Key events
Andy Hunter
You could say Hugo Ekitiké was the one who got away from Newcastle last summer, except there were so many. The Liverpool striker gave Eddie Howe further cause for regret with a gamechanging, match-winning performance at Anfield, however, as Arne Slot’s side found the consistency that has eluded them too often this season to record a second impressive win in succession.
Ekitiké struck twice against the club that had agreed a deal to sign him from Eintracht Frankfurt before Liverpool swept in. Their initial outlay of £69m, rising to £79m, is proving money very well spent. Newcastle were the dominant force before Ekitiké’s swift brace transformed the contest. Florian Wirtz added a third in the second half before Ibrahima Konaté, playing for the first time since the death of his father, capitalised on a Nick Pope error to complete an important victory. Konaté was understandably in tears as the moment sunk in.
Liverpool reaction
Ibrahima Konate
I don’t have words to describe what I feel right now because it was a very difficult moment for me and my family. This is part of life – it’s very hard to accept but we have no choice to do it.
The manager told me to take my time, that I didn’t have to rush back, but we had some injuries and I thought it was important for me to come back and help the team. And I think this is what I did today, with the team and with an unbelievable atmosphere.
I’m very happy for him [Florian Wirtz] – he’s showing the world his quality. He hasn’t reached his peak right now but this will come very soon. One goal and one assist, yeah? I know what you said in pre-season what you were going to do [smiles at Wirtz]. If you reach that, oh my god it’s crazy!
Florian Wirtz
I’m very happy. I love to score, to assist and just to help the team to win.
[On Hugo Ekitike] Unbelievable. It’s fun to play with him on the pitch; I was happy to assist him after many assists from him to me.
Konate puts his shirt over his eyes as he salutes the home fans. He’s about to give his reaction to TNT Sports.
Full time: Liverpool 4-1 Newcastle
Ten goals in four days for Liverpool, who move up to fifth in the Premier League after a ferocious comeback at Anfield. Newcastle were much the better team – until they woke the beast by going in front through Anthony Gordon in the 36th minute.
Hugo Ekitike, Liverpool’s star man this season, scored two quickfire goals, the impressive Florian Wirtz added a third and Ibrahima Konate – playing for the first time since the death of his father – scored the fourth in added time.
GOAL! Liverpool 4-1 Newcastle (Konate 90+3)
Ibrahima Konate does score! Szoboszlai’s corner was dropped by Pope and turned in by Konate, who slid in celebration near the corner flag and then broke down as he remembered his late father Hamady.
He waves to the Kop and then wipes away tears as he is given a huge hug by Virgil van Dijk.
That’s such a beautiful moment, rich in humanity – one that most of us can understand and all of us can empathise with.
90+2 min A lovely bit of footwork from Gakpo in the six-yard box wins another corner for Liverpool, who have played superbly for the last 50-odd minutes of this game.
90+1 min Five minutes of added time. Konate’s volley from a corner deflects over the bar. It would have been a lovely moment had he scored in his first game after the death of his father.
89 min “…honestly we should just forfeit the games at Anfield from now on and rest the squad,” writes Chris Paraskevas. “Throwing away that great start so comprehensively is pretty galling stuff.
“More importantly, the MBM readers have started leaving feedback on my film:
1. Rob Smyth (great lad) from the Guardian’s Live Blog directed me here. But what on earth did I just watch?
2. ‘I loathe the Australian accent.’
“Hope you don’t mind but I’ve promised you’ll have a cameo in my next movie. Too late to pull out, contracts were signed by your agent at half-time (that’s how it works in Hollywood).”
You can [redacted] that sky high!
88 min Burn, just booked, leaves plenty on Gakpo after the ball has rolled out of play. He could have been given a second yellow for that. Newcastle bring on Alex Murphy for the outstanding Lewis Hall.
87 min: Liverpool substitution Curtis Jones for Florian Wirtz.
86 min Burn is booked for dissent.
84 min: Liverpool substitutions Hugo Ekitike (who is fine but ready for a rest) and Mo Salah are replaced by Federico Chiesa and Curtis Jones. Newcastle bring on Will Osula for Kieran Trippier.
82 min There’s a break in play when Ekitike goes down after a clash of heads in the Liverpool area.
In fact he was caught by the elbow of either Van Dijk or Szoboszlai as they jumped to clear a cross.
80 min Newcastle are slowly stirring and win a corner on the left. Trippier takes, Alisson catches it under the bar. Trippier may have been trying to score there.
76 min Liverpool have the game under control at the moment. Newcatle need something to change the momentum.
73 min: Triple substitution for Newcastle Jacob Murphy, Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade replace Anthony Elanga, Joe Willock and Harvey Barnes.
69 min: Chance for Salah! The scoreline feels harsh on Newcastle. It almost gets worse when Wirtz, on the break, puts Salah through on goal with a lovely pass. This time Salah gets away from Hall but then pokes wide of the near post with his left foot.
Ekitike and Gakpo combined to find Wirtz, who gave the ball to Salah on the right side of the area. He returned it to Wirtz, 16 yards out, and he screwed an immaculate low shot across goal. It brushed the far post and rolled into the net; that was the finish of a class footballer.
