There are obviously two ways of looking at Liverpool's 3-2 victory over Atletico Madrid at Anfield on Wednesday evening. On the plus side, they scored another late winner. On the negative side, they needed another late winner.
Just three days beforehand, Liverpool had beaten Burnley 1-0 thanks to an injury-time penalty from Mohamed Salah. In doing so, they became the first team in Premier League history to win four consecutive matches with goals scored in the last 10 minutes – or later.
Consequently, there was an air of inevitability about the way in which Liverpool kicked off their Champions League campaign, with Virgil van Dijk deciding the game in the home side's favour with a 92nd-minute header.
Anfield unsurprisingly went wild – for the third time this season – but plenty of pundits were far less impressed by Liverpool's latest late show. "You want this to happen," former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink said on , "but when this happens five times in a row, that's a problem."
Is it really, though? Are Liverpool's last-gasp heroics papering over the cracks in Arne Slot's expensively assembled side? Or are the Dutchman's 'Mentality Monsters' showing signs of becoming an even more frightening foe?
Getty Images Sport'It should have been a more comfortable night'
Andy Robertson is always a good man for a frank assessment of a Liverpool performance and he openly admitted after the Atletico game that the players should have spared their supporters – and coaches – yet another stressful finale.
"We need to maybe get back to winning a bit simpler and a bit easier," the Scott told , alluding to the fact that the Reds had thrown away a 2-0 lead for the third time this season.
"The assistant manager (Spike Hulshoff) turned to me when Virgil scored and said he's getting too old for it, so I can't imagine what the fans are like!
"Obviously, it's a great thing to have, being able to keep going right to the end, but when you’re two up and you've played so well in the first half, it should have been a more comfortable night."
Unsurprisingly, that was a sentiment shared by Slot, who turned 47 on Wednesday and is already hoping that his next birthday will be a less nerve-racking affair.
AdvertisementAFPSlot 'a little disappointed' by late winner
However, Slot was rightly keen to draw a distinction between the nature of the last-gasp victory over Atletico and the games that preceded it. Despite all of the claims to the contrary, there had been nothing fortunate about their triumph over Diego Simeone's side.
Atleti's xG was 0.61 (Liverpool's was 2.72), they created one 'Big Chance', in the dying seconds of the game for Alexander Sorloth, Marcos Llorente's first goal never should have stood, while his second took a wicked deflection off Alexis Mac Allister.
As a result, Slot confessed to feeling "a little disappointed" that Liverpool scored right at the death because it overshadowed what had gone before.
"I know that's going to be your headline and it's great to score a late winner," the Dutchman told reporters in his post-match press conference. "But I would have liked it more if we were saying, 'Did you see the few attacks we had before half-time when Florian [Wirtz] and Alex combined together, which led to almost Jeremie [Frimpong] scoring, or second half a great attack with Dominik and Flo and Mo that ended up on the post?'
"I can come up with so many great attacks we had today but probably no-one is talking about that. Everybody will probably talk again about the late game winner, which I understand because that is the story of this game and the story of the last five games.
"But, for me, it was a different game than the ones we have played before. It is not for the first time that we give away a 2-0 lead as well, but was different to the one we gave away against Bournemouth because this one had nothing to do with counter-attacks.
"So, yes, there is a lot to improve but there is a lot to like as well."
Slot is right, too, because Liverpool unquestionably played their best football of the season during the Atleti clash.
Getty Images SportSalah back to his best
The first six minutes were obviously sensational, with Robertson unintentionally diverting a Mohamed Salah free-kick past Jan Oblak before Liverpool's Egyptian king produced a characteristically composed finish after a couple of deft touches saw him escape the clutches of a pair of opponents.
Salah didn't stop there either. Despite being directly involved in three goals in his first four Premier League outings of the new season, Salah's form had become a cause for concern. He was struggling to get himself involved in games and even when the ball did come his way, he was miscontrolling passes that he normally would have killed instantly.
Against Atletico, though, nearly everything stuck – no matter how much pressure he was under – and, for the first time this season, he was a constant threat from start to finish.
Should he have scored a second goal after being teed up by Florian Wirtz? Absolutely, but the main thing was that Salah looked like his usual sensational self after four rather subdued showings.
The spotlight may have been fixed firmly on Alexander Isak before the game – but Liverpool's talisman had a goal and his assist to his name before the Swedish striker had even touched the ball.
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Getty Images Sport'Positively surprised' by Isak
Of course, the common consensus was that Isak would take time to get back up to speed, given this was his first start since last season due to his summer strike, so it was hardly surprising that the game rather passed him by during the early exchanges.
However, Isak's influence grew the longer the first half wore on and Slot, just like everyone else, was taken aback by the Swede's sharpness.
"I wasn't surprised by his quality because that's what we all know," the Reds boss said. "You don't have to be a manager to recognise how much quality he has.
"But I was positively surprised by how fit he was during that 60 minutes, even if that maybe tells you that it might be a difference to sign a 20-year-old from a different league or a 25- or 26-year-old that is used to playing in this league.
"Although he only trained for two weeks, he has so many games under his belt that he is probably more able to be ready for 60 than you would expect."
Perhaps even more pleasingly for Slot, Isak already looks to be operating on the same wavelength as Wirtz – with the pair linking up 11 times during Liverpool's Champions League opener.