NORWICH, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 20, 2014: Liverpool's Glen Johnson celebrates his side's 3-2 victory over Norwich City with team-mate Luis Suarez during the Premiership match at Carrow Road. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Resilience. We go again! — How the world reacted to Norwich 2-3 Liverpool

If you’re the same as me, you probably feel you’ve aged 100 years during the last few Liverpool games.

NORWICH, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 20, 2014: Liverpool's Glen Johnson celebrates his side's 3-2 victory over Norwich City with team-mate Luis Suarez during the Premiership match at Carrow Road. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Glen Johnson celebrates his side’s 3-2 victory over Norwich City with team-mate Luis Suarez during the Premiership match at Carrow Road. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

This season is definitely testing both the heart and head, and Sunday’s 3-2 victory over Norwich City at Carrow Road was no different, with the Reds holding on for the important three points.

The Premier League title is so close now, you could almost touch it. Having said that, there’s also still a long way to go, a lot more heartbeats to jump and a lot more nerves to calm.

For the optimists out there, there is a scenario of results which could see Liverpool named champions just a few hours after Sunday’s clash at home to Chelsea. It would require Manchester City to drop points at home to West Brom on Monday night, Liverpool to beat Chelsea (Sunday, 2.05pm), and then City to slip up at Crystal Palace (Sunday 4.05pm).

If your head is full of mathematical equations based on the league table and possible outcomes of games, then we’re on the same wavelength. You may even have worked out that probability that Everton could win Liverpool the league with a result over Man City in the final week of the season.

But for now, let’s reflect on Liverpool’s 11th consecutive victory, starting with a look at the papers:

Newspapers

Henry Winter of The Telegraph went with the angle that Liverpool took inspiration from Steven Gerrard‘s leadership and the “We Go Again!” mantra as Norwich made hard work for the Reds:

They needed his [Gerrard’s] resilience here. Nobody said it would be easy for Liverpool. Nobody said it would be a procession, even with the wobbles of Chelsea and Manchester City in recent days. Norwich City, fighting for survival, were never going to be obliging hosts. Inspired by Robert Snodgrass and their raucous fans, Norwich made Liverpool sweat for the victory.

Similarly, Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail picks out Liverpool’s resolve as the key focus to Liverpool’s victory at Carrow Road:

Ignore Norwich City’s league position for a moment. This really was a test of Liverpool’s resolve. Coasting and two goals clear after 11 minutes, and then again at 3-1 up after 62 minutes, Liverpool were pegged back to a single-goal lead with 13 minutes remaining and Norwich throwing the kitchen sink at goal. They survived.
Winning by the odd goal in five, as Liverpool have done in their last two games, hardly makes for peaceful progress, but at least Brendan Rodgers knows his team have character.

The Guardian‘s Sachin Nakrani also goes with the test of character angle, and it’s a good job Liverpool passed it, considering their defence, he writes:

Viewed another way, it was the resilience which Liverpool showed that suggests more than anything that their title charge is not going to crash into a late hurdle. Their defending was not pretty on many occasions and coming up against a side who had failed to score in their previous three games, rather worrying, but they hung on, with the centre-backs Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho forced to clear a barrage of direct deliveries into their penalty area.

NORWICH, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 20, 2014: Liverpool's Luis Suarez celebrates scoring the second goal against Norwich City with team-mates Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho Correia during the Premiership match at Carrow Road. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Luis Suarez celebrates scoring the second goal against Norwich City with team-mates Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho during the Premier League match at Carrow Road. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

The CEOs at Twitter have probably had to order several hundred new servers off the back of Liverpool’s success this season, such is the virtual celebration happening post-match every weekend.

On Sunday, there was a lot of praise for the two goal scorers Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling, starting with the statisticians:

Finally, we leave with you with post-match celebrations of Liverpool owner John Henry‘s wife Linda Pizzuti and the players themselves. Make sure you let us know your thoughts on the game at Norwich and Liverpool’s title chances in the comments section below.

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