They’ve been getting away with the worst tackles in the league for years. They’ve always been a gang of butchers. Every single Liverpool team I’ve seen in my lifetime has been one of the dirtiest in the league, it’s in their club’s DNA, they’ve always been uber physical and extremely dirty because they know they are the establishment clubs and won’t get punished.
Andy Robertson’s highlight reel alone is appalling and he’s not been called on any of them. He’s pushed three players into the stands as the balls ran out of play, he hit Davies on the floor, his assault on the Spurs fullback was disgraceful, yet he’s never called on it. Same with Van Dijk, goes around throwing body slams around for no reason just to try and injure opponents (he got his comeuppance). Half of it is for show for the fans in the stadium, a nothing ball over the top that the attacker has given up on and Van Dijk still slams him to the surface for a ball going out of play that he was favourite to win anyway. Alexander Arnold is more snide but in the previous Anfield derby he had three red card challenges alone in one game that went unpunished. Mane has had numerous forearm smashes that have gone completely unpunished.
Never buy their disgraceful propaganda. There was a reason we were called the school of science rather than them. They earned themselves a reputation for being butchers in Dixie Dean’s day. They kept that going through Souness and Case, right through to yard dogs like Mascherano Carragher Gerrard, and now the current batch. They’ve always been hatchet men who have looked to physically batter a team first before then trying to play. They’ve also benefitted from knowing they can get penalties at any point so most games they know they have the advantage of booting the opposition round the pitch safe in the knowledge it won’t come back on them.
Van Dijk got what generations of Liverpool players have had coming to them. It was only a matter of time before someone gave it back, the fact it was accidental is neither here nor there. Van Dijk set out to put James out of the derby and Henderson tried similar at Anfield. Maybe they’ll start to see what the common denominator here is of players deliberately setting out to injure players ending up leaving the field themselves injured.
