Articles
‘Those first few minutes…’ (Part 1)
Coventry scores in the first minute at Highfield Road on 10 December 1983
Note: references to individual games use an abbreviation such as [63:32], which signifies the 1963/64 season, and the thirty-second competitive match as listed by lfchistory.net.
‘There’s been an early goal at Anfield,’ announces an excited anchor in the studio, a dark arts phrase exploited to increase tension in the listener, and still dreaded by not-yet-completely converted believers. Yet I greeted Leicester’s third-minute League Cup opener at Anfield [23:8] (27 September 2023) with a hollow laugh instead of the usual anguished cry, fearing the worst. The laugh was a reaction to the possible 235th goal, scored in under ten minutes, that we’d let in since returning to the top flight sixty years ago, and I’d just finished reading about 234 of them, ninety-seven of which had also been at Anfield. My equally unlikely gentle nod of approval greeted LFC’s exquisite second and third goals. The 3-1 finish was the fourth such score in a row, and the second in which we recovered after going behind after three minutes.
What’s going on? Does history really dull our senses and divert or anaesthetize our passion for the game by dredging dead-end data? By all accounts, early pioneers of the stats movement in the last thirty years (the xG boys and girls) seem to have actually been into mathematics, not football. Or can it provide interest, additional to watching a game otherwise blinkered from what has happened in the past?
I’m by no means alone in feeling nervous as a match starts, especially when listening to a radio commentary rather than watching the action – even superstitious enough to avoid one station in particular. Rationally, going behind to an early goal should be less worrying than one scored after eighty minutes leaving far less time to recover, as well as giving the scorer more satisfaction. But who said that supporting a football club was rational?
When we virtually give the opposition a goal start, we’re already weighed down by the thought of having to score at least twice to win the match. Furthermore, what if we let them do the same thing again? (LFC let in two during the first nine minutes against Aston Villa (63:32), Inter Milan in the following season [64:60], Brighton [80:45], Southampton [93:35], Middlesbrough [97:36], and Borussia Dortmund [15:53]. (We were three goals down at West Ham within eight minutes in 1930 [30:2] and to Bolton before seven minutes a season later! [32:46])
Annoyingly, among the 235, there were 59 which ended in a draw, and another 53 in which Liverpool lost by a single goal, getting on for half of the total altogether. Two dozen have been by the only goal of the game, including the notorious beach ball incident at the Stadium of Light [09:12]. Thus, 277 points have been thrown away, equivalent to winning ninety matches.
Two decades stand out as having the fewest early goals scored against LFC. There were only twenty-nine in 1972/73 to 1981/82, with a single one in 1977/78 and none in 1978/79; and twenty-eight in 2002/03 to 2011/12 with one in 2005/06 and 2008/09, and none in the season following Istanbul. Most (49) were let in during 1992/93 to 2001/02, and 46 during 2012/13 to 2022/23. It is tempting to relate these figures to the managers who were then in charge, including the styles of play they encouraged. (There were only two opposition early goals in Shankly’s last Div. 2 season and one was in the final match when we’d already earned promotion.) Eight goals were scored against us during the relatively poor, most recent season (2022/23), the worst figure in the last six decades apart from nine in 1985/86. Of course, the shock of going one down feels even worse the earlier it happens. Until this century, the timing was mainly from five to nine minutes, though now the one-to-five-minute scores are increasing. The quickest I can find was Alan Sunderland’s goal on fifteen seconds during the FA Cup semi on 28 April 1980 [79:57], and Le Tissier gave us one of his 25-yard blasts on 28 seconds in 1994 [93:35].
Martin Peters takes an early lead for Norwich on 9 February 1980
An early goal against has other unpleasant side-effects. As the match kicks off, all eleven players should be in best shape, both physically and mentally; they should be at maximum concentration, with the advice and plans of the manager still fresh in their minds. Letting in an early goal suggests that either the opposition is better than credited, or LFC’s defence is worse. The former may be hard to take, but you have to admit that, when the scorers are lined up, some pretty good players are among those who have seized the honour and glory of scoring against us in less than ten minutes, (among them a few LFC luminaries when wearing different kit): Jeff Astle, Alan Ball, Patrik Berger, Andy Cole, Tony Cottee, Tony Currie, Kevin De Bruyne, Les Ferdinand, Rio Ferdinand, Diego Forlan, Jimmy Greaves, Gabriel Jesus, Ray Kennedy, Aaron Lennon, Matt Le Tissier, Paolo Maldini in Istanbul, Sadio Mane, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Luka Modric, Peter Osgood, Martin Peters, Marco Reus. Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton, John Terry, Carlos Tevez, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Peter Osgood, and Jamie Vardy. (Earlier still, Everton’s Dixie Dean and Tommy Lawton, among others, enjoyed the apparent welcome we gave them.)
