Liverpool may have suffered a 1-0 defeat to Leicester City yesterday, but during his analysis of the game, Thierry Henry was impressed by one piece of action from Joel Matip, as he told Amazon Prime.
Just after Mo Salah saw his penalty saved, Matip blocked a near-certain Jamie Vardy shot from hitting the back of Liverpool’s net and Henry praised the defender for his ‘comeback’ and having the back of his teammate, Konstantinos Tsimikas.
Leicester defender Timothy Castagne played a lovely one-two with Vardy, who then got across Tsimikas and the Liverpool left-back was in all sorts of bother.
But the defensively-aware Matip read the situation very well and stopped Vardy from scoring yet another goal against Liverpool by putting his massive frame on the line.
All in all, it’s something that’s not going to mean too much to Matip or the Reds supporters because they lost, but Henry did praise the player for his actions yesterday.
“They are stopping Liverpool from getting the ball on the inside,” said Henry.
“That then gives them a lot of space on the outside, as you can imagine.
“It was a great one-two here (from Vardy) with Castagne. Then he put his body across, then Matip, wow, I am talking about him putting his body across Tsmiskas to make sure it gets stopped. What a comeback from Matip.”
All in all, it was an evening to forget for Liverpool, who will be kicking themselves that they didn’t open the scoring through Salah from the penalty spot.
But it’s pretty hard to be critical of this Liverpool forward line that has helped the club score 50 goals in their opening 18 league matches.
They have been ruthless when called upon and this was a game that their off-day didn’t result in them securing all three points.
It could be crucial because, both Manchester City and Chelsea, who play on Wednesday, might just rub salt into the wounds if they secure all three points in a few hours time.
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