Maybe Arne Slot knew it was coming. Maybe he has already grown used to that feeling of dread and inevitability when his Liverpool team are placed under real pressure.
Maybe he knew it when, with his team clinging to a 3-2 lead, the assistant referee signalled nine minutes of added time. Maybe he knew it when Leeds won successive corners with three of those nine minutes remaining.
Certainly when he saw his goalkeeper Alisson Becker half come for the ball and then change his mind, Slot must have suspected his house of cards was about to fall once again.
So when Leeds substitute Ao Tanaka reacted to Alisson’s hesitancy to crash home a dropping ball for the equalising goal, Liverpool’s beleaguered manager was probably the least surprised man in this part of West Yorkshire.
This is Slot’s world right now. This is his team. And until they find a way to do the basic things better, Slot will continue to edge closer to that unthinkable position of a manager sacked just months after winning a Premier League title.
It can happen. It shouldn’t – certainly not yet – but it can. Slot will know this and he will take his team to Milan in the Champions League this coming week knowing that something fundamental must change soon.
Twice it seemed as though Liverpool had won this game. First when Hugo Ekitike scored twice in the opening five minutes of the second half to put distance between his team and a Leeds side that at that stage had not registered a shot on target.
Then again when – after Leeds had scored two quick goals of their own – Dominik Szoboszlai ran through to make it 3-2 with just ten minutes of regulation time to play. At that stage Liverpool did look as they would edge this and had they done so we would have been able to talk about character and grit and determination. Liverpool would also have just been a point outside the Champions League places.
But the margins are desperately tight for Liverpool right now and they keep falling the wrong side of them. Slot is at least able to say his team are three games unbeaten following on from the horrors of home defeats to Nottingham Forest and PSV. But a win at West Ham has been followed by draws with two promoted teams – Sunderland and Leeds – and that is not approaching good enough given the heights scaled last season.
Leeds manager Daniel Farke deserves credit for making smart substitutions. He didn’t sit on his hands when his team needed something new and was rewarded. This draw came on the back of the midweek win over Chelsea and Leeds have now scored six times against two of the really big dogs of the top division. Farke must be doing something right.
Early on his team clearly sensed that Liverpool were vulnerable and, doubtless aware of their opponents’ dismal record when falling behind in the Premier League this season, were on the front foot early on. Indeed, they had three efforts on goal in the first five minutes.
Liverpool were unsure of themselves in the face of Leeds’ energy and intent. A failure by the Liverpool back four to clear their lines aerially allowed Noah Okafor to shoot a foot wide across goal in the 2nd minute. Then, when a corner was cleared to the edge of the penalty area, Gabriel Gudmundsson volleyed just over. Soon after that it was a throw-in that bothered Slot’s team and Okafor was able to shoot again and this time his effort from 12 yards skewed wide from a Liverpool challenge.
The defending champions were not exactly rocking but they were certainly uncomfortable. Only over time did Liverpool managed to find the possession that managed to settle the game down a little bit. It started with some counter attacks led by Cody Gakpo and Ekitike down the channels and supplemented by some busy work from Florian Witz in behind. Then, over time, spells of possession started to build.
A curling Curtis Jones shot that struck the bar from 22 yards was indicative of Liverpool’s growing threat in the 17th minute. Ten minutes later, meanwhile, Virgil van Dijk eased forwards to meet a Szoboszlai free-kick and head narrowly over.
Encouragingly for Liverpool, they were able to stretch Leeds when they came forwards. Jayden Bogle and Gudmundsson were both booked for fouls on breaking opponents. What was less impressive was the manner in which they wasted good positions with poor final passes and decisions.
A great example of this came just after the half hour when a superb Milos Kerkez tackle won the ball in his own half and set Gakpo away. The Dutch forward moved forwards in to a dangerous position down the left but when the moment came to deliver the killer pass, he delivered a cross so overhit that it almost exited the field over on the far side.
He did rather better just before half-time when he ran from his own half down the left on to a pass and drove in a shot that may well have gone in had it not struck Joe Rodon on the thigh and deflected behind for a corner that came to nothing.
Leeds were by no means absent as an attacking threat during this time. Indeed they finished the half strongly. Tellingly, though, neither goalkeeper had been asked to make a save during the opening 45 minutes of the game.
That soon changed and when asked the question Leeds goalkeeper Lucas Perri didn’t have the answers. Not that it was his fault. Twice in the first five minutes of the second half Leeds defenders coughed up the ball and twice Ekitike scored.
Rodon was first to err in the 47th minute as a pass across goal served only to play the Liverpool striker clear on goal. Ekitike still had much to do as a defender was arriving on the cover, but he finished well low to the goalkeeper’s right and into the corner.
It was a gift but still it had to be taken. Then Leeds coughed up the ball again – this time on Liverpool’s right side – and when Conor Bradley crossed beautifully, Ekitike beat Perri on the stretch and nudged the ball slowly in to the goal from six yards.
Leeds fans wanted a foul but it was all a bit wishful. Ekitike and Perri had collided but contact had come after the ball had been played.
Suddenly Liverpool were ahead and comfortable and for a while it remained like that. Gakpo worked Perri with a curler as the team from Merseyside dominated.
But a Leeds substitute injected some life into the home team with 20 minutes to go and what happened next changed the whole feel of the game. Wilfried Gnonto seemed second favourite to reach a ball played to the byline in the 70th minute but he cleverly tempted Ibrahima Konate in to a challenge and when referee Anthony Taylor was asked to take a look at the VAR monitor he correctly awarded a penalty that Dominic Calvert-Lewin stuck away.
With Elland Road alive and energised, Leeds suddenly washed over Liverpool like a white wave. The home team attacked down the left within two minutes and when another substitute Brenden Aaronson fed Anton Stach in the penalty area, he cut on to his right foot to smash a shot past Alisson from 12 yards. The strike came through red shirts and replays showed that one of Van Dijk or Konate really should have blocked it.
Van Dijk almost made amends within minute as his header from a free-kick was pawed away by Perri. But then Liverpool gathered themselves to score a fabulous goal as Ryan Gravenberch played a pass that was dummied by substitute Alexis MacAllister and allowed to run through to Szoboszlai who scored across Perri with his right foot.
With ten minutes left, only a dummy would have placed money on no further scoring. It really had been that kind of second half, a period of back and forth football that would have done wonders for Liverpool’s belief – and indeed league standing – if they had managed to come out on top of it.
Almost inevitably, they wilted one final time. A successive corner in the sixth of nine added minutes was drilled to the far post where Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson really should have risen to collect. Instead the Brazilian got stuck in no man’s land and when the ball fell to Tanaka, he drilled it in.
