If Liverpool had somehow not managed to beat Joe Royle's newly promoted alehouse team, I would have been completely distraught. I despise Royle, have done for years, even going back to his Oldham days. He's a bluenose wanker who always has to blame someone else when his team loses, usually the referee. Today of course was no exception, although the ref gave them a penalty and us fuck all, so I'm not sure what his beef was. As for his attack on Heskey, that was laughable. Heskey may have a habit of going to ground a little easily at times, but he went down twice in this game. One was a blatant foul, the other could have gone either way. Like most decisions on the day, it went in City's favour, and had no effect on the outcome of the game, so why was Big fat Joe making such a big deal out of it?
Maybe he was trying to deflect attention away from his scandalous decision to leave Weah on the bench until they were two down? Still, that's enough about Royle, I've wasted enough time and column inches on that tosser, so back to the game.
We haven't exactly been in great form this season, but a home game against the likes of City should be an easy three points. We know that's not always the case, as there's plenty of sides as bad as City that have managed to come away from Anfield with three points over the past decade, but even so, a defence containing Howey, Prior, Ritchie and Haaland should be taken to the cleaners, and when I saw that the sublimely talented Liberian genius George Weah could only manage a place on the subs bench I definitely felt that this could be the day that our season was given the kick start it needed.
I remember City's last visit to Anfield when we put six past them, and I genuinely thought it could happen again. Then I looked at the Liverpool line up, and thought ¿well maybe notî. I was not impressed to discover that once again GH was employing Hamann, Carragher and Gerrard all in the same midfield. I realise that we have injuries to the likes of Berger and Smicer, McAllister is suspended and Diomede is still short of match fitness, but this is a home game against opposition we should be beating handsomely.
Would it really be such a risk to include someone like Richie Partridge in the side to at least give us some sort of balance? Our biggest problem at the moment is that the side has no shape whatsoever. Gerard seems to just pick any four midfield players without any regard to where they are actually suited to playing. My view is that you should pick your two best central midfield players, your best available right sided player and your best available left sided player. Gerard seems to just pick the four best midfield players he has to choose from and then worry about where to deploy them.
The result is that the team is disjointed, and there is no pattern or fluidity to our play, as was witnessed yet again in this game. Thankfully, we have Michael Owen and Emile Heskey. Those two had tormented Villa a few nights before, and it didn't take them long to cut open the City backline either, Heskey's superb ball being finished off nonchalantly in the manner that Owen had become famous for before his injury problems. That should have opened the floodgates, but typically, Liverpool then decided to play it cagily and were more concerned with maintaining, rather than extending their lead.
City caused us a lot of problems with long throw ins and corners, but they never played much football did they? My cousion Alan was sat in the lower Kemlyn, and although he wasn't too pleased with the view (too close to the pitch) he reckons it was a great laugh as there are a few would be comedians in that part of the ground.
Alf Inge Haaland took a fearful amount of stick, although apparently he brought it on himself by cheekily telling the fans in the lower centenary ¿This is a goalî just before he hurled a long throw into the box. It nearly was too, but thankfully Heskey cleared off the line. Any time Haaland went near that touchline after that he had the piss taken out of him. One wag tried to pull his shorts down as he lined up another long throw. Another shouted ¿I know you're face. Didn't you used to play for a big team?î One chap was far less subtle, but no less effective, simply shouting ¿you fucking albino!î every time he went running past.
Hamann had been getting quite a bit of stick prior to his first goal, but I thought he was doing okay. Other than him, there was only Owen who was on form as far as I could see, although Heskey had his moments too. Hamann only scored one goal all last season, and that was deflected, so these two strikes were overdue. The first was obviously the better of the two, but the second gave me more pleasure. Obviously it would do being the winner, but it was also the fact that he arrived late in the box to score a bread and butter goal. That's what all good midfielders do, and what Hamann doesn't do anywhere near enough. Hopefully this will be the start of more goalscoring exploits from the German, who has the ability to hit double figures every season. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come.
TEAM: Sander Westerveld; Rigobert Song, Markus Babbel, Stephane Henchoz, Djimi Traore (Christian Ziege); Nick Barmby, Dietmar Hamann, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher; Emile Heskey (Erik Meijer), Michael Owen:
