Report by Steve Horton at the Racecourse Ground

In probably the most unusual European away game I'll ever attend Liverpool stumbled to victory over the Welsh champions at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground.

Only two late strikes by Steven Gerrard gave us the comfortable scoreline we'd expected after a spirited display by the home side.
Last season's semi final at Chelsea was a bit surreal, but this was ten times more so.

I left work at 4pm, got picked up from home at 5pm and was there an hour and a quarter later, with most of that time spent negotiating Runcorn Bridge.

There wasn't a TNS fan in sight, with Anfield having been their big day out.

Outside the Turf pub, which stands next to the Kop end the flags were out in force, while Wetherspoons, about five minutes walk away was another popular and rowdy jaunt.

Best pub of the lot though was the Horse & Jockey, just a minutes walk further away. This 17th century pub with a thatched roof was full of Reds but had a calmer atmosphere, being populated mainly by those who couldn't quite get up for singing like mad before a game against a side who hadn't won in thirteen European games.

Despite the capacity of the ground being slashed to 9,000 by the closing of the terraced Kop, there were still plenty of empty seats about, some of which were surprisingly in the section where our hard core support was.

Despite the venue all the banners were there and there was a terrific atmosphere at the start with some new songs to celebrate our new status as European Champions being rolled out and old ones rekindled.

Sadly though the simple classic of "Campioni Liverpool" has been replaced by "Campioni Ole Ole" by those too young to remember the real thing of the mid 80s.

We began brightly with Djibril Cisse twice going close in the first ten minutes, but the less said about Xabi Alonso's side footed effort from the edge of the box the better.

Bolo Zenden and Darren Potter were threatening down the flanks but the TNS defence was up to everything thrown at them. With the early momentum of the crowd dying down, it looked set to be a long night as the players efforts to score looked more and more laboured.

It took a miskick from a TNS defender on 25minutes to break the deadlock, with Cisse pouncing and making no mistake. The goal was greeted by perhaps the most muted celebration at any European away game but anyone who thought the floodgates would now open couldn't have been more wrong.

Kicking into the empty Kop in the second half, we began brightly and were almost treated to the rare sight of a Jamie Carragher goal. But his point blank header from a corner was well saved by the impressive Irish keeper Ged Doherty, who a minute later saved a Didi Hamman penalty after Darren Potter had been brought own.

It was clearly not going to be an avalanche and most of the noise from our fans centred around retrieving a ball that had been getting thrown amongst the fans and had now been withheld by the bizzies.

We were always well in control though but there was one almighty scare in the 67th minute when a sweet curling strike from Beck left Reina well beaten only for the ball to bounce back off the upright.

It was clear at this point just how few TNS fans were in the ground as only a small handful in the centre of both side stands stood up. They could only have had 500 there at most, but as that's half the population of the village its still some achievement.

TNS also had the ball in the net in the 70th minute but the 'goal' had come well after the linesman had flagged for offside.

As so often happens in these type of game though, the weaker side began to tire after giving their all and class prevailed. Steven Gerrard, who had been introduced in the 68th minute scored twice in the space of a minute.

First he did a deft flick before surging forward to score from 25 yards, then for the restart he took the ball from Luis Garcia and stormed through to add another.

Both goals were extremely well taken and cemented Gerrard's God like status amongst the majority of fans, who were singing his name louder than anyone else's even when he was sat on the bench.

There's been some criticism levelled at the drabness of the performance and the failure to score a sackful of goals, but I was just glad to get through these games.

With three and a half weeks to go before the season starts players should only be playing 45-60 minutes, but UEFA's ludicrous decision has turned our preparations on their head.

With Rafa Benitez limited to three substations the most important thing was for players just to get through the games uninjured and us to progress. We have done so without breaking sweat or ever looking in danger so that'll do me.

However with FK Kaunas comfortably beating HB we'll need to step up a gear to stop our European season ending before the Blueshite even join in.

 

Team: Reina; Finnan, Carragher (Whitbread), Hyypia, Riise; Potter, Hamann, Alonso (Gerrard), Zenden; Le Tallec (Garcia), Cisse:

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

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