool cause on a day when their manager experimented with a flexible version of 4-4-2.
Granted this configuration was sufficiently fluid to frequently morph into a more familiar 4-3-3 but generally it seemed designed to deploy Ibe and James Milner as orthodox wingers, with a brief to attack Dummett and Daryl Janmaat. This might have been all right in theory but, not for the first time, Milner proved why he is much better deployed as a central midfielder. Meanwhile, without Coutinho and Sturridge around, Benteke looked a little lost – and very ordinary.
Liverpool were playing far too many long balls in the forward’s direction but McClaren had no reason to relax. Aware a side in sharper mode than Klopp’s might well have punished some needless concessions of possession in central midfield, the Gallowgate End were becoming restless.
Watching the recalled Siem de Jong fail to meet a volley before controlling the bouncing ball with a hand and then shinning it into the touch, it was hard to blame them. That cameo seemed horribly emblematic of a thoroughly underwhelming opening half which ended unadorned by a single shot on target, but almost imperceptibly something was shifting, and Klopp’s demeanour slowly shifted from jovially laid-back to scratchy and irritable.
Roberto Firmino, who was beckoned to the technical area and admonished for pulling out of a challenge, summed up Liverpool’s strangely tentative mood. Very shortly afterwards the Firmino/Benteke attacking axis was replaced by Sturridge and Adam Lallana.Still, though, Lucas Leiva’s passing radar kept going awry.
Finally cottoning on to the fact Liverpool’s gegenpressing was malfunctioning, Newcastle’s confidence rose and when Moussa Sissoko whipped in a cross, Wijnaldum stuck out a boot. His connection was not the best and the shot was going well wide, but the ball struck Martin Skrtel on the thigh and deflected beyond Simon Mignolet.
Newcastle were ahead without really having had an effort on target all afternoon. Unconcerned, they set about further frustrating opponents who since the arrival of Sturridge and Lallana had been forcing them ever deeper.
Moreno’s disallowed strike highlighted their vulnerability but generally intelligent defending from Fabricio Coloccini – who would have been dropped at centre half had Mike Williamson not damaged a hamstring – ensured that Rob Elliot remained relatively untested in goal. Admittedly Sturridge might have done better than shoot wide after being sublimely put through by Lallana, but it was his sole chance.
McClaren had pondered omitting Sissoko and Wijnaldum along with Coloccini but his faith was rewarded as Sissoko eluded Moreno and launched an imperious stoppage-time counterattack, concluding with Wijnaldum quite brilliantly dinking the ball over Mignolet.
