Report by Dave Usher at Anfield

A Xabi Alonso inspired Liverpool bounced back from the disappointment of their Monday night defeat at Old Trafford, with a convincing rout of the Canaries to maintain their 100% home record in the Premiership.

Alonso produced as good a midfield performance as Anfield has seen in many a long year, and alongside the ever efficient Didi Hamann the former Real Sociedad star ensured that injured skipper Steven Gerrard was not missed.

Gerrard's loss will surely be felt in the weeks ahead, but in Alonso Benitez has the one player in the Premiership who is actually superior to Gerrard in his passing. Xabi never wasted a ball all afternoon, and produced a range of passing which we haven't seen since the days of Molby.

It's dificult not to get carried away by Alonso's display. Admitedly the opposition wasn't the strongest, but that has no bearing at all on what we saw from Xabi. After all, the quality of the opposition doesn't make it any easier for him to put passes from 45 yards right on the button time after time.

Whether he had to loft the ball over players to reach his target, or simply drill it through the tightest of gaps, Alonso never failed to find his target, as thousands inside Anfield sat there open mouthed in awe at what they were seeing.

But it wasn't just the accuracy of Alonso, it was his intelligence and ability to completely run the game from the middle of the park which had me and thousands of others purring at half time. He was always available for a pass, and always produced the right ball. A better display of midfield playmaking you won't see anywhere this season than that which Alonso produced in the opening half against Norwich.

Gerrard of course has certain attributes that Alonso - nor anyone else for that matter - doesn't possess. You won't see Xabi pulling out wide and surging past players for instance. But Alonso and Hamann looked very well balanced and ensured that Norwich were never able to get any kind of foothold in the game.

As imperious as Xabi was though, it would be unfair to suggest that this performance was all about him, as others caught the eye as well as the reds picked up where they had left off in their two previous home games.

Benitez opted to bring back Baros alongside Cisse, with Garcia reverting from his forward role to fill the problem right midfield spot. Finnan has not let anyone down in that role, and should be commended for his attitude in knuckling down to a job which he is not familiar with.

His diligence was rewarded by his selection at right back ahead of the unfortunate Josemi, who in my opinion was one of only a few to come out of the game at Old Trafford with any credit. Finnan justified his selection with a solid game at right back, and has done more to impress in the first few weeks of this season than he did in all of the last.

The other change saw Warnock come in for Kewell, and on this evidence the Ormskirk lad deserves a run in the side in the coming weeks. Warnock has impressed every time he has stepped onto the field this season, and he produced another accomplished display today.

I've been championing his cause on here and in the fanzine for a few seasons now, yet I have to admit that Stephen has even surprised me with how well he has actually done. I knew he was good, but I didn't know just how good he was until this season.

John Arne Riise must surely be happier with Warnock in front of him, and it showed as the Norwegian continued his good start to the season by producing arguably his best display of the campaign so far.

Riise has been given a new lease of life since the arrival of Benitez, and the new boss and his coaching staff think very highly of him apparently. They've been working hard with him to try and rid him of the tendency to hit long balls, and it's beginning to pay off.

People often question Riise's defensive qualities, but on the whole I think he's pretty solid. He can struggle occasionally when faced with a tricky winger, but show me a full back who doesn't - apart from Carra of course.

The left side of the Liverpool team looked very good against the Canaries, and the balance was excellent. It was reminiscent of the Riise/Vignal partnership which briefly blossomed before the French full back broke his foot a few years ago.

Norwich just couldn't contain the reds, and really the scoreline should have been more emphatic than it was. Liverpool took control from the first whistle, with Alonso pulling all the strings ably assisted by Hamann.

The Canaries have been no pushovers this season, but Liverpool made them look very, very poor. Maybe they are poor, but that takes nothing away from Liverpool's display. Plenty of poor sides have visted Anfield in recent seasons, but few have been dismissed in the convincing manner than West Brom and Norwich have been.

The first half display was superb. Liverpool attacked down both sides through Warnock and Garcia, and Baros was as ever a handful with his non stop movement and direct running. The Czech striker looked a bit anxious early on, but the goal settled him down and after that he ran the vistitors ragged.

It was a typical Baros strike. Running across the edge of the box and then unleashing a strike back across the keeper. We've seen it before, and we'll see it again. Milan's a class act, and he'd be in my team every week, for his workrate alone.

His strike partner Cisse has not set the world alight yet, and I have to say I'm not taken with him at all up to now. It's not about form, I can accept that it takes some players time to adapt to a new country/style of play etc, and I am quite prepared to allow him time to settle in.

It's far too early to be criticising Cisse for his sometimes elephant like first touch, or for his infuriating habit of being needlessly caught offside. These are things which will hopefully be sorted out on the training ground in the course of time.

Cisse's ability is not what concerns me, it's his workrate - or lack of - which is bothering me. In the early games he played with Baros, he stayed central whilst Milan ran the channels. Baros covered far more ground than his partner, but I just put that down to the differing roles they were playing.