GOAL! Liverpool 3-1 Newcastle (Wirtz 67)
Florian Wirtz continues his goalscoring run with a finish of immaculate precision!
66 min If it stays like this Liverpool will go fifth, at least until Manchester United play Fulham tomorrow. It’s very tight: just seven points between Chelsea in fourth and Bournemouth in 12th.
65 min Gravenberch whacks a shot over from distance.
62 min Salah loses the ball to Hall, not for the first time tonight. If the World Cup was starting tomorrow, I’d make Hall England’s left-back.
61 min This is still anyone’s game – Newcastle are a threat, as they were in the first half, and Liverpool are rarely not a goal threat at Anfield.
59 min: Fine save by Alisson! A Newcastle free-kick is half cleared to the edge of the area. Barnes whacks a left foot shot on the bounce that comes through a crowd and is saved brilliantly to his left by the diving Alisson. He must have seen that late.
59 min Mac Allister is booked for a trip on Ramsey.
58 min Free-kick to Liverpool 30 yards from goal. Szoboszlai teases everyone into thinking he’ll shoot, then chips a cross towards Van Dijk at the far post. His header across goal is claimed by the diving Pope.
56 min Elanga’s low shot is saved by Alisson, though the flag went up as soon as the ball ran loose.
54 min “Hi Rob,” says Peadar de Burca. “It’s minus 8 here in south-west Poland but that didn’t stop me heading off to see Gornik Zabrze beat Piast Gliwice 2-1 to go top of the Ekstraklasa table. It’s a tough call who to shout for as both grounds are a ten-minute drive apart with my house in the middle.
“Gornik went a goal down but their bare-chested Ultras basically willed their team to find two goals either side of half time. Lukas Podolski was on the Zabrze bench (he’s 40) and you get the feeling he’s happy to be part of the Gornik revival. Half-time music at the Ernst Pohl Stadium? Def Leppard! Let’s Get Rocked!”
53 min When a Newcastle corner isn’t properly cleared, Alisson has to dive in front of Thiaw to punch Elanga’s cross away. Brave goalkeeping.
51 min: Great chance for Ekitike!
That should have been his first hat-trick in senior football. Szoboszlai’s long, clipped ball down the right was misjudged on the bounce by Burn, which allowed Ekitike to run through on goal – but then he slid a tame shot well wide of the far post.
49 min After a smart Liverpool break, a mistimed low shot from Szoboszlai is comfortably saved by Pope.
47 min “Thanks for the link to the 1995 Newcastle v Liverpool match,” says Tim Woods. “Although it does raise an important question: how do you remember the details of so many games over the past 30+ years? Is it some kind of Holmesian mind palace you’ve dedicated to remembering Premier League fullbacks rather than solving crimes? PS blond highlights were quite the thing in the 90s, weren’t they?”
Which bugger showed you my university photogr– oh, you mean footballers with blond highlights? Yeah, it was a moment in the Premier League in the winter of 1995. I think Steve Stone joined in.
As for my weird memory, I make most of it up but pop in an occasional YouTube clip, correctly recalled, to throw people off the scent.
46 min Peep peep! The second half is under way.
Romance, R. I. P.
“Rob,” says Chris Paraskevas, “my ‘Ideal Sunday’ list for Hinge could really go either way at this point… current draft:
Cigarettes
Coffee
Cough out phlegm
C̶e̶l̶e̶b̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶ Forget defeat with breakfast at cafe (or re-heat available pizza)
Review Guardian MBM/match report
PES6 Co-Op Tournament on PS2
Order more pizza
R̶o̶m̶a̶n̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶d̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ ‘Alone time’ to process Eddie Howe’s tactical errors
Delete Hinge
More half-time emails
Drew Ellis “The double signing of Ekitike & Isak reminds me of when LFC brought in the Andy Carroll and Suarez at the same time. Everyone was excited about the more expensive Newcastle striker and nobody had heard of the other guy. Could see this working out similarly.”
Alun Pugh “The James Joyce (tried there) is not showing the match. But the Dublin pub had it on one of their screens. The sound is off but there is a truly awful local band who can’t make up their minds if they are punks or heavy metal turning it up to eleven.”
Gary Byrne “Ekitike is the surely the second coming of Torres, and not just because of the blond locks.”
(Steven Gerrard just made a similar point on TV, and now you mention it that second goal was pure Torres.)
Andy Flintoff “Watching that second Ekitike goal – the space for him to run into was created by Wirtz coming short and drawing the fullback out. Without that, the pass is not on.”
Stephen Bradfield “The way things are going, the Isak move to Liverpool is going to look like one of the dumbest ever for player and clubs. What were they thinking? Move in haste repent at leisure.”
“We all know that often players take time to adjust to the Premier League,” says Matt Dony. “Even so, it’s almost impossible to fully switch off from the general air of impatience that surrounds football these days. Results immediately, or get the hell outta here. But, it turns out that Wirtz is a brilliant footballer. It’s almost as if the people involved in buying him knew what they were doing. Who’d have thought, eh?”
Are you trying to trigger me? I was pleading for sanity all autumn!
