Liverpool blew Bournemouth away with an excellent and enterprising attacking display, fine goals from Philippe Coutinho, Dejan Lovren, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino fully reflecting the balance of play
Updated
Sun 17 Dec 2017 13.23 EST
First published on Sun 17 Dec 2017 10.30 ESTLive feed
Key events
Right then, that’s about us - thanks for your company and comments. Bye!
Full-time: Bournemouth 0-4 Liverpool
That was an excellent performance from Liverpool, far too confident and enterprising for Bournemouth. Had Jermain Defoe not missed a one on one at 0-2 you never know, but chances are it wouldn’t have materially affected the result.
So, Liverpool go fourth, while Bournemouth, who have dropped a place this weekend, stay 16th.
90+3 min Solanke conjures his way past a couple of challenges in the box but misses the ball when he shoots, but they recycle possession and he has another shy; Begovic pushes it out and the rebound, too high for Lallana, is headed over the top.
90 min There’ll be three added minutes.
90 min On the one hand Bournemouth haven’t played anywhere near as well as they did at Old Trafford on Wednesday; on the other hand, Liverpool have’t let them.
89 min “Kostas Manolas”, suggests Paul Gallagher. I’ve not seen enough of him, but yeah, he’d get into this Liverpool side.
86 min Nice feet from Lallana, picking his way away from a couple of legs to poke Ings in; he’s got a proper sight of goal, albeit in a crowded box, and sets himself well then drives past the near post.
87 min Well hello! Everyone’s favourite Countdown selection, Danny Ings, arrives - he replaces Coutinho.
85 min “Thumpigs,” says Matt Loten. “My theory is that it’s a combination of the growing wealth gap, a collective shift in coaching focus away from traditional defending and towards fluid attacking movements, and the rules of the game no longer allowing ‘lesser’ teams to kick the better players off the pitch when things aren’t going their way. An honourable mention, too, for the state of football pitches these days - it can’t be underestimated what a difference that has made to teams looking to play attractive football.”
Sure, though those last two bits have been the case for time, and kickings like this are relatively new. Perhaps teams with better players than once chase the game at 0-2, instead of hoping to limit the scope of their defeat.
83 min Coutinho scurries through midfield and slides the ball out wide for Oxlade-Chamberlain, who’s enjoying himself - relatively and absolutely. He tries a shot, but slices across it, sending it spinning past the near post.
80 min “Well to start Klopp should move Gomez to centre-back,” reckons Mike MacKenzie. “Then if they can’t buy Van Dijk in January, Klopp should shop in Italy where they know how to develop great centre-backs”.
I dunno – Gomez might be a bit young to play in the middle and improve things – in football history, I can’t think of many teenagers who’ve done it. And I’m struggling to think of anyone in Serie A who Liverpool could get who’d improve things to the required level. But I may well be wrong.
79 min Unsurprisingly, things have quietened.
77 min
@DanielHarris Regarding where to get a new defence: only 54 minutes up the road and the route avoids tolls! pic.twitter.com/LH8axqTJc8
— Patrick Crumlish (@patrickcrumlish) December 17, 2017
76 min Solanke replaces Firmino.
75 min I’ve not got the stats to hand, but we seem to be seeing increasingly numbers of these kinds of games; the better sides absolutely tumping the not better sides. Which is strange in a way, as the not better sides have more money and better players than ever before; is the difference the strength in depth? Or just a different mentality?
74 min Liverpool break and COutinho crosses from the left, getting just too much on it for the sliding Firmino.
73 min Ibe takes possession down the left and screams down the outside of Lallana, who slides in, crumples him, and takes the yellow card; free-kick Bournemouth, close the by-line, which Stanislas whips in only for it to be headed straight out.
72 min “Did Coutinho’s dog just die or is he attempting to do a Lukaku impersonation?” asks JR in Illinois. “He didn’t seem all that happy about his goal and remained stone faced after that assist.”
I didn’t notice, but think it’s just diversity.
71 min The ridiculous Salah departs, to be replaced by Adam Lallana.
68 min So where do Liverpool find themselves a defence? Of course there is better available than what he has, but not many who leap out at one; consider, for example, Machester United, who in Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Rojo and Lindelof “boast” five decent players of similar standard, none of whom you’d trust not to make you look a charlie. Similarly, Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal have centre-backs who are alright and worse; better than what Liverpool have, but that’s not much of a standard.
GOAL! Bournemouth 0-4 Liverpool (Firmino 65)
This is another perfectly taken goal. Liverpool triangulate down the left and Coutinho manufactures himself an angle to whip in a cross towards Firmino, running the line near the front post; he dives to punish a header past Begovic.
65 min Elsewhere, Ryan Babbel has scored a hat-trick for Besiktas. He always looked like he should be a player; now he is.
63 min Ibe allows a pass to bounce under his studs. It is not at all funny, I promise.
62 min Klaan makes a Klavan out a clearance, trying to get wide with a pass and finding Ibe, who drives at Robertson, wins space for a shot with some clever sleight of foot. and sees his effort blocked behind; the corner comes to nothing.
61 min Defoe shifts the ball and cracks a typical snap-shot down Mignolet’s throat. Figuratively speaking.
