In this season of madness, in this season of threes and fours and fives and six-threes the last thing that we expect is hard fought and nervy, edgy and anxious but what we got last night was hard fought and nervy, edgy and anxious. What we got was hard work. For both team and fans.
The evening had started in glory. A welcoming committee for the team coach upon arrival at Anfield. Flags, banners, singing, acclaim. A month since we last saw Brendan Rodgers’ band of madness deliverers on home turf. A month in which our travels had seen the ridiculous become commonplace, become expected.
A slice of glory at the usually tricky Southampton, the beautiful humiliation of Manchester United, the madness (there’s that word again but it’s genuinely the only one that describes this bizarre season) of Cardiff. All indicated that a struggling Sunderland would be nothing but cannon fodder, that a struggling Sunderland were simply invitees to our party, witnesses to another anointing on the road to glory.
A struggling Sunderland clearly had other plans.
Eight men behind the ball at all times. Three central defenders, two holding midfielders, full back and keeper. Their plan was clearly to offer up nothing and see what they could achieve with that.
Patience was the key. For the team that is, the crowd weren’t overly convinced with such a strategy. Probing and passing weren’t necessarily what the Kop - standing all night, affording the tie the status of European night, of Everton, of United, City, Chelsea - were expecting, anticipating or wanting.
There was an apparent lethargy in our icons where we had anticipated beauty, a caginess where we had anticipated bombardment. Shots came frequently, testing of the ‘keeper less so. A sumptuous Steven Gerrard free kick - unusually wrestled away from Suarez - was no more lead than was deserved at the break. Daniel Sturridge’s twentieth of the season shortly after the interval seemed to herald the expected blitz. For ten minutes we were magical, provoked by the conjuring tricks of the outstanding Phillippe Coutinho.
And then the team decided to stop giving the Brazilian the ball. And everything went backwards. Sunderland threatened for the first time. We allowed them to threaten. We dropped back. And back. And further back still.
The Sunderland goal - yet another poorly defended corner - had been on its way for ten minutes. The whole crowd could see it. The whole crowd could also see an equaliser on its way, could see two points dropped, could see the dream faltering. Too many years of seeing dreams falter suddenly made themselves felt and as the crowd grew nervy the players appeared to grow nervy and as the players appeared to grow nervy the crowd grew nervy and the last ten minutes became hell.
If John O’Shea could head a ball then the hell would have been far more hellish. His chance - the result of a free kick that Glenn Johnson had no need to give away - went astray and we breathed again.
And the team held on and held on and held on. And won ugly.
And those three points are as valuable as any of the glory that came before and point us in the direction of hope. Hope and statistics.
These statistics:
13 wins from 15 home games this season.
Unbeaten in the last 12 games.
7 straight wins.
The first time in fifty years that two Liverpool players have hit twenty goals in the same season. Suarez and Sturridge now stand alongside The Saint and Sir Roger.
Title winning statistics.
Can we take a moment, from the standpoint of ‘we won so it doesn’t really matter now’, to point out that - in a season of quite remarkable refereeing ineptitude - Kevin Friend’s performance may well be the most consistently appalling officiating that this writer has ever seen?
Two clear cut penalties denied - one for Suarez, one for Coutinho - multiple free kicks not awarded all across the field, the laissez faire attitude to Altidore’s somewhat agricultural approach to football as a concept and - quite brilliantly - the fact that Sunderland’s Vergini should have been sent off twice. Last man in the cynical foul that gave us Gerrard’s free kick but only yellowed and then allowed to remain after a second blatant and clearly bookable foul on Suarez later in the gain.
There is an issue with referees in this league. It’s not going away and it’s not being dealt with. At some point it’s going to cost somebody in a big way.
For now though, let’s concentrate on all those positives above. Every campaign will have it’s nervy moments. With Spurs due on Sunday afternoon, closely followed by Chelsea and City, let’s hope that last night was ours.
The dream is still on.