Gravenberch takes his chance as flat Liverpool do the necessary after a busy week of nonsense

After a great performance for no reward at the weekend, it was a stodgy performance for maximum reward against Union SG for Liverpool.

If you ever required proof that results trump performances, you could do worse than consider Liverpool’s week.

It’s been quite a busy one, all told, but after a performance at Spurs that was in turn brilliant, battling, heroic and ultimately, cruelly, forlorn came a performance notable chiefly for its near total absence of anything at all but which in the end produced a 2-0 win to leave Liverpool sitting very pretty indeed in their Europa League group.

We’re pretty confident which match will leave Jurgen Klopp in a happier mood.

There’s no real criticism of Liverpool here. They were, obviously, much better than a game Union St Gilloise in a match that mainly resembled a larger boy holding a bustling and keen yet much smaller child at arm’s length while their punches hit nothing but air.

Nights like this often occur when ‘Champions League teams’ find themselves in the Europa by mistake. Liverpool may very well win this competition because they’re the best team in it now and will most likely remain so when the Champions League dropouts arrive in the new year. Come the knockout stages, some classic European Nights At Anfield are very much in the offing. But first, we must all get through the slog of this group stage.

And on that basis, this constitutes a job satisfactorily if not quite flawlessly done. No yellow cards, no injuries, and only the most fleeting of alarm.

It always felt like if Union SG did anything so daft as conjure an unlikely equaliser in the lengthy time the game spent at 1-0 to the Reds then Liverpool would simply go through the gears and win the game anyway. Only as the clock ticked down and the second goal Liverpool wanted proved elusive did there appear any jeopardy as the risk grew that there might simply not be time left for said gear shifts to occur.

It never really looked like happening, but it couldn’t be entirely ruled out because Union SG were certainly willing to have a go even if the quality just wasn’t quite there. Diogo Jota’s late second goal was certainly one to generate a conspicuous sigh of relief.

The temptation is obviously there to link a slightly flat overall performance to the fallout from Saturday’s defeat at Tottenham, but it’s almost certainly a red herring. Europa nights are just very often like this. Liverpool’s team was still a strong one, but there were nevertheless nine changes from Saturday. It was never likely to showcase Liverpool at their slick best.

There were still positives to be found beyond the victory and welcome lack of messy drama. Jarell Quansah will have more taxing nights in his career but he was again disarmingly assured for a 20-year-old centre-back and almost absurdly comfortable in possession. The class there is obvious.

Most encouraging of all, though, was the performance of Ryan Gravenberch. He was not the most high-profile arrival at Anfield this summer, but his late and relatively cheap arrival from Bayern Munich may prove one of the most significant moves made by anyone. With Wataru Endo looking – let’s face it predictably – just a tad short of the quality required, Gravenberch’s importance only increases.

He was the best player on the pitch tonight and it’s probably no coincidence that when Klopp withdrew him with around 10 minutes left he was willing to take no chances: on in his place came Dominic Szoboszlai.

There is little point judging Gravenberch on his Bayern Munich struggles. Plenty of players have failed to adapt to that first mega move out of their comfort zone. The worry with Gravenberch was that in joining Liverpool he was simply moving from one goldfish bowl to another. There are few clubs where players face scrutiny like they do at Bayern, but Liverpool is one of them. Those fears at the very least already appear unfounded, and if as appears likely Liverpool have got the Ajax version of Gravenberch for under £40m they’ve had an absolute result.

His first goal for the club appeared straightforward enough but also served as a microcosm of his performance in general. He was the one player alert and alive to what was going on, the player who sensed that Trent Alexander-Arnold’s scudding low shot was no certainty to be gathered cleanly by the keeper. And unlike Darwin Nunez – who also missed a sitter after being teed up by Mo Salah – Gravenberch had also had the wherewithal to keep himself onside when completing his tap-in.

Darwin’s early and carelessly offside goal did at least give everyone the chance to get all their banters out of their system before they exploded, so bless him for that.

Klopp and Liverpool will be in no hurry to replay this game, but it would be no surprise if we see something broadly similar when Toulouse and LASK make their trips to Anfield and probably with similar results in the end. This is Europa heritage.