Report by Steve Horton at Villa Park | |
Liverpool's disappointing away form continued at Villa Park on Saturday as we had to settle for a point after dominating much of the match.
A failure to kill the game off before half time contributed somewhat, but some baffling changes after the break did pose some questions as to how much we wanted to win.
We began the game very brightly, with Neil Mellor forcing a corner in the first two minutes and Villa's keeper Sorensen failing to hold on to a Dietmar Hamman cross soon after.
Mellor, playing as a lone striker was getting plenty of service and John Arne Riise did some brilliant control before unleashing a right foot shot that went straight at Sorensen.
It was certainly enough to silence the Villa crowd, who could come up with nothing better than the racist "Feed the Scousers" all afternoon.
Our own following wasn't too much better however. Before the game it was bouncing on the concourse, with the Rafa Bentiez song to the tune of La Bamba being sung non stop for at least a quarter of an hour. However once the game started the masses drowned it out with the boring "Rafa-Rafael" chant.
Anyone who is deluded enough to think we have the best fans in the world really needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Our possession was rewarded with a goal on seventeen minutes when Steven Gerrard floated in a free kick, Jamie Carragher headed across goal and Harry Kewell rose to nod home. It was the Australians first goal since January and long overdue. Hopefully it'll be a trigger for him to have as good a second half of the season as he did a first half of 2003-04.
We threatened to run riot for the next twenty minutes. Mellor and Gerrard both forced diving saves from Sorensen and Gerrard hit just wide after being set up by Xabi Alonso.
The only disappointment in this half was Antonio Nunez, who struggled to adapt to the physical nature of the game and too often went to ground after straight forward challenges.
Then just as the half was drawing to a close, McCann was awarded a free kick after what had looked a fair challenge from Carragher, and Solano floated it into the top left hand corner of Kirkland's goal. It was Villa's first shot of the game and David O'Leary was quite right to be jumping through hoops at half time as he said afterwards.
Rafael Benitez could see Nunez was having problems and brought on Josemi in his place, with Steve Finnan moving up to right midfield.
Three minutes after the restart a swift move culminated in Gerrard backheeling the ball into Kewell's path. He had a clear run on goal but somehow overran the ball safely into the keeper's arms. We continued very much where we had left off, with Gerrard forcing a save from a free kick and Alonso shooting just over the bar.
Gerrard was proving an inspirational figure and his new song "he can pass a ball forty yards, he's big and he's fucking hard was sung numerous times. Call me an ungrateful bastard though but I don't know why he is being given so much support.
I'm not kissing his arse for agreeing to fulfil his contract and won't forget the summer's events too easily. I'm amazed our fans do though, considering we still sing Scabs to any team from a coalmining area (in reference to the Miners Strike of 1985) and will still be singing anti Millwall songs come the end of the season.
Gerrard will be considering his future before the end of his contract and his recent comments that he'd love David Moores to stay smacks of someone who is re-preparing his escape route.
Just as we were reinforcing our authority though Benitez made a substitution that even Gerard Houllier would have thought twice about attempting.
On the hour Neil Mellor, who has scored all his goals this season in the last ten minutes, came off and Djimi Traore came on. It was assumed that Traore would slot into the left back role with Riise moving forward, but instead we had the bizarre sight of Kewell on his own up front, Gerrard in the 'hole' and Finnan and Traore playing down the flanks.
To be fair to Traore, he didn't do that badly, but I can't help thinking someone else would have been more effective there. Finnan was probably our only option on the right but why Benitez didn't do a straight striker swap, Pongolle for Mellor I just don't understand.
I know Benitez likes to have players who can slot in all over the park but I'd rather see Traore being experimented in a Johnny Barnes role when we are 4-0 up than 1-1 if that's ok.
We still created some half chances, with Alonso heading wide and Gerrard forcing a fine near post save from Sorensen. All Villa could offer was another free kick from Solano that this time Kirkland was able to tip over the bar.
Pongolle didn't come on till the 82nd minute when he replaced Gerrard and he was unable to make an impact. All in all we clearly deserved to win on the balance of possession but should have been able to create more chances and may have been more effective in the final third if we had proper strikers there for longer.
The substitutions were the main talking point. Mellor may have been getting saved for the Olympiakos game but to play twenty minutes with no proper goalscorer on the pitch didn't seem the best way to try and win.
Surely bringing Pongolle on was the best option. I wonder if the idea really had become to preserve what we had and if we nick a goal, that's a bonus.
In Spain the general way to win the league is to win at home and draw away. Any away point is usually acceptable, but it's a harder, tighter league there with teams being able to win it with ten points less than is required in England.
Benitez needs to understand that such an approach won't get him very far in England and with the exception of trips to Arsenal or Chelsea, anything less than a win has to be seen as points dropped. Having said that, I will be ecstatic if we can draw at Goodison this Saturday.
Team: Kirkland; Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Riise; Nunez (Josemi), Hamann, Alonso, Gerrard (Sinama-Pongolle) Kewell; Mellor (Traore):
Agree or disagree? Email me at steve@liverpoolway.co.uk
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