Patrik Berger struck early against his old team.
Liverpool has been nearly fifty per cent more likely to let in an early goal away from home than at home, a phenomenon which can also be traced back to 1900. In the 1930s, for example, opposition teams scored 43 against LFC when we were playing away, but only 25 at Anfield. The reason for this discrepancy is not obvious. Perhaps we are distracted by unfamiliar surroundings, or intimidated by the home crowd urging their players to kill off the famous Liverpool visitors as early as possible, giving us a taste of our own medicine. The 1930s give a clear indication of the relationship between giving away early goals and match results. Between July 1930 and the second world war we won 148 matches, having gone down early in 11% of them; we drew 97, giving away 14% in the first nine minutes; and lost 159 of which 20% saw the opposition go up early.
Identifying responsibility or blame for the 234 post-1962 goals is not straightforward. It is often the case that both good attacking by the opposition, and faulty LFC defending, are involved, and in about ten per cent of cases these appear to be roughly equal, together with a few whose video or contemporary report of the goal are unavailable. However, the remainder can be placed mainly into one category or the other, with (in my subjective opinion) 98 mainly the result of good opposition attacking, and 107 poor defending.
Those videos and contemporary reports leave no doubt that LFC was sometimes caught out by some skillful football. There have been plenty of successful, if speculative, shots from distance by such masters as Steve Perryman ([81:58] 35 yards), Gary McAllister [92:6] on 7 minutes, Olivier Dacourt [98:39] 30 yards on 41 seconds. Such stunning shots are not confined to the luminaries of football history: James Sutton’s ‘brilliant’ 25-yarder put Mansfield ahead in two minutes [70:11], Alan Thompson’s ‘breathtaking 30-yarder’ [97:39] and ex-Red Jonjo Shelvey’s 25-yarder for Newcastle [21:25].
The enemy has not relied on unstoppable thunderbolts for scoring early, which have in any case reduced in number since stats analysts discovered that shooting from range was an inefficient way of scoring. (Maybe there should be more Suarez-style attempts, given the modern high sweeper role adopted by many goalkeepers.) We’ve also been on the receiving end of some cleverly conceived and executed goals. Jimmy Greaves’ magic, dancing his way (a-la-Mo Salah) through a crowded defence [67:56]; Peter Osgood heading in a backheel [65:33]; David Shearer one-two-ing it in ‘an exemplary example of the finisher’s art’ [81:2]; and Anderton’s cleverly executed backward header [96:50].
These early blows, especially to an Anfield crowd, usually have an immediately silencing effect, as faith in the team we support is suddenly shaken, and a mental adjustment to a new situation is required. That’s certainly what occurred during the Havant & Waterlooville cup match [07:36] when the amateurs scored eight minutes from the start. True to their sportsmanlike reputation, however, the home crowd then applauded the visitors, both then and at the end of the match.
Spurs' Darren Anderton punishes Liverpool early
*
Defensive errors have been more likely than a good opposition to be the reason for going down so soon into a match, though in some cases they might be seen as a compliment to an attacking player illegally brought down. We’ve given away seventeen penalties during the first nine minutes of matches since 1962/63, the quickest being at Old Trafford on 9 January 2011 [10:32], the day after Kenny Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson. Daniel Agger had touched Berbatov, who promptly and inexplicably fell over on 32 seconds, and Giggs scored from the resulting penalty. (Of no real significance is that Gerrard was sent off on 32 minutes in that match, which was our thirty-second competitive match of the season.) The reactions of the two managers revived their earlier, long-standing feud, including the involvement of the referee, Howard Webb (who is now in charge of PGMOL).
Other penalties have been awarded against us before the clock reached 10 minutes, but these are becoming very rare. Larry Lloyd brought down Mick Channon [73:14], Tommy Smith felled Zurich’s Scheiwiler [76:48]; Phil Neal fouled Roger Davies [79:28], Kennedy blocked Gray’s way [83:2], Grob brought down Foyle [82:55], Gillespie brought down Tony Cottee [86:6], ‘the Kop howled in disbelief’ when Mark Wright was adjudged to have nudged Ian Wright [95:27], Chris Sutton made no mistake from the spot [96:16] after a Phil Babb trip at Blackburn, David James ‘ludicrously sprinted 20 yards to knock Matthew Oakley off his feet’ [97:34], and two games later Paul Merson struck home after Beck had been ‘upended’ by Jamie Carragher [97:36]. Phil Babb merely handled the ball [98:37], but Sami Hyypia was sent off for pulling down Ruud van Nistelrooy in the area [02:54], Jose Reina tripped the Porto forward Tarik Sektioui [07:8], and last season James Milner handled in Napoli’s area [22:9]
Zurich get an early penalty in the European Cup semi-finals in 1977.
