Emre Can's sublime winner sees Liverpool take step closer to CL

But even the best players in the world rarely score goals like Emre Can’s winner here at Vicarage Road. It was a masterpiece of imagination, athleticism, but, above all, audacity. No words can do justice to the act itself but it was an overhead kick, on the run, on the turn, executed roughly five feet above the pitch.

There have been other great volleys in the Premier League this season, from Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Olivier Giroud and Andy Carroll. But this was the best of the lot, harder to pull off, less instinctive and more precise. It was the goal of this season, by a distance, and no other event or detail from this 90-minute match is worth getting too worried about.

While the goal was out of place in a game this bad, it did suit the stakes Liverpool were playing for. Because they needed to win this game, as they eventually did, to pull away from Manchester City and Manchester United, securing their hold on third place. And up against this muscular and unambitious Watford side, they did not look like they were going to break through.

The first 45 minutes of football, before Can’s goal, were awful. There is nothing to be said for them at all. The onus was on Liverpool to open up the game but they struggled to do anything. When Philippe Coutinho collided with Adrian Mariappa he hurt himself and tried to limp on but eventually Jurgen Klopp had to call a stop to it and take him off for Adam Lallana, back on the bench after five weeks out.

But Lallana’s introduction did little to change the game, at least at first. With Can and Lucas Leiva in midfield Liverpool were ponderous, strange as that may sound looking back, and they could not get anything going. Only when Lallana hit a volley out of nowhere onto the crossbar did they come anywhere near scoring, and that was out of nowhere.

At the end of the first half, Lucas Leiva jogged into the box and threw himself to the floor in the vicinity of Tom Cleverley. It was farcical, he was booked, and it felt like the perfect climax to a dismal half.

What immediately followed was the exact opposite, a goal that had absolutely nothing to do with everything that had come before. Lucas had the ball in midfield and chipped a forward pass into the box, to meet Can’s forward run. Just inside the box, Can turned his back to goal, jumped and overhead-kicked the ball into the top corner. He did not even chest or head the ball first to control it, meeting it on the pure volley. It was so audacious that no-one expected it, not the Watford players or anyone inside Vicarage Road. It was pure genius, just when we needed it the most.

There was no way the second half could ever produce anything to match that. Liverpool did at least play with the confidence and authority that comes with being 1-0 up, even if they were struggling to come to terms with how their goal actually came about.

But Klopp’s men did move the fall quicker and even created two regulation chances in open play, which looked like a total impossibility for most of the first half. Twice they got the ball through to Divock Origi, who had been isolated in the first half. But both times here he could only hit the ball straight at Heurelho Gomes.

Watford managed to put some pressure on after that and the only real saves Simon Mignolet had to make were from Etienne Capoue’s 20-yarder and Isaac Success’ disguised cross. There was plenty of defending to be done and it felt, in the third minute of stoppage time, as if they had done enough. When they failed to clear a long cross into the box, it fell to Sebastian Prodl and he tried a thumping volley. The ball hammered into the crossbar and flew away.

Ultimately, nothing Watford tried could come close allowing Liverpool to take another important step towards Champions League football.

Source: Independent

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