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Liverpool put in their performance of the season to extinguish any lingering thoughts of a blip or crisis by beating Real Madrid on Tuesday night.
Alexis Mac Allister headed home on 61 minutes as the Reds toppled the 15-time champions of Europe in style.
Merseyside man LEWIS STEELE kept a keen eye on the Premier League champions and here are his key talking points…
Conor Bradley comes of age - now he must back it up
'The biggest problem Conor Bradley has is that he is not Trent Alexander-Arnold,' was a line from Daily Mail Sport's match preview on Monday afternoon.
Yes, the right back may not have the unique and unorthodox creative style of his predecessor.
Conor Bradley (left) impressed at right back for Liverpool - dealing with the threat of Vinicius Jr
But in hindsight, that sentence was doing the Northern Irishman a mass disservice. Bradley may lack some of Alexander-Arnold's attributes but he does put in steely defensive shifts and can contribute in an attacking sense.
This was his best game since, er, the last time Liverpool played Real Madrid a year ago. In November 2024, he bullied Kylian Mbappe out of the game and a crunching tackle on the Frenchman was the most memorable moment of that evening.
He has taken plenty of steps forward since then but there was a lingering thought that Bradley still had more to give. Questions remained over how good he actually was – could he be a truly top-level full back?
On the basis of this match, the answer is: absolutely, yes. He gave Vinicius Jr, one of the leading players on the planet, a tough night. Going the other way, he played some eye-catching breaking-the-lines passes to Hugo Ekitike and Co.
Arguably, Vinicius should have been sent off in the first half. He was rightly booked on 23 minutes for a tug on Bradley and, then, the Brazilian clearly threw himself to the floor when muscled off the ball by the Liverpool right back. Why no second yellow?
The test now for Bradley is fitness and consistency. 'Stay fit,' was the response from Arne Slot when asked about this on Monday. 'He played very well in that game (against Real Madrid last season) and then unfortunately he got a hamstring injury.
'So that's the biggest challenge now: be able to play at this intensity every three days without getting injured. And that has not been easy for him because he missed big parts of pre-season and he's been unlucky at times.'
Slot put it better than we could. He is bang on. Play like this every week and Bradley can be a mainstay in this team.
Bradley was good in possession for the Reds too and Arne Slot has challenged him to keep fit
Crisis? What crisis?
Remember all that talk about how bad Liverpool are? Six losses in seven games and all that, questions being asked over whether Arne Slot could steer them back in the right direction and criticism over the attitude, leadership and form of senior players.
No, me neither. Seems like a lifetime ago now.
With two wins in a week, all that negativity is now in the past for the Reds – and that will be further underlined on Sunday if they manage to win at the Etihad Stadium and leapfrog Pep Guardiola's men in the Premier League table.
It was fair to reach the conclusion after beating Aston Villa that it would count for little if they did not back it up this week but they have started in style, not just beating the 15-time champions of Europe but playing them off the park.
Liverpool beat Real last year, also thanks to Alexis Mac Allister on a November night at Anfield. It felt a seismic result then and, in hindsight, we can pinpoint that match as one that supercharged the Slot era and gave the Reds belief they could achieve anything.
The last month has been tough and they have been rightly criticised but these last two performances have shown why Liverpool can once again be in the conversation for all the big prizes come spring 2026.
Arne Slot can raise a smile as Liverpool record back-to-back wins after a difficult losing spell
Thomas Tuchel's right, Jude Bellingham is…
…a word rhyming with 'right'.
No, definitely not the word 'bright' - he was anything but.
The England international was barely spotted at Anfield on Tuesday night, and was just as effective as his good mate Trent Alexander-Arnold. In fact, of the Englishmen on show, Curtis Jones, who played 12 minutes off the bench, probably did the most.
Thomas Tuchel picks his England squad for the upcoming international break on Friday and, after leaving Bellingham out of his last camp, it will be interesting to see what happens now.
He did, of course, score a winning goal in El Clasico a fortnight ago. So it is not all doom and gloom but Bellingham was poor against Liverpool, a team that courted him for so long before he opted to move to Madrid.
Bellingham was not the only away player to flop in the cauldron-like atmosphere of Anfield. Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr were both poor, while Rodrygo did little off the bench.
The only Real player to leave with any serious credit was Thibaut Courtois, who put in an outstanding goalkeeping display.
Unlike the 2022 final, the Belgian turned out to be human after all to finally concede – but he showed why he is in the very top bracket of elite goalkeepers, perhaps only run close by the man in the stands at Anfield, injured Reds No 1 Alisson Becker.
Jude Bellingham was largely anonymous for Real Madrid during their 1-0 defeat at Liverpool
Arne Slot's blueprint works again
'Xabi Alonso, welcome to the Arne Slot penitentiary,' was the post as he became one of many managers inducted into the online craze last year when Liverpool swatted away top team after top team.
Alonso has already been well beaten by Slot after Bayer Leverkusen were thrashed on this ground last year 0 but this felt like the first 'welcome to the Slot penitentiary' performance in a long while.
For those of you not chronically online, that means that an elite manager has been schooled by the Slot Machine: Carlo Ancelotti, Diego Simeone, Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have all been on the receiving end of that.
This was a near-faultless display from Liverpool, perhaps the first of the season. They limited the great Real Madrid to very few chances and could have scored plenty more goals.
How did they do it? Well, Slot stuck with the tried-and-tested midfield trio that won him the league: the imperious Dominik Szoboszlai, goalscorer Mac Allister and the outrageously-talented Ryan Gravenberch.
He did the same against Aston Villa and, just like magic, Liverpool put in their two best displays of the season.
Alexis Mac Allister (centre) watches on as his header races towards the back of the Real net
…as Andy Robertson and Florian Wirtz shine down the left
A word also for Andy Robertson, who started the last two games: the Scottish captain was outstanding both going forward and defensively. He made several crucial interventions late on in a throwback display.
Andy Robertson (left) was superb at left back for the Reds - outstanding in defence and attack
At the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of Liverpool performances, Florian Wirtz is at the start of his journey. The £116million man has had a slow start to life here but this was one of his best outings, a constant danger creating problems from the left.
Wirtz created five chances on the night, more than any Liverpool player, to take his tally to 16 in this competition so far this season. Now the German superstar must bring his Champions League displays to the Premier League…
