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Regardless of the news dominating the football world over the last 48 hours, the games continue on. Liverpool traveled to Elland Road to take on Leeds United on Monday night to continue their fight for a top four spot. How much a top four spot even matters anymore remains to be seen, and maybe that uncertainty contributed to Liverpool conceding a goal in the 87th minute that cost them all three points.
Despite a strong first half that was capped by a goal by Sadio Mane, the Reds could only go back to Merseyside with a single point after allowing in a set piece goal at the death.
James Milner attributed the drop off in performance to player fatigue.
“First half was very good, second half we looked very tired,” Milner said. “When you’re in that situation you need to push up and you need to keep the ball better than we did, so that was disappointing. Probably the Madrid game took a lot out of us as well… first half was good but to beat a team like Leeds you’re going to have to put in a good 95 minutes and we didn’t do that.”
While Liverpool did play in the Champions League last Wednesday, they had the benefit of playing the Monday night game and getting an extra few days of rest. However, if Milner is talking about psychological fatigue? Then same, my man.
“We had chances. Again, it’s the same sort of thing, not taking those chances,” he continued.
“A small positive again is that we’re creating those but it’s disappointing, especially when you’ve led for so long. Ali made some great saves but they had chances so maybe a draw is a fair result in the end.”
This wet fart of a game was the perfect cap to the last 24 hours that preceded it.