There was plenty to smile about for Jürgen Klopp in the end as his team climbed to second in the table on the back of a fourth successive Premier League victory, yet the Liverpool manager made no attempt to sugarcoat a first-half performance that prompted the temperature to rise in the visitors’ dressing room at the interval.
Whatever Klopp said at half-time – the German admitted he was “very angry” – it did the trick as Liverpool, who were unrecognisable from the team that toiled in the opening 45 minutes, turned this game on its head to condemn Swansea to a defeat that leaves Francesco Guidolin clinging to his job.
James Milner delivered the crucial blow six minutes from time with his fourth penalty of the season, after Roberto Firmino had equalised early in the second half, and from that point on it was tempting to wonder what was going through the minds of Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, Swansea’s American owners, as well as Guidolin’s.
Kaplan and Levien had flown in to watch this match in a visit that had been planned for a while but which took on far greater significance amid the speculation about Guidolin’s future. Ryan Giggs and Bob Bradley are both on a shortlist as part of a managerial search that has not always been conducted behind closed doors.
In fairness to Guidolin, Swansea were excellent in the opening 45 minutes and the Italian, judging from the number of times that his name was chanted, still has the support of a sizeable number of the club’s supporters. Yet the harsh reality is that this was a fifth defeat in seven league games, with Swansea collecting only one point from a possible 18 since winning at Burnley on the opening day. Those are the sort of statistics to worry any Premier League owner, irrespective of the fact that Swansea have played extremely well in patches in their last two fixtures, against Manchester City and now Liverpool.
While the visitors were much the better team after the interval, Swansea should have had more to show for their first-half efforts than Leroy Fer’s fourth goal of the season. Borja, the club’s £15.5m record signing, squandered two excellent chances, the second of which came after Fer had put Swansea ahead. Mike van der Hoorn could still have salvaged a point in injury-time but the central defender – the wrong man in the right place – sliced wide with the goal at his mercy.
It was some turnaround from Liverpool in the second half and strange to reconcile the team that dominated that period with the one that looked so out of sorts early on. Liverpool were so pedestrian in their build-up in the first 45 minutes and seemed to be taken by surprise when Swansea played them at their own game by pressing aggressively all over the pitch.
To compound things for Liverpool they lost Adam Lallana to a groin injury early on and Daniel Sturridge was booked for diving. Klopp talked afterwards about how he sensed that his players had lost their discipline and composure, right down to “moaning about decisions that were absolutely right”.
Borja could, and should, have put Swansea ahead after five minutes but the Spaniard, who was totally unmarked as he got in between Joël Matip and Nathaniel Clyne, inexplicably headed over the bar from the edge of the six-yard box. It was a poor miss and there was another to come from the same player in the 26th minute, when he nodded Gylfi Sigurdsson’s free-kick wide of the post.
By that stage Swansea were ahead after Fer exposed a familiar weakness in Liverpool under Klopp. Sigurdsson’s deep corner kick was headed back across goal by Borja and Fer, via a slight touch from Van der Hoorn, stabbed over the line. It was the 16th set-piece goal Liverpool have conceded since Klopp took over as manager last October – only Swansea have shipped more in that period.
The second-half, however, was a different story. Liverpool took control of the game and it was no surprise when Firmino levelled. Jordan Henderson lofted the ball back into the area after Philippe Coutinho’s free-kick came back of the wall and Firmino, with the freedom of the penalty area as the Swansea defence pushed out, guided his header into the corner.
It was now one-way traffic, with Swansea pinned back. Coutinho stroked a lovely effort from the edge of the area inches wide and Sadio Mané saw his shot deflected over the bar by Kyle Naughton’s superb challenge as Liverpool continued to press. Swansea looked like they might cling on but with the clock ticking down Àngel Rangel clumsily bundled into Firmino and Milner made no mistake from the spot. Then came Van der Hoorn’s awful late miss.
With that the game was up for Swansea and it remains to be seen if the same is true for Guidolin.
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