60 min Lovely from Oxlade-Chamberlain, who wins the ball with a crunching tackle outside the Bournemouth box, the drives into it down its left-hand side, teasing Francis before drilling a shot that raps the near post. He’s played well today.
58 min So what level of player are we saying Mohamed Salah now is? Is he better than all of Hazard, Sane, Martial, Sterling and Sanchez, or just “in a good moment”?
56 min Bournemouth move the ball nicely across the park from right to left, and eventually Daniels darts into Stanislas, who flicks nicely into the path of Fraser, skating into the box, left hand side. But he snatches at the chance, slicing it wide of the near post, and Liverpool escape.
54 min “Bag of otters noses? Okay, I’m lost.,” says Professor Ian Orme.
I respectfully recommend a refresher course in Greats.
53 min Again Stanislas picks the ball up between the lines and again has passing lanes as the Liverpool back four parts. Burt he looks to go inside Lovren when he ought to have gone outside and as a consequence Ibe can’t get near it.
52 min “As long as the term Cherriestanbul (not Bournestantinople) doesn’t enter the lexicon today, I’ll be happy,” emails Peter Oh.
They’ll be dancing in the aisles of Sega World and whooshing down the slides of Splashdown if it does.
49 min Henderson pumps one high for Salah and Ake misjudges the flight; I’d not be at all surprised if he evacuated there and then. But he does just about enough to crowd him out thereafter and Begovic rushes out to complete his salvation.
47 min Chris Brock emails in Jermain Defoe’s Premier League scoring record, noting that it’s “Not bad for a guy who spent most of his career at West Ham, Portsmouth and Sunderland...”
Sure - but why did he play there? I was just saying that for someone who’s just a finisher, his finishing isn’t reliable enough or varied enough, – not that he’s rubbish. But because of his whacking it style, when it works it looks natural, assured and brilliant.
46 min We go again. Fraser is on for Pugh, presumably to give Daniels some support.
Half-time fun: Bournemouth as Jacob Rees-Mogg remembers it.
Half-time: Bournemouth 0-3 Liverpool
That was great. Liverpool started very quickly but didn’t score, Bournemouth improved, Liverpool scored twice, Bournemouth improved but didn’t score when they ought to have done, Liverpool scored again.
45 min There shall be two added minutes.
GOAL! Bournemouth 0-3 Liverpool (Salah 44)
This is a proper playground goal, this, and one that’s been attempted a few times already today. Salah gets the ball on the right, running into space behind Daniels, then jinking infield until he has an angle of which he likes the look – Daniels is watching – beats Ake, then flings his body into a low curler that hustles the ball past Begovic. I think Liverpool will probably win from here, and that Salah is a player.
44 min This is really fun game now, or would be were it not for the flagrant disregard for tactical imperatives.
43 min Henderson into Salah, who squares across the face of the box to Coutinho and keeps going, ready for the beautiful pass lofted over the top for his delectation. H e duly imparts the laces, expecting to score, but Begovic stands up and then dives to save well.
41 min Back to that Defoe miss, it was a fair effort and everyone misses sometimes. It’s just that for someone whose reputation is as a finisher, his finishing isn’t as good as it should be or is meant to be. Rather like Romelu Lukaku, he tends to just whack it.
40 min Oxlade-Chamberlain, who was good in the early stages before going quiet, drives a low cross-shot through a phalanx of legs and Begovic sees it late, doing well to tip it away.
39 min Oh! Bournemouth have got the measure now, and Stanislas breaks through midfield then slides a pass through for Defoe, in one on one! But the most natural finisher in the world who doesn’t do anything but finish so must be great at finishing smacks low past Mignolet and against the inside of the post! What a chance that was!
37 min A mistake from Klavan sees Bournemouth pouring through midfield and Pugh gets around the outside of Gomez, but again Liverpool muddle the ball away. Jurgen Klopp is going to write the saddest mettlar song of all-time if Virgil van Dijk ends up at Manchester City.
35 min Surman bends in a devilish one, then another when it’s half-cleared, and Liverpool do not look comfy defending them, but eventually get a free-kick on the edge of their box.
34 min Fine cross from Pugh down the left, and Lovren is under it ... he doesn’t deal, so Robertson heads behind.
33 min Liverpool have been here before, and we have a few scrappy minutes, which might encourage Bournemouth that the game isn’t gone. They’ll need three to get a draw, I’d say.
31 min We learn that Wilson is out with injury – apologies, that is not noted below – and Stanislas is now with us.
31 min King is hurt and departs – he’ll shortly be replaced by Stanislas.
28 min This deficit is no more than both sides deserve really; it’s almost as if we have a matrix which measures, objectively and precisely, objective and precise deservation in football. But what I mean to say is that Bournemouth were lax at kick-off, Liverpool were not, and even though the home side improved before going behind, the away one had their tails up.
GOAL! Bournemouth 0-2 Liverpool (Lovren 25)
Someone gets a boot on the corner at the near post and appears to have diverted the ball over the line at the far. But Firmino is having no such thing, extending a leg to divert it back across goal as Daniels hopes and assumes – hossumes – that his work is done. It is not, and Lovren dives low to head in Liverpool’s second.