Even our best goalkeepers were guilty of giving away other goals early in a game. Tommy Lawrence, having already let in one goal on eight minutes, dropped the ball a minute later in front of Pirlo, of all players, to give Inter Milan a two-goal lead [64:60]. Shankly described Ray Clemence’s slippery handling as a ‘gift’ to Doncaster [73:35], which did not prevent Ray from doing the same to Middlesbrough after Paisley took over [75:45]. Clemence was also involved [76:36] in the sort of error which still has fans uttering gasps of horror half a century later – being a fraction too casual in clearing a ball so that it hits an oncoming forward and rebounds towards the goal. The silliness of the event just makes it worse.
Grobbelaar, for all his genius between the posts, could be guilty of bad timing and bad handling [83:36] [84:11] [84:19] [85:2] [85:28] [85:46] [91:15] [93:32]. David James let a drive through his ‘muddy gloves’ on six minutes into a QPR game, happily not in front of the Kop! [94:36]. Brad Friedel’s positioning ‘gifted’ Spurs a second-minute lead [98:18]. The handling of Jerzy Dudek [02:23] and Brad Jones [12:11] let in early goals, and don’t mention beach balls to Pepe Reina! A poor tackle by Simon Mignolet allowed Kane to score four minutes into a Spurs game [17:15], Adrian passed the ball to Villa’s Jack Grealish [20:7], and even the great Alisson fumbled against Aston Villa [20:59] allowing Douglas Luiz to get Villa ahead on three minutes.
A beach ball scores the winner for Sunderland in 2009!
*
Defective play by the remainder of the defence can be found in contemporary reports, sometimes even tarring the image of those on whom history has accorded legendary status. Among mishaps by the great Ron Yeats was a miskick at Goodison [64:11] giving Everton a first minute lead; later, the same ‘vulnerable’ defender failed to collect a long ball from MUFC’s Gregg, allowing Law to score in the second minute [65:30]. Other examples include Chris Lawler [68:37], Larry Lloyd [69:15], Emlyn Hughes [74:39], Phil Neal [75:57], Alan Hansen [83:32], Mark Lawrenson [83:32], Neil Ruddock [93:32], Dominic Matteo [99:8], Jamie Carragher [00:21], Sami Hyypia [00:21], Martin Skrtel [11:48], Joe Allen [13:35], Georginio Wijnaldum [16:40], Joël Matip [17:30], Thiago Alcantara [21:25], and Joe Gomez [22:18], who have also been guilty of carelessness which led to an early goal against us. Sometimes, we have provided the assist for the opposition to go one up!
In short, it can happen to the best, but it still seems incongruous to find such highly regarded LFC characters in a rogues’ gallery, reminding us that they were all human after all. Sometimes they were only part of a general malaise which was affecting the defence as a whole – Yeats’s ‘blight [in form] that spread through the team…. Liverpool, in short, were anonymous.’ [64:30] ‘Chelsea caught us daydreaming,’ complained Paisley [81:39]. Rob Lee could score for Newcastle ‘before the Liverpool defence had time to pull itself together’ [93:46]. Southampton was a regular scorer of early goals against LFC, once provoking Ian Ross to report ‘a defence which [apart from Phil Babb] boasted the mobility of a fully laden bin bag. Liverpool were breathtaking in their ineptitude.’ [97:34] Common frailties were failure to control a long ball from the opposing goalkeeper, misunderstandings between defenders, misplaced passes, waiting for an offside flag which never came, etc.
*
Last season’s stats indicate that we did not get the balance right between attacking and defending in those first few minutes. Yet it does not have to be like that, as a solidly reliable defence, of the Paisley and Benitez eras in particular, is possible. In 2023, Liverpool remains liable to be slow to come up to speed, to gain the ‘rhythm’ demanded by Jurgen Klopp. Yet the same early lethargy does not seem to have affected LFC’s forwards nearly as much. I’ll try to find out whether that is true, but it may take me some time – I ain’t got no algorithm.
