Liverpool made it two wins out of two in the Premier League thanks to Rio Ngumoha’s late winner at Newcastle, but Jamie Carragher was hugely critical of their performance
Liverpool were undeserving of their win over Newcastle on Monday night and somehow beat the much better side. That was the opinion of Jamie Carragher, who slammed his former club despite Rio Ngumoha’s dramatic late winner.
The Reds came away from St James’ Park with a 3-2 win thanks to a goal in the 100th minute from 16-year-old Ngumoha. But their performance from far from convincing, despite playing most of the game with a one-man advantage after Anthony Gordon was sent off.
Liverpool were 2-0 up just 20 seconds into the second half thanks to goals from Ryan Gravenberch and Hugo Ekitike. The Magpies fought back impressively, with Bruno Guimaraes’ header halving the deficit before Will Osula equalised in the 88th minute from Dan Burn’s flick-on.
Ngumoha bailed them out with a cool finish from Mohamed Salah’s pass after a clever dummy from Dominik Szoboszlai, but Carragher was in no mood to celebrate at the full-time whistle.
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“I think what we’ve seen tonight is possibly one of the worst performances from a winning team and one of the best performances from a losing team,” he said on Sky Sports. “Liverpool won’t care right now, of course, they’ll be absolutely ecstatic, but Eddie Howe’s men tonight were absolutely outstanding.
“It did (seem like it was over at 2-0), but that crowd, that intensity they played with, I actually fear what the score might have been if it had been 11 vs 11. I think Newcastle would’ve won the game – they were far better than Liverpool in every aspect.”
Sky later showed a clip of Carragher celebrating Ngumoha’s winner in the studio. His immediate reaction was “you lucky red men!”.
Arne Slot was measured in his assessment of Liverpool, praising their mentality for sticking in there whilst agreeing that they could have been better on the ball. “I’m not too sure it was a football match today,” he said.
“It was set-piece after set-piece, long-throw after long-throw. We didn’t collapse and stood strong. We didn’t play well enough on the ball. I don’t think there was so much open play.”
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk said: “We all know it’s a difficult place to come. We know there was a lot of oil on the fire this week to get Newcastle fired up.
“What happened tonight was expected and, for us, the disappointing part was that we conceded two set pieces. That shouldn’t happen but overall great three points, move on and focus on the next one.
“Free-kick, corner kicks the pressure gets on. They had the quality. If you look at the traditional top six here last season there was only a couple that beat them It’s always a difficult place to come.
“I enjoy these type of atmospheres, so I was really looking forward to it but we could’ve made it easier if we don’t give them those set pieces, then you give them the boost and the feeling and the drive with the fans behind them but we managed to get the three points and move on.”
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