Jurgen Klopp can draw a lot of positives from Saturday’s last-second loss to Tottenham despite the bad outcome and shocking officiating.
One of them is that Liverpool has the world’s top custodian.
Liverpool played 65 minutes with ten men and 20 minutes with just nine, but despite appearing to be up against more than simply Ange Postecoglou’s team, they managed to hang on for a draw until the very end.
Joel Matip, who was extremely unfortunate to score the own goal that ultimately cost the Reds a point in the closing seconds, contributed to the team’s outstanding performance.
The Liverpool player who stood out, though, was the custodian.
Alisson Becker was outstanding once more, however his performance was somewhat overshadowed by the commotion and controversy.
Just last month, during Liverpool’s incredible late comeback victory over Newcastle, the Brazilian goalkeeper set a new personal record for the most saves in a single Premier League game.
Before Darwin Nuez’s game-winning cameo, he made seven saves (including the Premier League Save of the Month in August against Miguel Almiron’s volley) to keep the Reds in the game.
However, FotMob reports that Liverpool’s custodian went above and beyond against Tottenham and made an incredible eight saves as the Reds were under pressure.
Alisson frequently displayed his reactions and made many stops throughout the weekend that weren’t your typical saves, reaffirming his status as the best custodian in the world.
Alisson made eight saves, which is a personal best, but he still needs six more (amazingly) to match David de Gea’s, Vito Mannone’s, and Tim Krul’s Premier League record of 14 in a single game.
One of several players who spoke out against the unfairness of Saturday’s loss and questioned how VAR is applied in England was Liverpool’s imposing number one, who turns 31 this week.
We must be shocked by this kind of behaviour because we are human, he continued.” Yes, that is how the fan feels. Also our sentiment. We lost the game due to this error. Nothing could have been more different today. We now have to handle this.
“We will handle this internally. I hope these occurrences stop occurring internally as well. I have long argued that VAR is beneficial in cases like these. Amazingly, despite something being so straightforward and objective, these things nonetheless occur. The technology is also available. Why don’t you employ the modern methods that FIFA employed during the World Cup?”