Out of the grind of a losing cause, Liverpool found a point. Out of the misery of a week from hell, Luis Diaz was the man who made it happen. Marvellous. Just marvellous.
It wasn’t a pretty header, it wasn’t a great performance and it wasn’t a result that will look especially good on the wider canvas of a giant’s season.
But to see something go so right for Diaz after the incalculable trauma he has endured across the past eight days was really quite brilliant. Desperately trivial in the context of his father’s abduction in Columbia, but desperately nice for the same reason.
If we are to go over the nuts and bolts of it, to reflect on how the sporting and human stories folded into one another, you will note that Diaz’s moment played out at the stage of greatest tension in the match.
Liverpool had dominated, utterly so, and then with 80 minutes played and countless Darwin Nunez chances missed or saved, they trailed to Tahith Chong’s counter-punch.
Luis Diaz (left) came off the bench to salvage a draw for Liverpool after rising highest at the back-post in stoppage time
Diaz displayed a shirt after scoring that revealed a message for his father to be released after being kidnapped
The Colombian’s late strike sealed an important draw for Liverpool on Sunday evening
That is when Jurgen Klopp, in his desperation, called Diaz off the bench, having granted him compassionate leave for the past two games. He hadn’t been up to those; he was up for this and his chance came in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
Harvey Elliott had floated a ball to the far post, Diaz threw himself into the air, above Issa Kabore, and somehow contrived to half-head and half-shoulder the ball past Thomas Kaminski. For a second, he seemed unsure how to react, how to juggle the wild feelings of it all, but then he lifted his shirt to share a message: ‘Libertad para papa.’
Freedom for dad. Let’s hope so.
When the game was up, his first hug was from Luton’s captain Tom Lockyer, and we should consider the opposition position in all this, because it was so nearly their story.
From a sporting perspective, it still is – a draw against Liverpool is a stunning result for a promoted side that is a conspicuous and welcome outsider in the fashion parade of this division.
So it was a cracking outcome, and yet it was also brilliantly close to being a win in the face of giving up 74 per cent of possession to their visitors and 24 of the 32 shots across the match.
On another day, Luton might have either held on to win or incurred an absolute hiding. But it was a fine point hard earned and well deserved by Rob Edwards’ side, and especially his goalkeeper Kaminski, who made a number of superb saves from Nunez. He excelled and his team defended magnificently.
For Liverpool and Klopp, a defeat would have been galling and a draw in these circumstances will be uplifting. But it wasn’t really a good performance – just a good ending. They built up pressure well, they controlled possession and territory, and they gave up only the smallest handful of opportunities. But their inability to finish their moves and their susceptibility to Luton’s speed on the wings will be a concern of sorts.
Tahith Chong initially put Luton ahead after latching onto a cross played deep into Liverpool’s box
Chong met a cross from close-range to give Luton a late lead at Kenilworth Road
Klopp watched on as his side struggled to break down Luton’s defence for large parts of the match
Of those shortcomings, we should focus a little on Nunez and his insatiable appetite to shoot from the hip. Having sampled a taste for the spectacular with his midweek strike against Bournemouth, his every touch here was a mission to replicate. In the opening half alone, he went for goal on five occasions, the first of which came from a near identical position to the one he rattled in at the Vitality Stadium.
This time it was well saved by Kaminski, as was the third of his cluster, with a volley against the bar coming in between. Nunez was a ball of chaos, infuriating in one regard for his desire to shoot from any distance and any angle – twice Mo Salah appeared to gesture that there might be alternative roads to goal – but it was fun to watch. In all, he would have nine chances, at least three of them big, including one over the bar in front of an open goal in the second half.
That was a clanger and it feels certain the accompanying ruling of offside which followed would have been nullified by VAR. The majority of the rest of his chances were blocked by the acrobatics of Kaminiski, who also saved well from Diogo Jota.
With all that going on, a thought grew throughout the match: would those near-misses tee up a gut punch?
It wasn’t a pronounced threat, but it did exist. Edwards had gone with a back five and an instruction to sit and absorb, but within the plan was an explicit desire to counter fast and hard. When opportunity knocked, they bolted forward in numbers, particularly via the quick passes of Ross Barkley and the surges of Chiedozie Ogbene.
For most of the match, their threat lived in glimpses, but in one 90-yard breakaway they came desperately close in the second half and then in the next they sent the place into delirium when Barkley ran half the length of the pitch before playing in Issa Kabore. He squared for Tahith Chong to slide past Alisson and for a time that looked like a lovely story.
And then Elliott floated a ball to the far post and Diaz wrote one that was even more heartening.
Luton players sought to crowd out Nunez whenever the Liverpool forward tried to get in behind
Nunez rattled the crossbar early on but was unable to get on the scoresheet against Luton
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