Liverpool 3- 0 Nottingham Forest

Liverpool: Diogo Jota 31’, Darwin Nunez 35’, Mo Salah 77’
Nottingham Forest:

Pre-Match

It has to be said that the pre-match mood is a bit heavy for two reasons. First, news came out overnight that Luiz Diaz’s parents had been kidnapped in Colombia. It’s a horrifying situation and all the support & love to Diaz and his family right now. Second, the Club and the FA have banned ‘nationalistic’ flags and banners in the wake of the ongoing situation in Gaza. This has led to ham-fisted enforcement in the ground.

The vibes being really weird off the pitch hopefully won’t affect the team on the pitch. Jurgen Klopp has picked as strong of a side as he could and even the bench looks good despite a fair few absences.

First Half

The first half started just about as you’d expect for a game between these two sides. Liverpool were dominate on the ball and Forest were sitting very deep, only looking for counter attacks to move forward. The patience from the Reds paid off in the 31st minute as Liverpool found the cracks in Nottingham Forest’s defense via a lovely goal from Diogo Jota. After scoring his goal, Jota ran over to the bench and lifted up a Diaz jersey to honor his teammate. Four minutes later the Reds were able to double their lead through a Darwin Nunez goal that involved a beautiful build up with Mo Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai.

That was as dominate of a half as Liverpool has played all season. Lovely, lovely stuff.

Second Half

The second half was essentially a training session in attacking patterns for Liverpool. The pace and intensity of the game really, really slowed down and the Reds were at a lovely stroll. Liverpool were seemingly happy to keep it at 2-0 but Forest did something absolutely insane. For some reason their goalkeeper Matt Turner was near the halfway line during a throw in. Szoboszlai was able to make a big switch to Salah and the Egyptian was clear through on goal to make it 3-0.

As if things weren’t calm enough, the Tricky Trees tried to make something of their visit to Anfield once it went 3-0, but nothing came of it. Cody Gakpo put the goal in the back of the net deep into stoppage time, but VAR ruled it offside.

Final Thoughts

It has to be said that Nottingham Forest were very poor today, but that doesn’t take away from how well Liverpool played. It feels like things might be clicking for this set of players and manager. Everything they tried today came off for them. Everything is there for them this season if they keep being patience like they were today.