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Men’s Football Mighty Mitro shocks Reds with opening day brace

Fulham 2-2 Liverpool
by Gene Sylvester
at Craven Cottage

MANY had looked at Liverpool’s opening day fixture as an easy three points, but Marco Silva’s team were not here to play cannon fodder to last season’s quadruple chasers.

Fulham made this an extremely uncomfortable afternoon for the Merseysiders and got their just rewards as they held them to an opening day 2-2 draw courtesy of a brace from fan favourite Aleksandar Mitrovic at Craven Cottage.

Fulham’s number 9 gave Liverpool’s back four a torrid afternoon, dismissing suggestions that he was not as effective as a Premier League striker, following a couple of lean goalscoring spells in previous Premier League seasons with the club, a view that his manager does not share.

“It’s not important for what people say about Mitri. For me it’s important what I see when I work with him. If we keep providing chances for him in the box, he will score” the Fulham boss explained.

The first 30 minutes of the game saw Fulham enjoy a spell of dominance that had Liverpool camped in their own half, so it was no surprise when Fulham took the lead after 32 minutes.

It was a well-worked move with Kenny Tete’s overlapping run down the right being found by Neeskens Kebano, and the Dutch right-back’s post cross was meat and drink for Mitrovic, who out jumped Alexander-Arnold to nod high into the Liverpool net past Alisson’s outstretched arms.

The 54th minute of the match saw summer signing Darwin Nunez introduced to the game in place of the ineffective Roberto Firmino and the Uruguayan’s introduction brought swift dividends.

Mohamed Salah found some rare space down the right-hand side a crossed early into the box where Nunez was just able to beat Tosin Adarabioyo to the ball, with an audacious flick that ended up in the back of the net, via what seemed like a double ricochet off the Fulham defender’s toe.

Mitrovic’s second goal to put the Cottagers ahead came courtesy of a penalty, following a run by the Serbian himself that seemingly was brought to an abrupt halt by the outstretched leg of Virgil Van Dijk.

Despite the fact that replays did not seem to show any conclusive contact, VAR ruled that the penalty should stand and Mitrovic dispatched his penalty cooly into the bottom right hand corner of the net, despite Allison guessing the right way.

But Silva’s troops were not able to hold on for what would have been a dream start to life back in the Premier League, with Salah equalising for the Reds on 80 minutes, following a cross from Alexander-Arnold.

The ball landed at Nunez’s feet and the Uruguayan unintentionally delivered it into Salah’s path a couple of yards away, who then prodded the ball past Marek Rodak in Fulham’s goal to claim his customary opening day goal — making it six consecutive seasons of scoring on the opening day.

Klopp’s frustration at the end of the game seemed to be more related to his team’s performance than the result.

“The performance felt like a defeat even though we drew,” Stated the Reds boss. “I would have loved to get three points but would love it even more to play good. Its my responsibility  to see how we improve on that.”

Silva on the other hand rued the fact that his team didn’t come away with more.

“I think we deserved more than a draw. Our great first half, our organisation in the first half was the most perfect.”

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