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Brentford pay against 'under-resourced' Reds
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- Brentford pay against 'under-resourced' Reds
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Liverpool aren't exactly under pressure, but things are not hunky-dory.
Before Brentford's Yehor Yarmoliuk was sent off on Saturday, the Bees were leading and it looked likely to stay that way.
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Important Reds are sidelined by injury. This is partly through bad luck but also partly the result of poor planning. With the club spending far too much on too few players, the squad has been left dangerously thin and it shows. It might not be as skeletal as Everton 's, but it is still under-resourced, especially with a Champions League campaign to be fought.
The moment of the match for Liverpool, and maybe the most pivotal single moment of the weekend alongside Noni Madueke's goal for Arsenal , was that sending off.
Yarmoliuk had to go because the rules demand it, though I am pretty sure Jeremy Jacquet was not nearly as badly injured as he affected. It was all a sad outcome, particularly when considering the incident leading up to it.
Jacquet was winding Yarmoliuk up and had deliberately stuck his shoulder into the Brentford defender's face seconds before the headbutting reaction. Had Yarmoliuk gone down first, perhaps feigning a terrible injury of his own, the referee might have sent Jacquet off.
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The Bees will have felt cheated, though it was gross naivety alongside bad luck. The Brentford man was nudged towards the Frenchman from behind at just the wrong moment.
Pat Nevin writes weekly in the Football Extra newsletter. If you're outside the UK and would like to receive it, sign up here .
