Liverpool managed to beat an excellent Wolves side 2-1 in a performance that hit every boring cliche in the book, yet it was still a beautiful sight.
‘It’s the mark of a top side’, ‘a real game of two halfs’, ‘a smash and grab’. We’ve heard them all before, and this Jurgen Klopp side seem to manage to tick a few off the cliche bingo every week. And nobody is bored of it.
Because the truth of it was that Liverpool weren’t that good, especially not in the second half. Adama Traore made Andy Robertson look like he’d never played football before and terrorized the left flank until he eventually set up Raul Jimenez for the equalizer.
For large parts of the second 45 Wolves controlled play, and at one point Liverpool had every man in their own half. It was like Klopp was shouting tactical instructions into the mirror and seeing them reflected back onto him.
But when you’ve only dropped two points all season there are certain beliefs and movements and ways of planning that are programmed into this team’s head and as they weathered the storm you could see belief creeping back in.
Liverpool are so used to winning that it almost comes automatically to them and it was almost a shock to see an opposition breach the defences of Alisson, Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez.
It might be a cliche but it’s there for a reason: champions do play badly and end up getting the win. The Reds managed to tick a fair few off on Thursday night but we’re going to win the league so nobody cares.
In fact, they could continue to pick up cliched point after cliched point and as long as that propels us to the title you won’t hear any complaints from anyone.