And now, read Stuart James’s on-the-whistle match report from the Liberty Stadium here:
And if you want more football, Barry Glendenning is your man.
Full time: Swansea 1-2 Liverpool
Liverpool move up to second in the table. They started poorly but the injury to Adam Lallana forced a reshuffle, and moving Philippe Coutinho into midfield sparked them into life. They were deserved winners after completely dominating the last hour of the game. Swansea put in an admirable shift and will reflect on two great chances that were missed by Borja Baston in the first half, and that last-minute sitter for Mike van der Hoorn. Thanks for your company; bye!
90+3 min What a chance for van der Hoorn! I would have scored that*. It was a great cross from the right by Rangel that curled and dipped over the head of the Liverpool centre-backs. It came to van der Hoorn, eight yards out, and he screwed a feeble volley wide of the far post.
(* Legal disclaimer: I may not actually have scored that.)
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90 min There will be four added minutes.
89 min Can’s low cross is almost put into his own net by the weary Cork. Fabianski gets down to his left to save.
89 min It will be ridiculous if Francesco Guidolin is sacked after this game.
88 min This is over. Swansea have nothing left in the tank.
86 min Origi has an instant impact with a low cross from the right towards the unmarked Sturridge. He can’t reach it on the stretch but Coutinho backs up the play beyond the far post to batter a shot from a tight angle that is beaten away by Fabianski.
85 min A double change for Liverpool: Can and Origi replace Wijnaldum and Firmino.
GOAL! Swansea 1-2 Liverpool (Milner 84 pen)
James Milner scores confidently, clipping it straight down the middle as Fabianski goes to the right.
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PENALTY TO LIVERPOOL
Oh, this is a nightmare for Swansea. Barrow, in his own box, blooters his attempted clearance straight up in the air, and when it bounces Rangel panicks and shoves Firmino to the ground. A clear penalty, and a pretty needless one.
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82 min The Swansea players, it is fair to assume, do not want Francesco Guidolin to be sacked. Their endeavour in this half has verged on the heroic.
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81 min Coutinho’s long-range shot deflects behind for a corner. Matip’s near-post header deflects behind for a second corner on the right, which will again be taken by Henderson. It’s a dangerous outswinger that somehow evades everyone on the six-yard line.
78 min This is Swansea’s best spell since around the half-hour mark, and for the time being they look the likelier scorers.
77 min Francesco Guidolin’s substitutions have given Swansea greater energy, and as a result the last 10 minutes have been less fraught. They almost take the lead when Karius comes for a left-wing corner and gets nowhere near it, with the ball flashing right across the face of goal.
75 min A rare Swansea attack, with a nice run and cross from Barrow leading to a corner. Sigurdsson takes it and Milner heads clear.
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72 min Swansea’s final substitution: Leroy Fer is replaced by Jay Fulton.
72 min Swansea can put two passes together, but three is a stretch and the ball is always coming back at them.
70 min From the resulting corner, Sturridge flashes a header a few yards wide of the far post.
69 min The dithering van der Hoorn is robbed on the edge of the area by Milner. He slightly overhits his pass to Mane, who gets it out of his feet nonetheless and hits a shot that is deflected over the bar by Naughton.
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68 min Clyne, who has been a constant attacking threat, cracks a low shot from 25 yards that is well held by Fabianski.
67 min Mane shrieks with pain after a tackle by Ki, and the replays shows why: he planted his studs into Mane’s right foot.
64 min Coutinho bundles Barrow to the ground to launch a Liverpool counter-attack. Firmino plays the ball down the left to Coutinho, whose excellent low cross just evades Sturridge at the near post.
63 min Another Swansea change: Ki Sung-Yueng replaces the tiring captain Leon Britton.
62 min Swansea make their first change, with Modou Barrow replacing Wayne Routledge.
59 min Swansea surely can’t do this for another half an hour. They are under constant pressure.
57 min Swansea are struggling to stay in this game. Coutinho plays a one-two with Mane and places a beautiful curler just wide from inside the D. He has been terrific since dropping into midfield.
GOAL! Swansea 1-1 Liverpool (Firmino 54)
Liverpool are level! Coutinho’s free-kick hits the wall and comes to Henderson, who lobs it first time into the box. Firmino, who stayed onside as Swansea pushed up, places a good header into the left corner of the net from 10 yards.
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54 min Britton is booked for a cynical pull on Mane, 25 yards from goal.
52 min It’s raining heavily now, which adds to the increasingly desperate feel of the match as Liverpool chase an equaliser in a manner usually reserved for the last 10 minutes.
