The Reds made light work of the struggling West Ham at Anfield, on Saturday. A clinical display made sure Liverpool continued their winning streak in the hunt for Champions League football next season.
It wasn’t all positives as West Ham did manage to score two fairly simple goals that put a slight damper on what was a thoroughly ruthless performance from Slot’s men.Â
Momentum
Big wins can energize dressing rooms, having such a comfortable win can help the team gain confidence.
We all love last minute winners and grinding out wins in tough games but for both players and fans it can be mentally draining and can affect how the team performs in such a manic schedule. Saturday’s performance is just what LFC needed, showing their attacking prowess and avoiding any real scares.
The hunger to keep attacking is the Liverpool identity and cannot be understated in a time like this for the team, these players and staff have come under some fire this season for lots of different things, but this win can help silence any doubters and continue their push for elite continental football next season, especially after Chelsea’s loss at Arsenal on Sunday.
Momentum is such a strong force in this sport and can help a team find their way through tricky periods, having said that, this momentum cannot become complacency.
Being complacent isn’t necessarily being lazy, it can be less urgency or hunger in games because of such strong form, it can make players believe in false inevitability.
Attacking Strength
It wasn’t a one man show for the Reds, with four goals coming from different scorers and the final one coming with the help of West Ham’s Axel Disasi.
A sign of a good team is their ability to score from anywhere on the pitch, centre-back, midfielder, winger and striker were all on the score sheet showing off this team’s unpredictability.
One thing that could be seen as predictable is LFC’s newfound expertise at corners. Since January no other team has scored more goals from corners than the Reds. Another dimension to their attacking capacity.Â
Scoring goals never gets old, and there is no way that five-goals in a win can ever make a team complacent in any way, but one worry from the game was the fact that West Ham had two separate faint glimmers of hope.
Defensive Warnings
Conceding two suggests that there were concentration dips from the team and more specifically the defence. The game management needs tightening when winning in such a comfortable manner.
At 3-0 and 4-1 the game should have been completely closed and ready for everyone to leave the game happy, but conceding at those points, made it so LFC could not see the game out easily and did have to press on the accelerator to make sure of no catastrophes.
Learning when to slow down the tempo and kill the games momentum will matter for this team as we get into the business end of the season.
It was a great win for LFC, a much-needed goal fest for the Reds, carrying this form on will be vital to their potential Champions League run and their Premier League push for Europe’s premier continental competition.Â