JUST A CRAZY, CRAZY NIGHT!

It’s raining goals at Brentford as Wissa strikes to deny Liverpool

THERE was a moment during the madness of this helter-skelter ride when Thomas Frank looked to his right and caught Jurgen Klopp’s glance.

In the preceding 20 seconds, deep into injury time, Brentford had a chance to win but so, too, had Liverpool, as a breathless game swung from one end to the other. Frank raised his eyebrows to Klopp, who in turn puffed out his cheeks. Both men then immediately started smiling.

How appropriate. We could focus on the madcap nature of some of Liverpool’s defending but to do so would be a huge disservice to Brentford — who have been a Premier League team for six games but play with the belief of team that has been here six years – and their canny head coach.

This was a wild evening, full of goals — six of them, to be accurate — drama and entertainment. Both sides could have won it, neither side deserved to lose it and the mutual respect on display as Hey Jude boomed out from the speakers at the end was obvious.

‘I’m crazy, crazy pleased,’ said Frank, and he had every right to be.

Here was an old-fashioned dustup: you attack, we’ll attack and let’s see what happens at the end. Whether they would want to sit through this every week is another matter but Klopp’s appraisal that it was ‘a wild ride’ was spot on.

Everything seemed to start so smoothly for Liverpool. They should have had the lead in the eighth minute — and Mohamed Salah thought he had reached another landmark — after Diogo Jota’s quick thinking sent the Egyptian scuttling into Brentford’s area. Salah’s touch was a little heavy but he still managed to poke his effort beyond David Raya but Kristoffer Ajer was alert to the impending peril and ensured he ended up in the back of the net, rather than the ball, as he cleared off the line.

Initially it felt as if this would be a long evening for Brentford but their response was excellent, full of energy and intensity. It’s a long time since Virgil van Dijk has been taken out of his comfort zone but that’s exactly what Ivan Toney did to him, jumping for headers like he was on springs.

Toney was fantastic. Much more of this and you will see his name being mentioned in dispatches with England; everything Brentford did went through him and the only thing missing from his performance was a goal.

Within two minutes, Brentford had seen an effort of their own kicked away from under the posts — Bryan Mbuemo thought he had scored when he deftly clipped a shot over Alisson Becker but Joel Matip did what Ajer had done and turned the effort away.

Eventually Brentford got their reward. A well-worked set piece sprung Liverpool’s offside trap and culminated with Sergi Canos cutting back from the byline; Toney helped it on with a back heel and awaiting at the back post was Ethan Pinnock to gleefully convert from four yards.

As the home fans erupted, you expected Klopp to do the same but there were no such measures. He grimaced and shook his head, clasping his baseball cap. There could be no arguments — Brentford absolutely deserved their lead and Liverpool’s manager knew it.

‘We had massive belief that we could get something from this game,’ said Frank. ‘We knew it would be tough but we gave it everything.’

It would have been interesting to see how things would have turned out had Brentford managed to hold their lead but Liverpool struck back quickly, a break in the 31st minute seeing Salah usher Jordan Henderson forward; the captain’s cross was perfect and Jota did the rest with a bullet header. Parity restored some calm and the only reason Liverpool failed to lead at the interval was down to a quite magnificent save from Raya, who flung himself in the way of a Jota effort after a strike from Curtis Jones had thudded against the post.

Liverpool started the second period in a similarly convincing fashion and Salah’s landmark moment eventually — 100 league goals for the club, the third quickest man to reach that figure — arrived in the 54th minute, when he timed his run onto Fabinho’s pass impeccably and finished, instinctively, first time. It was given after VAR confirmed he was onside.

Job done? Not a bit of it. Back roared Brentford, who levelled again Vitaly Janelt pounced on the rebound after Pontus Jansson had rattled the crossbar — 63 minutes had gone at that point and you knew the scoring hadn’t finished.

So it proved. Liverpool went next, with the excellent Jones fizzing a 20-yard drive past Raya. Salah should have wrapped things up moments later but lofted a chance over the bar.

‘I know Mo,’ said Klopp. ‘He will be thinking about the two he missed rather than the one he scored.’

It proved costly as more chaos in the visiting defence enabled substitute Yoane Wissa to level again.

Still the drama wasn’t over. Van Dijk made an incredible tackle to stop Toney in his tracks when he was through, Raya made another magnificent save from another substitute, Roberto Firmino. It was bedlam but it was beautiful.

The embrace Frank and Klopp shared at the end suggested they knew it too.

BRENTFORD (3-5-2): Raya 8.5; Ajer 7, Jansson 7, Pinnock 7 (Zanka 43min, 6); Canos 7, Onyeka 6.5 (Baptiste 68, 6), Norgaard 7 (Wissa 78), Janelt 7.5, Henry 7; Toney 8, Mbeumo 8. Booked: Onyeka. Subs (not used): Fernandez, Jensen, Forss, Wissa, Ghoddos, Bidstrup, Roerslev.

LIVERPOOL (4-3-3): Alisson 6; Alexander-Arnold 6, Matip 6, Van Dijk 6.5, Robertson 6; Henderson 7, Fabinho 7, Jones 7.5 (Firmino 68, 6); Salah 8, Jota, Mane. Booked: Robertson. Subs (not used): Kelleher, Konate, Milner, Firmino, Gomez, OxladeChamberlain, Minamino, Tsimikas, Origi.

Referee: S Attwell (Warwickshire) 7.