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48 min Mane combines with Sturridge – who should have been flagged offside - and clips the ball past the outrushing Fabianski from the right corner of the six-yard box. It deflects off van der Hoorn and rolls invitingly in front of goal before Amat boots it clear.
47 min Clyne runs at Naughton and crosses low towards Sturridge, who spins Amat at the near post but overruns the ball in doing so. Goal kick to Swansea.
46 min Swansea begin the second half, kicking from left to right.
Half-time cheer
“Travelling from west Wales to Cardiff, I got stuck in match-day traffic in torrential rain on the M4 earlier, so this match put me in a bad mood before it had even kicked off,” says Matt Dony. “Checking the half-time score hasn’t helped. Batter Arsenal, lose to Burnley. Batter Chelsea, losing to Swansea. Gotta love being a Liverpool fan.”
They’ll win this 3-1. You have my word.
Half-time reading
Half time: Swansea 1-0 Liverpool (Fer 8)
A fine 45 minutes for Swansea, who could be 3-0 ahead, though the way Liverpool came to life towards half-time was pretty ominous. See you in 10 minutes for the second half.
44 min Sigurdsson’s dipping free-kick is fumbled by Karius but he claims it comfortably at the second attempt.
43 min Swansea really, really need half-time. A breather is the next-best thing, and Britton provides that by craftily drawing a foul from Matip 30 yards from the Liverpool goal.
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42 min Another corner for Liverpool, who have stirred menacingly in the last 10 minutes. Henderson’s outswinger reaches Lovren, who miscontrols it perfectly for Firmino. He shoots on the turn from six yards but Fer takes the sting out of the shot and it dribbles through to Fabianski.
40 min After a classy through pass from Coutinho, Amat makes a wonderful tackle to block Mane’s first-time shot.
39 min Sturridge is booked for diving in the Swansea area. He was challenged by Routledge, who put hands on him but not very firmly. Jurgen Klopp has his hands over his mouth in surprise, but I think that was probably the right decision.
38 min Cork is booked for a lunge at Clyne. This is Liverpool’s best spell of pressure.
35 min The overlapping Clyne wins a corner for Liverpool. It’s taken by Henderson and reaches Lovren, whose stabbed volley on the stretch is blocked by a defender on the six-yard line.
32 min Liverpool have been a bit better since Coutinho moved into midfield but their play is still relatively ponderous.
29 min Mane does brilliantly to wriggle away from two defenders inside the box and then goes over after a bit of a shove from van der Hoorn. Michael Oliver doesn’t give a penalty, and you can understand why as the contact was relatively light, but it was risky defending from van der Hoorn.
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28 min In other news, you should watch this.
26 min From the resulting free-kick, curled in magnificently from a narrow position on the right by Sigurdsson, Borja plants a great headed chance wide of the post. He was actually offside, though the flag didn’t go up, and in that sense Liverpool are lucky not to be 3-0 down here.
25 min Liverpool are not playing well at all. Swansea are beating them at their own gegenpress. Cork is tripped by Henderson, who is booked.
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23 min Lallana has a groin injury apparently, and Daniel Sturridge comes on to replace him. Coutinho goes into midfield, Firmino to the left and Sturridge up front. I love the smell of tactics in the morning.
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21 min Sigurdsson floats a high, dainty ball over the top of the Liverpool defence to find Cork, who slides forward and helps the ball towards goal as it drops over his shoulder inside the box. He can’t get any pace on it, however, and it’s a comfortable save from Karius.
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20 min Lallana is struggling after a tackle from Britton. It looked innocuous but I don’t think he’ll be able to continue.
16 min “I don’t think Fer was offside either,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “Besides, any team that leaves two men unmarked at its far post deserves to be scored on, just on moral and ethical grounds.”
I like this idea of adding a moral dimension to officiating. Like in cricket, where batsmen who pad up are more likely to be given out LBW as punishment for bad batsmanship.
14 min Liverpool have been a bit sloppy and sluggish. Firmino is robbed 30 yards from his own goal by Fer, who smashes a shot over the bar.
10 min The more you see the replays, the more it looks like the touch came from Lovren, so the goal was fine. Fer was not offside from the original header by Borja.
9 min “The game isn’t at Anfield,” says Chris Rendle, “but it’s always nice to bust out the video of the Swansea supporter scoring at Anfield.”
