Watford 0, Liverpool 3: First Thoughts

A game that started out slowly ends with Liverpool putting three past Watford to keep their unbeaten streak alive.

Watford 0 - 3 Liverpool

Watford: 0
Liverpool: Salah 67’, Alexander-Arnold 75’, Firmino 89’

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• PRE-MATCH: Klopp fields a very attacking starting XI, with Shaqiri joining the front three. Meanwhile, Joe Gomez misses this match after a minor injury in training.
• Liverpool are living dangerously in the first ten minutes, and Watford have nearly capitalized twice. Not the best welcome back to league football from the lads.
• Shaqiri looks to cross it into Salah, but the ball doesn’t quite reach him.
• Liverpool have looked marginally better as the game has worn on, but they still appear really susceptible to Watford’s counterattack.
• You’d think that all of this possession would have lead to some kind of...shot on goal or something.
• Oh hey, there’s one. That’s nice. It’s followed up by Watford driving down the pitch on a break, requiring Alisson to make a strong save.
• Shaqiri again provides a great cross, this time to Mané, who manages to get a shot on target that’s barely parlayed away by Ben Foster. It took until the end of the half, but Liverpool appear to have woken up.
• HALFTIME: Pour some coffee down their throats and get them ready to play football in the second half.
• I’m counting down the minutes until this game is over and I can take a shower. So it’s going that well.
• Robertson VERY lucky not to give away a penalty on Will Hughes in the 55th minute, and it’s still goalless at Vicarage Road.
• Henderson brings down Success (is there a metaphor there somewhere?) and gets the first yellow card of the game.
• GOALLLLLL! Salah 67’ - Finally Salah opens the scoring after several earlier attempts. It’s Robertson to Firmino to Mané to Salah, who makes no mistake of it this time and slots it home past Ben Foster before revealing a new goal celebration.
• GOALLLLL!!!! Alexander-Arnold 75’ - Trent makes good on a Liverpool freekick with a gorgeous, gorgeous strike into the top corner, well past Foster. *finger kiss*
• Well, this is more like it.
• As soon as I say it, Jordan Henderson does something supremely dumb and gets his second booking, reducing Liverpool to 10 men. Henderson will now miss the Merseyside derby.
• Fabinho comes on for Salah to try and solidify the defense as the Reds attempt to hold onto their lead for the next 10 minutes or so.
• GOAAAAALLLLL! Firmino 89’ - Damn, son! Liverpool sneak another goal on the counterattack despite being down a man, thanks to Andy Robertson’s stellar delivery and Bobby’s insane, beautiful head.
• FINAL: That game went from zero to sixty very quickly, and aside from Hendo’s mistake and a shaky start, Liverpool went nearly goal-for-goal with Manchester City to keep their second place spot.

We’ll be back shortly to take an in-depth look at everything that happened in today’s game with the full recap. Until then, let us know your take on the ups and downs of the match in the comments, and if you haven’t already, join the community on the Liverpool Offside, where we’ll have full coverage and lively in-game discussion for every match this season.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com