Bournemouth’s Billing stuns Liverpool as Mohamed Salah fires penalty wide

How to follow perfection? This being the Liverpool of 2022-23, a 7-0 torching of Manchester United was succeeded by a defeat by Bournemouth, kicking off as bottom of the Premier League, with Mohamed Salah clanking a penalty wide in the style of Chris Waddle, Turin 1990 vintage.

What has recently seemed a fait accompli, Liverpool rescuing a disappointing season with a top-four place, can no longer be considered certain. Jürgen Klopp’s team have become a combination of high-end brilliance and low-end mediocrity, just too unreliable to count on.

Here was another shapeless performance in which heavy metal thunder was too easy to quieten. There were also portents from history to consider. Last time Liverpool won 7-0 in the Premier League, in December 2020, they drew 1-1 with West Brom in the following game. As this season threatens to be, a heroic comeback on Wednesday in Madrid pending, targets for that campaign were soon reduced to finishing in the top four.

The last time Liverpool won 9-0 in the top division, before they beat Bournemouth by that score at Anfield in August, was against Crystal Palace in 1989, after which Liverpool were beaten in an FA Cup semi-final by the same opposition. Bournemouth did not have that revenge opportunity available but this victory was a reminder of their December 2016 comeback from 3-1 down to beat Liverpool 4-3. Those were early days in the Klopp regime and, like now, a time when his squad was in need of rebuilding. Here Bournemouth were again a reminder of the long, painful road ahead.

Klopp, shielded from an icy wind by a snood pulled under his eyes, had made one, quasi-enforced change to last week’s history men. Jordan Henderson’s cold had relegated him to the bench. Stefan Bajcetic