Watford beat Liverpool 3:0 to end their unbeaten run
The Reds’ 44-game run without defeat is over after a sobering night for Jurgen Klopp’s side at Vicarage Road. Well, it had to happen sooner or later. But who would have thought it would do so in quite such spectacular fashion? After 422 days and 44 matches, Liverpool has lost a game of Premier League football. Stop…
But who would have thought it would do so in quite such spectacular fashion? After 422 days and 44 matches, Liverpool has lost a game of Premier League football. Stop the press, and do not adjust your television sets.
They’ll win the title, of course, but there will be no unbeaten league campaign for Jurgen Klopp’s side after they were thrashed 3-0 by relegation-threatened Watford on Saturday evening.
The Reds had arrived at Vicarage Road looking to set a new top-flight record, seeking their 19th straight victory – one which would move them to within nine points of that elusive 19th league crown.
Instead, they saw their cloak of invincibility removed. Not just removed but flung into the Hertfordshire sky, trampled into the mud for the whole world to see.
Ismaila Sarr, with two goals in six second-half minutes, took the game away from Klopp’s side before Troy Deeney, Watford’s captain and talisman, added a third. Huge for Nigel Pearson’s side in their battle to avoid the drop. They move out of the bottom three on goal difference.
The names were the same, but the performances were unrecognizable. They started poorly, carried on dubiously and then caved in completely in the second half. Watford deserved their three points and their three goals. The margin of victory, indeed, may have been greater.
Nobody in red emerged with credit. Dejan Lovren, making his first league start since December, had a nightmare, but he was far from alone. Virgil van Dijk was rattled, Fabinho exposed. Mo Salah and Sadio Mane did nothing, Roberto Firmino did less. Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will be crowned Young Player of the Year and has legitimate claims for the main award, looked bewildered throughout. The England full-back gifted Watford their third goal converted expertly by Deeney.
Liverpool failed to score for the first time in 37 league games. They had one shot of note in the first half, and only one on target across the 90 minutes. They were abject.
Klopp lost 3-0 on his first visit to Vicarage Road, but this performance was worse. And there was no Adam Bogdan or Martin Skrtel or Christian Benteke or Mamadou Sakho to blame for this one. A bad day at the office, and then some.
There will be some who will say they saw it coming, that Liverpool’s sharpness has been lacking since the Premier League’s mid-season break. They’d struggled against Norwich, lost away at Atletico Madrid and had to fight their way past West Ham.
