“...And Liverpool concede yet another late goal”
It was the perfect story for the English media. Had we won, the story would have been about how we bowed out with pride. As it was, even better... The media can endulge in their favourite past-time - slaughtering Liverpool!
Of course, anyone who saw the game would have seen that we fielded a weakened side with two players making their full debuts, one making his first team debut from the bench and, in Dossena and Cavalieri, a couple of fringe players making rare first team appearances, yet still were as worthy of winning as our opponents.
In how many of Liverpool’s five matches prior to tonight did we concede late goals? Two. Home and away against Lyon. Two out of five. Yet apparently it has been “a theme of this campaign”.
SKY want us to believe that Liverpool are out because they keep conceding late goals and because Rafa Benitez is a shit manager. Ironically there was even discussion during the “commentary” (not that there was any commentary on the actual game) about the fact that Gerrard and Torres hadn’t played together since the 4th October. Since then we have played 11 games without one or both and been without our other most creative players in Johnson, Aquilani and Benayoun. Is it such a shock that we have struggled to score goals? And with that struggle to score goals, is it any surprise that we have conceded late goals when we have had to press and opponents have been encouraged by our failings to go for the win themselves?
Rafa was even called a "lucky general in Europe" as though Liverpool's recent success in the Champions League was fluked - unlike, say, Man Ure's! Do they really think it was by pure dumb luck that Rafa elminated Juventus, Chelsea (twice), AC Milan, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Arsenal and Real Madrid in the last five campaigns?
Fuck SKY, they spew out lies for idiots lacking the intelligence to formulate their own opinions.
I actually enjoyed much of the second half tonight and took a number of positives from the game. Ultimately we lost because our rookie right-back Stephen Darby was caught out twice and our reserve 'keeper was beaten. With no disrespect whatsoever, though I thought Diego Cavalieri had a decent game, he is not Pepe Reina. To prove that point, back-passes from Agger and Mascherano were highlighted on SKY as being played short. Of course, the “experts” completely failed to understand that normally Reina would be racing out to meet those passes a lot quicker than Cavalieri.
Though he was at fault for both goals I won’t criticise Darby or the manager for selecting him. He is a kid and tonight was as good an opportunity to give him a taste of first team action as any. He wasn’t terrible but wasn’t brilliant either. He would need to improve an awful lot to have a future at Liverpool FC.
The other full-debutant, Aquilani was a real pleasure to watch. You know when you are watching a quality player and some of those clean and accurate passes he played to team-mates' feet, particularly in the first half, have been conspicuous by their absence in recent Liverpool games. SKY were happy to piss on his debut telling the watching ignoramuses we hadn’t seen much of him but the difference between me and them was I was watching. I saw plenty of him and I liked what I saw.
He was not the man of the match and this will not go down as the greatest home debut of all time but to put it into perspective, this is a lad coming back from a long term injury who has been deprived of the opportunity of a preseason in which to develop an understanding with his teammates. In the circumstances, I thought he showed a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing him become an established first team player. I don’t expect him to start against Arsenal - although he did enough to suggest he might feature off the bench – but I do think he will start against Wigan next week and that is when his season really begins.
It was also great to Pacheco come on for his first team debut but the best thing tonight was seeing both Gerrard and Torres on the pitch at the same time and being involved and looking mobile.
It’s easy to call Liverpool a 2-man team but the thing about Gerrard and Torres is not only are they our two best players, they are our two best attacking players. Take out the two most attacking players of most teams and they would struggle to be as prolific in front of goal. But what are the chances of that happening? How much bad fortune was it for Liverpool to lose both Gerrard and Torres during the same International break to injuries picked up playing for their respective countries? Have we have a jot of sympathy for that misfortune? No. We have simply been criticised for being over-reliant on our best attacking players to score goals as if no other time relies on their best attacking players to score goals!
The biggest joke of the night was Graeme Souness saying of Liverpool: “My big fear is they’re in melt-down”.
Graeme, Liverpool went into melt-down on 16th April 1991 when YOU were appointed manager and we have yet to recover. How SKY can sit you down alongside other failed managers like Ray Wilkins and Jurgen Klinsman and give your hypocritical views air-time is beyond me. Your legacy will be that you were the man (not Alex Ferguson) who "knocked Liverpool off their fucking perch". Judas Iscariot killed himself for a lesser crime! Where is your honour?
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