Jonathan Wilson
Half-time reading
Ask a Crystal Palace fan what price they would have paid at this time last year to win the FA Cup. Would they have taken a run of 11 games without a win, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guéhi sold, Oliver Glasner disillusioned and on his way out of the club, and a probable relegation battle ahead? Almost certainly, yes.
But equally that Palace fan would be within their rights to ask why there should be a pay-off at all. This isn’t like Portsmouth winning the FA Cup in 2008 while living beyond their means under Alexandre Gaydamak, going into administration in 2009-10. It’s not like Wigan winning the FA Cup as they were relegated in 2013 having been sustained in the Premier League by Dave Whelan.
The race for the golden boot
Hugo’s on the charge…
Half time: Liverpool 2-1 Newcastle
A richly entertaining first half at Anfield. Newcastle were the better team for most of it and took a deserved lead through Anthony Gordon – but then Hugo Ekitike enhanced his rapidly growing reputation with two thrilling goals in the space of three minutes. The first owed a lot to the dancing feet and peripheral vision of Florian Wirtz; the second was almost all Ekitike’s own work.
45+4 min A seductive inswinging free-kick from Szoboszlai is headed on and over by Mac Allister. Not a bad effort; there’s always an element of luck with those headers that you help on.
45+4 min “Would Liverpool be this far off the top if they hadn’t been dead set on getting Isak and had gone with Ekitike?” wonders Kári Tulinius. “The protracted transfer saga and attempts to integrate the Swede unsettled the whole team in the autumn. If they’d simply let the Frenchman lead the line, the side would’ve cohered much sooner.”
45+3 min Ramsey is booked for wiping out Kerkez.
45+2 min Salah’s corner is headed well wide by the leaping Ekitike near the penalty spot. It was just too high for him.
45 min Five minutes of added time, and Liverpool are rampant.
“Eddie Howe must be fuming,” says Joshua Keeling. “Newcastle have been brilliant, but that second goal was a shambolic from them.”
They were asleep defensively, weren’t they? Even so, it was a brilliant finish – a Romario goal, and there ain’t no higher praise in my one-bedroom flat.
How good is Hugo Ekitike? That Newcastle corner lead to a free-kick that was taken quickly by Alisson to Kerkez. He swept a penetrative long pass forward to Ekitike, running into space in the inside-left channel. Ekitike moved into the area, shifted the ball away from Thiaw and toepoked an early shot across Pope.
That is such a good finish, the kind we associate with Brazilian geniuses like Ronaldo and Romario, because the angle was really tight. Everything suggested a left-foot shot; Ekitike toebunged it with his right.
GOAL! Liverpool 2-1 Newcastle (Ekitike 43)
The new darling of Anfield scores a fabulous individual goal!
Photograph: LFC/Getty Images
42 min Willock rumbles past Szoboszlai on the edge of the area and is about to shoot when a Liverpool defender (Van Dijk? Konate? Piechnik?) touches it behind for a corner. From which…
Two of Liverpool’s big signings combine for a terrific goal. Florian Wirtz received the ball from Gravenberch just inside a crowded area, to the left of centre; in the blink of an eye he danced past two players and then – and in many ways this was the best bit – showed superb awareness to screw the ball back towards Ekitike. He poked it past Pope from six yards.
GOAL! Liverpool 1-1 Newcastle (Ekitike 41)
A brilliant equaliser for Liverpool!
40 min Salah has a shot pushed round the near post by Pope. The flag went up for offside after that but I think Salah was on.
39 min Gordon surges into the area, once agia in the inside-right channel, and drives a shot across goal from an even tighter angle. It’s on target and Alisson has to get down smartly to make a pretty good save.
Edit: on reflection I think it would have gone wide of the far post, though Alisson couldn’t take any chances.
38 min The goal came at a time when Liverpool were looking more dangerous. They’ve picked up where they left off and Ekitike goes down in the area after a forceful but fair (I think) challenge from Trippier.
37 min Anthony Gordon – a former Everton player, one of Anfield’s favourite villains – celebrated the goal with a nonchalant, ‘how ya like me now?’ pose while looking into the massed crowd.
After another Newcastle break, led by Willock, Mac Allister challenged Barnes on the edge of the area. The ball ran across to Gordon in the inside-right channel, 15 yards from goal. He shifted the ball to the right before driving it through the legs of Kerkez and back across goal. Alisson couldn’t get there and the ball rolled into the far corner.
GOAL! Liverpool 0-1 Newcastle (Gordon 36)
Anthony Gordon drives Newcastle in front!
35 min Liverpool are having their best spell of the half. Salah plays a one-two with Wirtz and finds Gravenberch, who tries to make room for a shot on the edge of the area. Thiaw reads his intention and makes a good tackle.
33 min: Chance for Liverpool Gravenberch stabs a neat pass into the area for Ekitike, who times his run perfectly and finds himself one-on-one in the inside-right channel. He tries to flip the ball across goal but Pope stays on his feet and pushes the ball away. Good save, and a reminder to Newcastle of Liverpool’s threat.
30 min Tonali shoots high and wide from distance. It’s all Newcastle right now, which may well mean a Mo Salah goal is imminent.
