Liverpool 0 Leeds United 0
What a boring game. If you were looking for something to watch on New Year’s Eve I hope you didn’t tune into this game like I decided to do, for me the narrative going into this game surrounded Florian Wirtz who scored his first Liverpool goal on Saturday against Wolves in a 2-1 win for Liverpool, will that game be the catapult for Wirtzs’ Liverpool career to finally kick on and start putting his stamp down on matches like many expected. Unfortunately for Liverpool Wirtz had a very quiet game against Leeds and was withdrawn in the 66th minute for Alexis Mac Allister, yet again Wirtz failed to impress for Liverpool and whilst I have no doubt about his quality as a player, I have been surprised as to how he’s struggled to adapt to the Premier League so far. It wasn’t only Wirtz who struggled for Liverpool in this game as everyone going forward lacked the creativity needed to break down a stubborn Leeds who rested almost half their team.
Stubborn defence gains Leeds a point. When the team news came out an hour before kick-off it looked like as if Daniel Farke was almost disregarding this game in that he rested almost half of his team but it didn’t really impact Leeds as I thought it might beforehand. Benching an in-form Dominic Calvert-Lewin who’s scoring for fun at the minute along with some key defenders was a brave decision that payed off in the end for Leeds who defended brilliantly for the entire 90 minutes and could have won it in the end if Calvert-Lewin had timed his run a second earlier. Daniel Farke has turned Leeds into a resolute, hard to beat side who will give anyone a game at the moment and it looks like Leeds will stay up this season if they can continue this run of form they’re on at the minute.
Liverpool’s poor performances continue. Whilst Liverpool have been on this winning run recently their performances have still left a lot to be desired and it caught up on them in this game, the lack of creativity in the final third after Wirtz went off was frightening and Liverpool simply couldn’t create for Ekitike up front all night. I think keeping Wirtz on the left is hampering him massively in that he goes through large periods of games not touching the ball when he’s by far their most creative player they have available, Szoboszlai is a pressing machine but he can’t offer the Liverpool attack the same as Wirtz can when he’s at his best. Arne Slot has a lot of thinking to do when it comes to trying to get this Liverpool side to start actually putting together some good performances to secure their spot in the top 4 for this season.
Leeds look like staying up. Probably 90% of people before this season started including me had Leeds to go down and looked like it was going that way up until about a month and a half ago when Leeds started this undefeated streak they’re on at the minute, so much so that there were briefs put out that the Leeds board were going to sack Daniel Farke if he didn’t get a positive result against Chelsea about a month ago which kicked off their run of good form. They now sit 7 points clear of the relegation zone and are looking to continue this form as play Manchester United at Elland Road on Sunday in a game that they’ll be well up for considering United’s current form and predicament they’re in.
The top 4/5 race is anyone’s this year. 4 points separates 13th and 5th at the minute and all of a sudden if you put 2 wins together you are right amongst it when it comes to trying to get into the Champions League this year, with Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool dropping points this week along with Aston Villa losing the top 4/5 race is one which will probably go down to the last day of the season with how inconsistent every team in the league is this season. Liverpool could be one of 5 or 6 teams that are vying to get into the Champions League next season with one loss plummeting you down the table if results don’t go your way, no doubt it will be exciting for neutrals to see who gets in there this year.