Leicester City 1 – 2 Liverpool | 5 Things We Learnt

Liverpool overcame a tough challenge to make it four wins out of four in the league and keep their 100% record going into the international break. The away team should have went 1-0 up early on as Firmino’s shot fell to Salah who managed to put it wide from inside the box, however it wouldn’t be long until Sadio Mane ensured that Liverpool took the lead; Andy Robertson battling his way through on the left hand side before picking out Mane who poked it home.Despite tons of Leicester pressure Liverpool doubled their lead just before half-time, Firmino getting on the end of a Milner corner to head home past Schmeichel. Despite the late blow to Leicester Puel’s team came flying out the gates for the second half and the pressure continued, an outstanding Gomez block kept the score at 2-0 but Alisson’s mistake gave Leicester the chance to get back into the game with Ghezzal making it 2-1.Despite Leicester pushing for the equaliser Liverpool stood firm and were able to ensure they stayed top of the table as their players headed out for international duty. It wasn’t the finest performance from Klopp’s team, but they came away with all three points nonetheless.With that said, here’s five things we learnt from Leicester City vs Liverpool:Alisson will win us more games than he loses us -but he’s also humanAlisson couldn’t have enjoyed a better start to his Liverpool career this season, three clean sheets and three wins paired with some decent saves meant that early doors the Brazillian goalkeeper was looking worth the money. Then comes the game today, it was more of the same; a solid stop prevented Demarai Gray from equalising and every corner and set-piece was claimed with ease to take the pressure off his defence. Then in the 63rd minute came the moment that will have everyone talking, a misjudged cruyff turn gifted Ihenacho possession and the striker set up Ghezzal to get Leicester back into the game.Unfortunately, for a goalkeeper of Alisson’s style you have to balance the risk with the reward; everyone who cheered his cheeky dink over the Brighton attacker last week can’t now decide this isn’t the way forward for Liverpool. A goalkeeper who can use his feet in the way Alisson can is an integral part to the team’s transition from defence to attack and whilst it isn’t great that a mistake has happened; it’s a relief that it was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things and that it happened early on so that he can learn from it.It’s still early days for Alisson and today he learnt that you don’t get as much time on the ball in the Premier League as you do in Seria A. Alisson himself was quoted as saying after “I won’t be stupid to make the same mistake. It is part of my game but I will not be arrogant enough to say that I will keep doing it.”For me, it is more important how he reacted afterwards than the actual mistake itself. With Mignolet and Karius whenever they made a mistake you could see on the pitch that their heads had gone, Alisson endured a lot of stick after the fact from the home crowd and will at some point experience it against Spurs in a few weeks but as long as he keeps a calm head and sticks to his game then everything will work out fine.Sadio is the Mane manExcuse the terrible pun – but Mane was once against the standout performer of the front three and made it four goals in just as many games. With Leicester’s right back playing in an unusual position it was important that Mane was on form to exploit the weakness, alongside Robertson the two wreaked havoc on that side and every time the ball was on Liverpool’s left high quality chances were created.Mane enjoyed a similar fast start to the season last year, but an unfortunate red card and injury stunted his performances and October through to November was a rough patch for the winger. Fortunately Mane worked through it and finished the season just as strong as he started it – scoring Liverpool’s only goal in the Champions League final.It seems as though Mane has carried that form over and hopefully this time around he can sustain it after the international break, the Senegalese winger lived in the shadow of Salah a lot last season and with the Egyptian putting in some sub-par performances; it could be Mane’s time to take the spotlight again.We need more of the Wijnaldum that played against TorinoGini Wijnaldum started the season in fine form as the number 6, with some of the team looking tired last week Jurgen Klopp rotated and Henderson replaced Naby Keita, that meant Henderson took over in his usual role and Wijnaldum was pushed forward into the role he played for the majority of his time at Liverpool.Unfortunately this was a poor performance from him, all his passes were unable to find their men and he wasn’t able to get on the ball long enough to impact the game. With Leicester enjoying the majority of possession it was important that he put in a shift defensively whilst also bridging the gap between midfield and attack when Liverpool went forward, today he did neither. In pre-season Wijnaldum bagged a goal against Torino and could have easily had more, he was everything you wanted him to be from a number 8 in the midfield; getting on the ball, making decisive passes and arriving into the box as a deep runner. As mentioned he was rewarded with a goal but today he was lucky not to be hooked off for Naby Keita after 70 minutes.The reason for Leicester’s dominance in possession was due to the front three being unable to keep a foot on the ball, whenever Leicester turned the ball over there was too much of a gap between the front three and midfield meaning that either the ball was given away with risky passes or the strikers were crowded out and lost the ball.Henderson also didn’t have the finest game either, but with Naby Keita expected to come back in for the Spurs game Wijnaldum can’t have many complaints if he’s dropped after today.Andy Robertson is one of the best bargain buys in recent Premier League historyOne year ago i’ll admit I was part of the fan base who met the Robertson announcement with a roll of the eyes, after being linked with big money signings like Benjamin Mendy I thought signing the left-back from recently relegated Hull was underwhelming. I’m happy to admit I was so wide of the mark and that producing Andy Robertson is the best thing that Scotland have done since taking Brendan Rodgers away from the Premier League.For me, Robertson is easily the best left back in the league and even though he costs a quarter of the price of the likes of Mendy; i’d rather have our left back in a heartbeat. We all know how good he is going forward, he showed that again today for the first goal; what impresses me most if that his defensive work is just as good too. As Carragher once said, wing backs are failed wingers and therefore a lot of them don’t know what defensive responsibility is; Andrew Robertson has perfected the craft of ensuring he’s solid at the back, then knowing exactly when to burst forward and contribute to the attack.The engine on this lad is ridiculous, from minute one to minute ninety you will see Robertson busting his gut to get up and down the pitch. Liverpool have had some Scottish legends in the past and if Andy Robbo continues in this upwards trajectory he can get to their levels, he’s already a fan favourite and you can always hear his name being belted out by the fans.Firmino nearing full match fitnessInternational duty meant that Roberto Firmino returned to Melwood later than usual, whilst others got a good pre-season under their belt Firmino only had games against Napoli and Torino to get to match fitness. This has been evident in his start to the season, he hasn’t exactly been poor but it isn’t the Bobby that we all know and love.Today Firmino (obviously) looked the sharpest he has all season, in the period where Liverpool controlled the game he was exceptional and topped that off with a great header just before half time. In the second half he found it more difficult, the whole team was poor and that meant the majority of his time was spent closing down Maguire and Morgan; whenever he did get the ball he found himself isolated and found it hard to create any more chances.With the international break now on the way Firmino should hopefully get more minutes under his belt, pair that with him getting off the mark for the season and hopefully we will start to see more of the Bobby from last season when we travel to Wembley to face Spurs.Article by Louis ConnorTwitter: @Loui_Connor