Key events
15 mins: Close! Bradley’s shot from just outside the area flies just wide, presumably deflecting off someone along the way as Liverpool win a corner. They play it short, pass it across the box, and eventually Curtis Jones sends in a 30-yard left-foot shot, not a bad effort with the swinger, straight at Areola.
13 mins: Paqueta slips and clatters into the referee, knocking him over like a skittle. Fortunately for him Andrew Madley chooses not to PaulAlcock the situation.
11 mins: Liverpool pass the ball around their defence for a while, waiting for West Ham to offer them a route into midfield. They refrain from doing so, and eventually a long pass towards Salah is intercepted.
8 mins: The ball is played down the Liverpool right this time, but Salah can’t outpace Max Kilman, who prods it out for a corner, which is cleared.
7 mins: Now Luis Diaz curls in a cross but it’s too low, and Mac Allister has little to no hope of improvising a dangerous header from it. Everything happening through Liverpool’s No7.
6 mins: A bright first few minutes for the home side. Luis Diaz runs down the left again, and this time he cuts inside Wan-Bissaka and sends in a shot, which Areola saves.
4 mins: Good work from Todibo to hold up Luis Diaz on the Liverpool left, and then to toe-poke the ball away from Jota as it ran towards him in the area.
3 mins: The home fans sing Mo Salah’s name. He’s done little of interest so far, but he’s signed a new contract and everyone’s happy about it.
1 min: Peeeeeep! After an immaculately observed silence we finally get under way, West Ham doing the honours.
Before the game, a minute’s silence in memory of the 97 victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, which happened 36 years ago on Tuesday.
Out come the players! West Ham eschewing the long-sleeved anthemwear that so many teams, including Liverpool, puzzlingly consider de rigeur.
A reader, whose name I can’t discern from their email address so must remain anonymous, reckons they’ve worked out why Liverpool’s players were all out in the corridor: “Robertson let one go in the dressing room; he’s famous for it, and it’s one aspect of his game that hasn’t slipped this year.”
Graham Potter has a chat about what kind of impact he’s had on West Ham:
We’ve stabilised the team. Defensively we were conceding a lost so we’ve made improvements there. We’ve been competitive in all the games, I would say. A couple of bad halves but generally, without being fantastic, we’ve been in games. We need to be better today, because we’re playing against the best team.
In my naivety I really don’t understand how the home team, who have a lovely, private dressing-room to chill out in right there, ends up hanging around in a semi-glorified corridor before they go out and warm up. Nice photo, though.
The teams!
Team news is in, and here are the names in the frame this afternoon:
Liverpool: Alisson, Bradley, Konate, van Dijk, Tsimikas, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Salah, Jones, Diaz, Jota. Subs: Jaros, Kelleher, Endo, Szoboszlai, Chiesa, Gakpo, Elliott,
Robertson, Quansah.
West Ham: Areola, Todibo, Mavropanos, Kilman, Wan-Bissaka, Soler, Ward-Prowse, Scarles, Kudus, Lucas Paqueta, Bowen. Subs: Fabianski, Coufal, Fullkrug, Luis Guilherme, Alvarez, Rodriguez, Soucek, Emerson Palmieri, Ferguson.
Referee: Andrew Madley.
Hello world!
Three more wins. That is, at most, what Liverpool need to win the league. There are no other games, no cups, no European trips, no internationals, no distractions and no congestion – nine of their last 10 games in all competitions are being played on Sundays, including all of the remaining seven. West Ham’s away record is (very, very marginally) better than their home record (1.125 points per game at home, 1.133 away) but neither is very good and they haven’t been able to sustain an average of more than a point a game for a while: they’ve got two points in their last four, eight in their last eight, 12 in their last 12. In short, they look very unlikely to do anything to derail Liverpool’s title bid. In fact, they haven’t looked as unlikely to win a game since they traipsed miserably to Arsenal in February having won one point in their last four games. Inevitably, football being football, they won.
Here’s Andy Hunter’s mini preview:
It is not a question of who will win the Premier League title but how it will be won: at a canter or with Liverpool testing the anxiety levels of their supporters once again? The answer should become clearer after West Ham’s visit. A catalogue of individual errors resulted in the end of Liverpool’s 26-game unbeaten league run at Fulham last weekend and left Arne Slot’s team still needing 11 points to secure the club’s 20th league championship, although the total will be fewer should Arsenal drop any more points. West Ham, Leicester and Tottenham, Liverpool’s next three opponents, present the more straightforward route to victory than trying to get over the line against Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton and Crystal Palace in the final four games of the season. Anfield could be an apprehensive place on Sunday and will be looking to the team’s experienced leaders to get the job almost done.
