Former Premier League referee Howard Webb has revealed in his book The Man in the Middle how to beat Liverpool.
If you ever thought Webb had it in for Liverpool, it’s now confirmed. It always seemed that the ref had a thing for frustrating Reds’ supporters with dubious decisions that rarely benefitted the Merseyside club.
In his book The Man in the Middle, Webb says that the trick to beating Liverpool lies in winning the coin toss. If won, the visiting side should opt to have the Reds attack the Kop in the first half.
There is no secret that the famous stand has a massive impact on the way Liverpool plays and Webb believes that sides should try and take initiative and remove the inspiration that the people on the Kop have on the players on the pitch.
Webb wrote, “The laws state that the winner of the coin toss chooses the direction of play, while the loser gets to kick off.
“Even so, the number of skippers who’d call heads correctly and persist in saying ‘Can we kick off instead?’ was incredible.
“Some players failed to understand the implications of the choice of ends, too.
“Put it this way, if I’d been a visiting captain who’d won the toss at Anfield, I’d have forced Liverpool to kick towards the away end in the second half rather than have the Kop sucking in a last-minute goal.
“A fair few captains didn’t grasp this, though, or didn’t seem to give it much thought.”
What Webb doesn’t realise, however, is that with the enormous Main Stand now looming over the pitch, the away end isn’t as vacuous as it may have been before. Liverpool are unbeaten in their last 11 games in all competitions and are unbeaten in 18 games at Anfield stretching all the way back to a 1-0 loss against Manchester United in January.
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