Now though I just think it's that Milan has a much higher work ethic and is prepared to chase balls which Cisse simply isn't interested in. Against the mancs last week I was absolutely livid with Cisse's first half non-display.

Fair enough, the service he received was largely terrible. But we were under the cosh in that opening half, and sometimes in those circumstances the best that the defence and midfield can do is just knock it into the corners and ask the forward to chase it.

Baros does that and even when it's clear that the defender will get there first, he'll still chase it anyway. Even if the best he can do is maybe force the defender into conceding a throw in, Milan will still chase and work. It's what strikers need to do, especially when their team is under pressure.

Cisse simply refused to do it against United, and I was furious with him. I counted at least four occasions when he refused to chase a ball which although he wouldn't have beaten the defender to it, it was not a lost cause. Instead he opted to throw his toys out of the pram and shout at his team-mates. That is something which there is no excuse for, and it turned me off him a great deal.

If a player works hard and gives his all, he'll get no complaints from me. Players can have bad games, go through runs of poor form or simply not be good enough, but they should still work hard and if they do that then I'll cut them plenty of slack.

Not even Michael Owen - top scorer at the club for something like seven years in a row - could have gotten away with the prima donna antics Cisse showed at Old Trafford. Djibril has been here all of five minutes, and still has it all to prove. Maybe at Auxerre he wasn't expected to do such things, but this isn't Auxerre and the least we expect from our players is to work hard.

Baros may have some flaws in his game and is not the finished article by any means, but he works his arse off every week and runs himself into the ground. Cisse would do well to follow his example.

He did work harder against Norwich, and his performance was ok. He made the second goal for Garcia with an excellent pass, and scored a great goal himself in the second half.

He celebrated that goal with an extravagent somersault, which was somewhat of a surprise to the forty odd thousand in attendance, as around 60 seconds earlier he'd been hobbling around, and even refused to accept a pass in the Norwich area, simply allowing it to roll past him straight to a Norwich player.

It was a fine strike for the goal however, from a well worked free-kick. At least it was something different from the little tap to Hamann or Riise who then hit it anywhere except on target.

That third goal ended the game as a contest, and allowed Rafa to withdraw Alonso and send on Diao. With Gerrard out, Xabi needs to be protected a bit more and if a game is in the bag, it makes sense to get him off to avoid the risk of him picking up a knock.

Unfortunately his departure also saw the reds' attacking threat significantly reduced. The introductions of Traore and Biscan for Cisse and Warnock also had an adverse effect on the play, but few can blame Rafa for looking towards the next game.

Biscan received his customary welcome from his small but dedicated fan club, but then things got a bit out of hand. Some of those cheering him whenever he does something right are doing it because they genuinely like the lad and want him to do well, but others see him as a joke and it's unfair.

The first time he tried a trick it didn't come off. It got an ironic cheer mixed in with laughter. The second time he tried and succeeded, which got a huge cheer. Then he attempted a dragback on the edge of the Norwich box, but it went horribly wrong and he fell flat on his arse. The laughter that went around the stadium was awful, and I was gutted for Biscan, he must have felt like a total tit.

I watched his reaction closely, and seconds later we got the ball and had a great chance of a counter attack. Normally Igor would be leading the charge trying to get in the box, but he just stood in the centre circle and never even tried to get forward. No doubt because he feared what would happen if he got the ball. It was sad to see, and for me put a bit of a dampener on what was otherwise a great day.

To some Igor is a bit of a cult hero. To others he's a joke. That's deeply unfair and undeserved. Yes, he's made some mistakes and is a bit accident prone, but he's also a quiet, unassuming lad who has never complained about anything in all the time he's been here, and has shown no sign of ego. He deserves better than ridicule.

But I don't want to focus too much on anything negative, as I really, really enjoyed this game. It was great to watch, and there were a lot of positives throughout the side. Defensively we were untroubled, the midfield were very creative and both strikers scored.

Our home form is very good, and it's away from home where we now need to improve. I just think that we're going to be a bit up and down for a while. We'll have a great performance one week, and then struggle the next maybe.

It's also possible that the more offensive style of play Rafa is introducing means that we'll be a lot more equipped to see off the lesser sides, but may struggle a bit with the better teams until Benitez's methods become second nature to the players.

Overall the Rafalution is taking shape nicely. We're playing good football now against sides which we usually struggle to break down. Benitez clearly knows what he wants, and slowly but surely he's getting the team playing in the manner he expects from them.

The players he's signed have settled in straight away, and the likes of Hyypia and Riise are now back to their best. The injury to Gerrard is a huge blow, but providing Alonso and Hamann stay fit we may, just may, be able to cope without the skipper.

It's just a shame he has to miss the trip to Chelsea next weekend. That would have been most interesting.

Liverpool: Dudek, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Riise; Garcia, Hamman, Alonso (Diao), Warnock (Biscan); Cisse (Traore), Baros:

Agree or disagree? Email me at dave@liverpoolway.co.uk

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