It was a simple goal for Swansea. Sigurdssn’s swung a left-wing corner beyond the far post to Borja, who strained his neck muscles like Bruce Banner to head it down into the six-yard box. Van der Hoorn stretched to stab it past Karius, and although it was going in anyway, Leroy Fer did a Craig Johnston and whacked it in from 0.5 yards. I thought Fer looked fractionally offside but there is a suggestion the touch came from Lovren rather than van der Hoorn.
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GOAL! Swansea 1-0 Liverpool (Fer 8)
Klopp out!
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5 min The first chance falls to Swansea. Routledge on the right curls a lovely cross over the head of Matip to find the unmarked Borja, who heads over from six yards. He should have scored.
4 min “Extraordinary clip of Dai Davies sticking the boot in on Terry Mac,” says Gary Naylor. “In front of the Kop, what could have prompted the ex-Everton man to such aggression?”
Graeme Souness’s attempt to mediate is also a joy.
3 min Liverpool have started with lots of possession, if not yet progression.
2 min “Dear Rob and Hubert,” says Paul Ewart, “when will hipsters stop being a thing?” At last, someone on my wavelength. I got a machete for my birthday and I reckon we can complete Operation Hipstercide by 2032. Wait, hang on. “Good test for the Reds this: are we Jurgen’s new, vibrant, confident Reds as I suspect, or do we still have our demons......”
1 min Peep peep! Liverpool, in red, kick off from left to right. Swansea are all white on the afternoon.
Another email! “Good afternoon Rob,” says Dean Kinsella. “I can’t believe that Guidolin is already under pressure for his job after just a handful of games. The Swans have had some tough fixtures and starting to play well after a slow start. This ‘in out in out shake it all about’ way of running football clubs is ludicrous.”
Yep. Like too much of modern football, it’s beneath contempt. Ron Atkinson made a great point in his new autobiography (which is superb, by the way), that if Arsene Wenger was a businessman, he’d win awards every year. There’s a broader point that business standards should apply to certain aspects of football, and sacking managers at the first sign of trouble is appallingly bad practice.
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Thirty-five years ago this weekend, newly promoted Swansea drew 2-2 at Anfield. The goalkeeper Dai Davies didn’t take Terry McDermott’s equaliser too well.
An email! “Hello Rob,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “Today will be the perfect test for Liverpool as this is just the sort of match that has binned our previous false dawns. Swansea is at home, its manager desperate, and they have the style and the players that can break the hipsters’ beloved gegenpresse. A title is one via two mini-leagues: take 2/3 of the points available from the other 5 or 6 contenders and pretenders; and be a brutal flat track bully to the other dozen teams. Burnley was a stumble. Now, was it motivation or the hint of things to come? Today we get our first indication.”
That last point is a particularly good one. There was one season, 2008/09 I think, when Manchester United took 70 out of 72 points against the bottom 12. The champions are often the team that deals best with the mundane.
Team news
Swansea (4-3-3) Fabianski; Rangel, van der Hoorn, Amat, Naughton; Fer, Cork, Britton; Routledge, Borja, Sigurdsson.
Substitutes: Nordfeldt, Mawson, Taylor, Fulton, Ki, Barrow, McBurnie.
Liverpool (4-3-3) Karius; Clyne, Lovren, Matip, Milner; Lallana, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Mane, Firmino, Coutinho.
Substitutes: Mignolet, Sturridge, Klavan, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Origi.
Preamble
Liverpool are fifth in the table. What’s the rumpus? The rumpus is that they’ve already won at Chelsea and Arsenal, outplayed Spurs at White Hart Lane and scored 16 goals in six games. It’s hard to know whether they are serious title contenders, because we can’t be sure what impact their flawed defence will have over a whole season, but we can say without fear of contradiction from tryhard blowhards on the internet that they have an attack capable of winning the title.
They also have the huge advantage of not being in Europe – just as in 2013-14, when they should have won their first title since 1989-90 - and a manager who, even in this season of the Premier League supersupersupermanager, is rapidly becoming the neutral’s favourite.
In some ways, talk of them winning the title is unnecessary. It’s October. Relax everyone, can we? This Liverpool side are a reminder that football can and should be fun. Swansea is not an easy place to go – they drew against Chelsea and were excellent against Manchester City last week - but you would fancy Liverpool to have more fun today.
Kick off is at 12.30pm.
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Hello. Rob will be along shortly. Here’s Alan Smith’s preview of the lunchtime kick-off:
Swansea performed well in defeat to Manchester City last weekend but Francesco Guidolin is still living on borrowed time. The Italian could badly do with a result against Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who have at times been exhilarating in attack. Guidolin says he could “maybe” lose his job with another loss but “if we win, for the international break you don’t speak any more about my position”. No pressure, then.
