Liverpool provide a convincing flourish at last to history’s most fraudulent unbeaten run | OneFootball

That was far more like it from Liverpool.

For a club on a deeply fraudulent unbeaten run laced with daft draws and unconvincing, unnecessarily stressful wins against idiot teams, Liverpool can leave the south of France feeling far more sure of themselves.

The formalities first: a 3-0 win here with Qarabag to follow at Anfield on mad matchday eight leaves a top-eight finish now firmly in Liverpool’s hands.

Any win on the final day will now be enough. That’s significant enough after victory over a very capable and confident Marseille side.

But this was a night where, for once in Liverpool’s recent run, performance and result were equally impressive.

Marseille were disappointing, given what they’ve been up to this season. There was evidence of their quality, but it came only in glimpses and flashes. Mason Greenwood had 10 highlight-reel minutes at the start of each half, but was otherwise subdued by a rock-solid Liverpool defensive effort.

The obvious apart, Marseille even in this only sporadically effective guise, are tremendous fun to watch. It is almost impossible to pin down what formation they’re actually playing.

At times it looks like an orthodox back four, but then you realise Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has popped himself in there. At times when Liverpool camped in the Marseille half it was a flat back six as the wing-backs joined the centre-backs and Hojbjerg.

Most of the time it looks like a back three, but even then you suddenly find yourself realising Benjamin Pavard is the furthest Marseille player forward trying to get on the end of counter-attacks and crosses.

And there’s similar fluidity about the attacking patterns. Roberto De Zerbi has, inevitably given his achievements in France and the sheer number of jobs definitely or potentially up for grabs, been strongly linked with a return to the Premier League sometime soon.

On the evidence of this effort, it would certainly be fun to see what sort of licence he might permit the need-no-second-invitation likes of Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven at Spurs.

Hard, though, to shake the notion that ultimately Marseille simply got played here. Too often their interchangeability becomes too clever for its own good. It played a part in all three Liverpool goals.

The first came late in the first half and was a mess for the home side. They were pulled and stretched until not only was the actual defensive shape open to doubt but who was even supposed to be in which position. As players shuffled to and fro, Liverpool might have won a penalty and then did win a free-kick in what is now very much Dominik Szoboszlai Territory.

Marseille are not the first team we’ve seen with a fluid and open interpretation to basic defensive or attacking shapes; they might, though, be the first to extend that to the construction of defensive walls.

We’ve never been entirely sold on the draught excluder, given it takes a player completely out of the game by placing them on the actual floor, but the risk of shunning one was clear here as Szoboszlai gratefully rolled the free-kick under the jumping and disintegrating wall into the bottom wall.

But on replay it was worse still; there was, clearly, absolutely nothing wrong with the option Szoboszlai chose, but he had others with vast gaps appearing between each defender as they leapt and turned their backs.

It was no more than Liverpool deserved at the time, and you could say very much the same about the final score in a hostile atmosphere on a windswept evening.

The second goal again owed much to a loss of shape from Marseille, exploited by Jeremie Frimpong whose low cross was diverted into his own net by Geronimo Rulli.

By this point De Zerbi had chucked on all his attacking options from the bench – including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and allowed the game to become comically open. Marseille got their own half-chances out of it, but the clearer ones always fell Liverpool’s way.

Hugo Ekitike had a fine game without getting the goal his performance merited. He had one chalked off by VAR for a straightforward offside (although it would have counted in Wengerball) and hit the bar after being expertly sent through in the second half by Szoboszlai.

The third goal came in the last moments of the game, Cody Gakpo finishing another slick counter-attack to leave Liverpool in the box seat to avoid the faff of a play-off and, they’ll hope, come out slightly luckier in the last-16 bracket than they did 12 months ago.

If there was one disappointment on a largely exemplary night it was, again, Florian Wirtz. In a game marked by the high tempo at which it was played he was a conspicuously ponderous presence, most notably when taking an eternity he simply never had to try and get a shot away after being beautifully played in by Ekitike.

The flipside would be just how good Milos Kerkez was in what was a busy and potentially discombobulating night against Marseille’s free-form attack. Greenwood operated predominantly from Kerkez’s flank and got no change at all on what might well be the former Bournemouth man’s best display for his new club.

For Marseille, the very real risk now of elimination after a fourth defeat in their seven games. The nine points they have now almost certainly won’t be enough to keep them above the 24th-place cutline, and Club Brugge away is no easy final-day task. Especially with the Belgian side having it all to play for themselves and knowing only a win will do.