Liverpool crush sorry Real Madrid as Conor Bradley puts Mbappe in ...
Conor Bradley destroyed Kylian Mbappe in every way and Alexis Mac Allister was a prime Luka Modric against the actual Luka Modric. Liverpool are good. Real Madrid are bad.
Whether you love, hate or are indifferent towards Liverpool, we were all Conor Bradley. An academy lad who’s the most second of second fiddles in his position at the club, playing his first ever Champions League game against the reigning champions and champion of all champions, and he clears out the best footballer in the world – albeit The Artist Formerly Known As Kylian Mbappe on this showing and others this season – with a glorious man and ball challenge to produce the sort of roar from a crowd typically reserved for game-winning goals. Spine tingles and ‘ooofffss’ all round.
It’s a sure red card if he gets it wrong but not having the time or headspace in an already fervent atmosphere to make a risk assessment worked in his and Liverpool’s favour, with his and his team’s level rising a couple of notches on the back of a tackle every fat dad bellowing from the stands or watching at home would loved to have made on a footballer we can all agree could do with a good (but fair) kicking once in a while.
Bradley very nearly opened the scoring himself before playing a key role as the Reds deservedly took the lead. Alexis Mac Allister had played two similarly brilliant lofted passes in the first half to cause chaos in the Real Madrid defence and the best of the lot found Bradley’s perfectly-timed run in the 51st-minute, with Thibaut Courtois producing another excellent save to palm the full-back’s header away, having denied Darwin Nunez twice in the first half.
Mac Allister was playing like a prime Luka Modric against a less-than prime Luka Modric. In a fraught, end-to-end, exhausting game in which neither team seemed able or even willing to try to string more than three or four passes together, the Argentinian had time and space on the ball, consistently made the right decisions and always looked the best bet to make the difference.
He picked the ball up in the pocket in front of the Madrid defence, played a neat pass into Bradley, who acted as a wall on the right side of the box to pop the ball straight back into the midfielder, who took a touch and fired his shot into the far corner.
Ally McCoist got a tad carried away with what we would suggest was a relatively simple first-time pass from Bradley to assist that goal, nicely weighted though it was, but the 21-year-old’s other contributions allow the frankly unbelievable thought to creep in that Liverpool might just be alright without the most talented right-back English football has ever seen.
And it was hard to watch Mbappe consistently failing to release himself from the pocket of a full-back working as hard as Bradley without the ball and so effectively with it and think anything other than Liverpool would actually have been worse off with Trent Alexander-Arnold on the pitch in his place. Cue midfield transition chat…
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We were utterly convinced we were going to go two for two in our penalty predictions. It was really poor from Andy Robertson to concede Madrid’s penalty, turning his back as Lucas Vasquez faked a cross, but after the game Mbappe had had, after the season he’s had, Coimhin Kelleher was always going to make what was a good (because penalty saves must always be called such) but comfortable save.
As Mohamed Salah stepped up to take the penalty he won by turning Ferland Mendy inside out we were bracing ourselves for a Never In Doubt-like cliche from Darren Fletcher, before the Egyptian failed to even hit the target to remind us of an average penalty record that sees him miss one of every five (44 scored; 11 missed). For once this game wasn’t about him.
There was next to no danger of a Madrid comeback anyway but Cody Gakpo put the game beyond doubt with quite the leap and header from a Robertson corner as defenders stood and watched.
And while this is undoubtedly a Big Win for Liverpool, which maintains their 100 per cent record in the Champions League and all but secures their automatic qualification, this was a Madrid side well short of its best, both in terms of performance and personnel.
No Vinicius Junior, no Rodrygo, no Eder Militao, no David Alaba, no Aurelien Tchouameni, no Dani Carvajal. That’s an injury list to rival that of Manchester City, who look set to feel the full force of Liverpool on Sunday. If winning is a hard habit to break, Arne Slot’s side are in 20-a-day territory right now. After the final whistle, Rio Ferdinand claimed – entirely reasonably for once – that “Liverpool are the team to beat in Europe right now”.
There was also effectively no Mbappe, who likely had no idea who Conor Bradley was when he rocked up at Anfield. But having enjoyed nothing other than a faceful of turf courtesy of the full-back, he now knows exactly who Conor Bradley is.
