Make no mistake; the Community Shield is not simply a friendly. It is not a relaxing kick about on a Sunday Afternoon, in which the top two teams in the country renew acquaintances over a glass of wine. Just ask Gerard Houllier and he'll tell you the very same thing.
Winning the Shield last year meant a lot to us. A fine performance and yet another pride enhancing victory over a side who we thought would be our greatest challengers for the major domestic honours. Pride, one feels is the most important advantage to winning the charity shield. Today we left the Millennium Stadium - defeated there for the first time - with very little pride after being totally outplayed by the double winners for the fourth successive time.
But other than pride, the lifting of the shield can play a huge part in building the confidence of those involved for the season ahead. Neither Liverpool nor Arsenal had a flying start last season and a win today would have been just what the doctor ordered in attempting to remedy the poor starts which have left us playing catch-up for the past two seasons.
Now the manner in which we were utterly defeated today, would have been enough to drain the confidence of the players, but for the manager, who has spent 4 years assembling his best squad, to come out and say that "We are still miles behind Arsenal" is slightly shocking to say the least.
Perhaps we wouldn't be so far behind the Gunners, if Steven Wright, Jamie Carragher, Marcus Babbel or even U-19 star David Raven had filled the right back instead of the utterly hapless Abel Xavier. For a majority of the time the Portuguese player (and I use that term very loosely) was unbelievably anonymous, meaning that Stephane Henchoz, the revitalised Steven Gerrard or the tireless El-Hadji Diouf were forced to occupy the position whilst Xavier was elsewhere…. God knows where, just elsewhere.
In experimenting with a 4-3-3 system against Arsenal it was essential that the back four remained soild as a rock and retained positional discipline. Three of the defence were, the summer break seemingly having no effect on the impregnable Sami and Steph, and Djimi Traore's solid return to competitive action gave the side the balance it required.
This soon became utterly destroyed by the monstrosity that is Abel Xavier. The other three became pulled across leaving gaps in the middle and on the left, which Arsenal minus Pires and Freddie it must be said, needed no second invitation to exploit.
Abel Xavier is not better than Steven Wright, he is older, slower, less skilful, less disciplined, less intelligent and generally shite. Steven Wright is the best young right back in England and without a shadow of a doubt a future international. Abel Xavier is not. I hate to start the season in this frame of mind, but our rock solid defence, that has established itself as maybe the best in Europe becomes decidedly average with Abel in the team.
Perhaps I shouldn't be laying all the blame at his door. It is not Xavier who picks himself, despite a 30th straight display in which he was nothing but an utter liability. It was not Xavier who chose to sell Stevie Wright and it was not entirely Xavier's fault that we were outplayed in Cardiff today.
To start with the attacking 4-3-3 was something we were clamouring for last season as we struggled to break teams down at Anfield. But in the first game of the season against a rampant Arsenal side? There is a time and a place to integrate this new system and today was not the day and for the first half an hour the team were without shape and we were incredibly fortunate not to go in at half time a goal down.
The new formation however did give us another opportunity (my first) to see new boy El-Hadji Diouf in the flesh. Although starved of the ball for long periods of the game, he worked his socks off and looked a constant threat with the ball at his feet. Obviously aware of this, Arsenal brought to an abrupt end his mazy, skilful runs before they could cause any real damage.
The same could be said for Michael who still looked to be getting his sharpness back after an extended summer break and an injury hit World Cup. There are of course no worries about Michael Owen. Heskey was just Heskey really, giving a bog standard Heskey performance (one could be forgiven for thinking that I have purely substituted the word Shit with Heskey, I can assure you that this is not the case). He rarely won an attacking header, rarely did any damage with the ball at his feet and very rarely caused and problems for Keown (man of the match?) and Campbell.
Steven Gerrard's incredibly amusing lunge on Viera early on in proceedings was about all we had to cheer in the opening forays. The pictures on the back pages of Monday's newspapers show that Stevie was perhaps rather fortunate to stay on the field. But this was the old Gerrard as utterly uninhibited he hacked down perhaps the most imposing player in European football.
Playing in an inside right role, Gerrard looked full of confidence and finally ready to put behind him what by his high standards was a very disappointing campaign in 2001/2002.
But Arsenal showed no signs of actually having taken a summer break and were flowing in much the same fashion as they had for the whole of 2002, and dominated the opening half an hour.
But for some poor finishing from Dennis Bergkamp and a string of magnificent saves from Jerzy Dudek the reds could have been three down at half time. A triple save from Jerzy, first from Henry's viscous curler and twice from Bergkamp from close range, kept the Reds in it.
Jerzy had looked unbeatable in that first half, and after the World Cup in which his form dropped slightly it was good to see him back to his best in Liverpool colours, and with Xavier's lack of positional sense disrupting everything, he needed to be at his best on a number of occasions.
The Reds' attacking forays in the first period were barely worth mentioning. A tame shot from a tight angle from Heskey and a couple of skewed John Arne Riise free-kicks were all the reds had to show for an extremely disappointing first half performance.
Business certainly picked up in the second period as Liverpool came out with a renewed sense of purpose and took control of the game. Michael saw a couple of great chances slip away, although for the second opportunity, it seemed like he had been blatantly pulled back. Stevie G really took control of the game, while his partner Hamann broke up any attempts for the Champions to get back into proceedings.
But will the bullet-proof GH ever learn that whatever the circumstances, you do not substitute Didi Hamann. Especially against a team like Arsenal! So one minute before Arsenal take the lead, what happens? Yep, you guessed it. ONE MINUTE was all it took before the middle of the field was wide open, Xavier once again M.I.A and for Arsenal's own sub, World Cup winner Gilberto Silva to slide the ball under Jerzy from 18 yards. Cue stupid dancing celebrations: It's only the first week of the season and I'm already sick of Arsenal.
It was almost if GH had done a complete Arse about face, from being one of the most defensive minded teams in the top ten, he changes to an ultra-attacking formation, and then removes the best midfielder of his kind in world football. What are you trying to prove Gerard? That we don't need Didi? Trying to prepare us for something Gerard?
True to form, after going a goal down there was little hope for us, although we looked to have been denied a blatant penalty as that horrible piece of shit Viera hacked down El-Hadji. The Senegalese star certainly made the most of it, but perhaps his reputation precedes him and a stonewall penalty was denied by a referee who barely got one decision right all afternoon. Where do they find them eh?
The introduction of more Liverpool substitutes to further upset the balance of the side, including the late introductions of Baros, Cheyrou and Smicer to attempt to salvage things, only served to upset the balance of the team further.
However defensively things improved dramatically with the introduction of the heroic Markus Babbel, with the things he said before the game, Markus further endeared himself to the Reds fans and has now achieved legendary status among the Anfield faithful. It’s good to have you back Marcus!
So the game petered out, with Arsenal looking more likely to get a second than let their lead slip. I'd predicted that we would win the championship this season, but on this evidence, The Gunners look far and away the team to beat in 2002/03
TEAM: Jerzy Dudek, Abel Xavier (Markus Babbel), Stephane Henchoz, Sami Hyypia, Djimi Traore (Bruno Cheyrou); Steven Gerrard, Didi Hamann (Danny Murphy), John Arne Riise; El-Hadji Diouf, Emile Heskey (Milan Baros), Michael Owen (Vladimir Smicer):
