Everything was set up for a comfortable Liverpool win last night. Leicester are in a performance (and result) crisis since, well, the start of the season. They have problems with Covid and injuries and didn’t have enough time to prepare for this match. Liverpool, however, had it all: good form, almost full squad, all-stars were ready to play and they had four more days to prepare. And yet…Wounded Foxes are not to mess with – Liverpool suffer defeat with Salah missing a penaltyBrendan Rodgers had to field a team that was not near the best 11 and still won the match, and what’s even better for the Foxes, they did it with a clean sheet. Mohamed Salah was denied from the penalty spot for the first time in four years and this defeat leaves Reds in second place, equaled with Chelsea and six points away from Manchester City.“We were just not good enough. It was well deserved for Leicester, a very strange game. We played a really bad game. We started OK, then completely lost our rhythm and weren’t calm enough to get it back. That’s our fault. The circumstances too – Leicester played two days ago, they deserve it, absolutely. We should have defended better. There were so many performances before the normal level, there’s no explanation. It’s a big gap to City. It was not our plan to give them the chance to run away. If we play like tonight, we don’t have to think about catching them but if we play as we normally do, we can win games. My main concern is to find an explanation for tonight, not the gap to City” said Klopp after the match.2 – Mohamed Salah has missed only his second ever penalty in the Premier League, and first since October 2017 vs Huddersfield – he had scored each of his previous 15 attempts from the spot before tonight. Human. #LEILIV pic.twitter.com/1M87S95qFP— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 28, 2021 After the game, Reds fans took social media to spread the messages of defeatism. The vast majority think that the title race is over and that City will win the title again.“What can we say? We’re in December. The season is so, so long. Anything can happen. You have seen it with Covid and injuries – lots of things can change. There’s no point looking at Manchester City or Chelsea or the other teams around us. We should look at our performance today and improve. We all wanted to do better. That’s a fact. We weren’t good enough and they deserved the win’” said Virgil van Dijk.(16.0) BRENTFORD (7.75) MANCHESTER CITY (1.20)Contrary to Reds, Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers was thrilled, to say at least after a surprise victory.“It’s an absolutely heroic performance, an amazing result against one of the best teams in the world. It’s one of the biggest wins of the season, no doubt. There’s probably not a team more physical in the league than Liverpool so to come through with a clean sheet and in the way we played showed our resilience. I am lost for words really” said former Liverpool boss.
