Slot won’t survive Ngumoha negligence vs Chelsea as Liverpool sack in the post | OneFootball

It’s not often that the result of a game and the winner of the man of the match award are decided within the first six minutes. That should absolutely have been the case at Anfield. If that doesn’t come to pass, Arne Slot should be sent packing.

“It’s a great strike but it’s all about the first touch,” Ally McCoist said on commentary, for some reason revering a touch from Ryan Gravenberch that we would suggest quite literally any professional football at any level could and would have taken to open up space for the shot.

At first glance it did indeed look like an excellent strike, but a front-on camera view of Filip Jorgensen’s goal and the second-choice goalkeeper’s attempt to save it told a different story. “It’s in the middle of the goal,” McCoist said.

It was Jorgensen’s first start since his awful blunder in the defeat to Paris Saint-Germain at the Parcs des Princes which triggered the horror run Chelsea are on.

It’s incredible to think now that Chelsea were drawing 2-2 with the Champions League finalists in the 74th minute of that game less than two months ago and were arguably the better team before Jorgensen’s errant pass.

Including what turned into a 5-2 defeat on the night, Chelsea have lost eight of their ten games since in all competitions, conceding 20 goals and scoring nine, with seven of those coming against a Port Vale side that’s just been relegated to League Two. And it’s all Jorgensen’s fault.

His footwork was terrible, hopping at precisely the wrong time, so that he was in the air before his dive as Gravenberch’s shot was halfway through it’s trajectory, meaning the ball didn’t need to be anywhere near the top corner to evade his outstretched hand.

Malo Gusto was equally to blame for failing to get anywhere near Gravenberch to give the Liverpool star plenty of time to size up his target after the first touch. The Chelsea right-back was attracted by the threat of Rio Ngumoha; not unreasonably in normal circumstances, not not when there are already two players on the Reds teenager.

“I love watching him,” McCoist said after Ngumoha wriggled away from two Chelsea players to retain possession on the edge of his own box. “I can’t get enough it; they’ve got to get the ball to him whenever they can.”

Gusto couldn’t cope with the 17-year-old, who had already gone past him once before setting Gravenberch up. And when that goal went in it felt as though the result was already decided given Chelsea’s recent penchant for capitulation, and the man of the match award winner also determined as it should have been very clear to the Liverpool players and Slot that Ngumoha should be given the ball at any given opportunity to continue putting the willies up his opposite number.

But Chelsea came right back into the game and may well feel frustrated not to have been ahead at half-time after Wesley Fofana got the slightest of touches on an Enzo Fernandez free-kick to draw the Blues level.

The Anfield groans began and continued after Liverpool lost control, as Marc Cucurella had the run of the left side and Cole Palmer was being played back into form thanks to the oceans of space he found behind the Reds’ part-time midfield.

Liverpool and Ngumoha had Chelsea on toast after six minutes, and a game which ends without the teenager as man of the match, and thus victory for the Reds, should be the end for Slot.