Newcastle 2 Liverpool 0
This reminder that Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool are mere mortals after all arrived at the perfect moment for Steve McClaren. As Merseyside reflected on an afternoon which made all the excited talk of an Anfield title challenge seem a little silly, Newcastle United’s manager quite possibly saved his job.
Had McClaren’s side suffered yet another stumble the former England coach could well have been sacked. Instead he not only choreographed a most unexpected win but, capitalising on a truly awful day at the office for Liverpool, saw his side keep a rare clean sheet.
Klopp possessed sufficient class to recognise that this was potentially a watershed moment for an old Bundesliga adversary. Once Georginio Wijnaldum had put the result beyond doubt the German stepped over to the home technical area and embraced McClaren with real warmth before the pair shared a joke.
Ninety minutes earlier, McClaren would not have dared to envisage it ending this well. Jordon Ibe’s pace on Liverpool’s right flank posed McClaren’s team – and Paul Dummett in particular – persistent problems and after one such advance earned the visitors a corner from which Christian Benteke should probably have scored. With that dead ball headed down by Dejan Lovren and Rob Elliot wrong-footed the centre-forward seemed set to score but, instead, Benteke lifted the ball over the bar from closer range and Newcastle were reprieved.
Bar one longer range shot, curled just over the woodwork by Ibe, now trying his luck on the left, that represented the sum of Liverpool’s first-half threat. Perhaps it was a little bit of complacency, a sense that their mere presence on the pitch would be sufficient to beat Newcastle but collectively they rarely matched Klopp’s technical area dynamism.
In mitigation, the injury that sidelined Philippe Coutinho and the physical fragility that ensured Daniel Sturridge began on the bench hardly helped the Merseyside cause on a day when their manager experimented with a flexible version of 4-4-2.
Granted this configuration was sufficiently fluid to frequently morph into a more familiar 4-3-3 but generally it seemed designed to deploy Ibe and James Milner as orthodox wingers with a brief to place the defensively vulnerable Dummett and Daryl Janmaat under pressure.
This might have been all right in theory but, not for the first time, Milner proved why he is better deployed as a central midfielder. Meanwhile, without Coutinho and/or Sturridge, Benteke simply looks a little lost – and a lesser player.
Liverpool had begun playing too many long balls in Benteke’s direction for their own good but McClaren had no reason to relax. Aware a side in sharper mode than Liverpool might well have punished some needless concessions of possession in central midfield, the Gallowgate End became a little restless.
The first signs of dissent were becoming audible when the previously anonymous Papiss Cissé controlled a cross with his thigh and sent a shot whizzing wide. If Cissé had not fouled Nathaniel Clyne in the buildup it might have gone down as a reasonable effort.
Another moment similarly emblematic of Newcastle’s attacking threat came when the recalled Siem de Jong missed a volley and controlled the bouncing ball with a hand before extending a shin and sending it into the touch. Chancel Mbemba did rather better when heading narrowly over following the fallout from a Janmaat corner but the opening half ended unadorned by a single shot on target.
If the crowd were variously disappointed and underwhelmed the managers will have been subject to somewhat stronger emotions. While the repeated cameos featuring McClaren in head-in-hands pose depicted a man fighting for a job he had long coveted, Klopp’s body language shifted, almost imperceptibly, from jovially laid-back to scratchy and irritable. Under normal circumstances, a point on Tyneside would be acceptable but Liverpool are supposed to mounting an extraordinary title challenge and draws against such mediocre opposition simply will not do.
No one looked surprised when, just after the hour mark, Klopp offered confirmation that the Benteke/Robert Firmino attacking axis had not worked by replacing that pair with Sturridge and Adam Lallana.
The moment Firmino pulled out of a challenge, prompting Klopp to beckon him to the sidelines for admonishment, epitomised Liverpool’s strangely tentative mood.
Finally cottoning onto to the reality that the visiting gegenpressing was malfunctioning, Newcastle rallied a little. Cissé and Moussa Sissoko created an opening which invited Wijnaldum to chip Simon Mignolet but instead the £14m Dutchman shot wide.
No matter; when Sissoko whipped in a cross, Wijnaldum was once again on hand to extend a boot. McClaren will not care that his connection was not the best and the resultant shot going well wide because the ball struck Martin Skrtel on the thigh and deflected beyond Mignolet.
Bizarrely Newcastle were ahead without really having had an effort on target. Unconcerned they set about fathoming out how to react to opponents who, since the arrival of Sturridge and Lallana, had been forcing them ever deeper.
Although a gorgeous, defence bisecting pass from Lallana sent Sturridge racing clear his ultimate shot was wayward. Elliot can rarely have experienced such quiet, undemanding afternoons in goal. And when he was beaten, by a fine Alberto Moreno looping volley, he was erroneously rescued by an offside flag.
As if keeping a clean sheet was not enough he was also able to enjoy watching Sissoko elude Moreno before launching an imperious stoppage time counterattack which concluded with Wijnaldum quite brilliantly lifting the ball over Mignolet’s head.
