There was a significant moment on Wednesday night for observers of the styling, the optics, the physical theatre of Liverpool FC during the Jürgen Klopp years. With 83 minutes gone at Anfield and Newcastle’s players maintaining a fine pitch of drilled defensive aggression – plus, of course, some equally fine-drilled defensive time‑wasting – Kostas Tsimikas, Fabinho and Harvey Elliott produced a three-man blitz on the left side of the Liverpool midfield, nipping and snapping at Joe Willock’s heels and drawing a free‑kick 40 yards from goal.
And there it was at last: the Anfield face, the Klopp sweats, the red rictus – sweat-drenched, fretful, boggle-eyed, peering out at the world from some mind-bending lactic acid trip. A little late perhaps. But undeniably present as Willock turned to protest to the referee, to take a moment of respite in the middle of a first really sustained spell of familiar red-shirted condenser-football.
