From Kopblog
Well it`s certainly been a tough and eventful couple of days for Reds fans. You need a strong heart to be a Liverpool supporter, figuratively and literally, because you can always be sure that we will never ever do things the easy way.
Wednesday night`s game turned out to be a long hard slog and fair play to Standard Liege for their performance which pushed us to the very limit. I must admit that at the end of the first half I was starting to feel a bit nervous because although we started the game brightly, they grew in confidence as the half went on and seemed to be getting on top of us.
However, I felt a bit more comfortable in the second half and in extra time because even though we weren`t creating any clear cut chances, we were controlling the football a lot better and looked to be the team most likely to win it. While our overall performance wasn`t great it was another improvement on what we`ve seen from the team so far this season and I was impressed with the fact that even though the Liege players made this a very tough match for our players and allowed them little or no space, their heads never dropped and they just kept battling away.
Although we did have a couple of dodgy moments in defence our back four did well overall, even Arbeloa who clearly responded to my brilliant motivational tactics in the last blog! Alonso and Gerrard worked hard in midfield and eventually got the upper hand. Stevie didn`t look right in our past couple of games and now we know why. It turned out his groin strain was giving him a lot more problems than he and Rafa had let on and he`d been playing through the pain.
I also hear the Standard Liege supporters have been full of praise for him as he apparently stayed behind for a full 30 minutes signing autographs for them and didn`t leave until every one had been signed. I must admit that I haven`t always been convinced by his leadership abilities but I think it`s time for me to revise that opinion because it looks like we`ve now got ourselves a great captain both on and off the pitch. Let`s hope he makes a speedy recovery from his groin op and is back in time to face the mancs.
Up front clearly Torres and Keane haven`t clicked as yet and although they put a lot of energy into the game, they both seem to be lacking a bit of their sharpness at the moment that hopefully won`t take them too long to rediscover. Our real problems were in the usual areas. With Dynamo Dirk and cul-de-sac Jack playing on our flanks we simply had no width.
I`d like to be able to compliment Liege for doing their homework on us but in truth there wasn`t a whole lot of homework required. Our attack pretty much resembled a bottle neck and once they had blocked us from getting at them through the middle, they knew they had nothing to worry about from us on the wings. Babel didn`t improve things much when he came on but El Zhar did make more of an impact and we really should have had a clear penalty for the foul on him in extra time. This lad looks like he is ready to be starting some games, but I`m not sure about those blue boots of his!
Still we came through in the end thanks to a very good cross by Babel which Kuyt did very well to get on the end of. He may not be prolific and he may also frustrate the life out of us all at times, but he does seem to have developed a knack of scoring some very important goals for us and it was good to see him receiving some adulation from the fans for scoring yet another one on his 100th tireless appearance.
However, although Kuyt got the headlines for his goal, the real hero of this tie over the two legs was most definitely Pepe Reina. Without his brilliant saves in both games we would have been dead and buried, and even leaving those saves aside I thought his general play was excellent and it must give our defence an extra bit of confidence knowing he`s behind them.
So we eventually made it into Thursday`s draw for the CL group stage and I must admit that throughout that day I didn`t give it a lot of thought. I`ve long since given up hoping for us to get a handy draw in the CL as past experience has shown us that such things seem to be reserved for the likes of mancs and chavs. Besides this, as thanks mainly to the heroics of Reina we were spared the prospect of Thursday night matches against such opposition as Kkrvqrbvkrk the outer Mongolian Champions, I was content for us to meet whatever teams the draw threw at us.
I watched the draw live online and thought everything was looking rosy for us when we were drawn with PSV and Marseille, we just needed to draw one of the minnows from Pot 4 and things would have been comfortable for us. But then that axle grease headed, shirt-lifting ladyboy drew out Atletico Madrid and suddenly our group became an awful lot tougher.
Don`t get me wrong, I still fancy us to qualify for the knock-out stage but unlike the other English teams there are no soft touches in our group and I don`t think we will have too many opportunities to rest any of our players for any of these games. Anyway we can cross that bridge when we come to it but if we are to get to Rome next year it looks as though we`re going to have to do it the hard way, but what else is new?
At least now we can put our focus back on the Premiership this weekend and our experience in these CL qualifying matchs have shown us that these games are getting tougher and tougher, so now more than ever we really need to be pushing for a top two finish so that we can avoid them. Maybe we have rode our luck a little in the two wins from two games we have had so far but there`s no doubt that if we are to keep things going we will need to perform a lot better in our toughest test to date at Villa Park on Sunday.
It`s a tough place to go hunting for points at the best of times but we will go into the game most certainly not firing on all cylinders and without our captain Steven Gerrard, so it may seem like a daunting task but I`m feeling quite positive about our chances for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I think our performances are slowly but surely improving game by game and while there may be a few tired legs after our efforts on Wednesday, the confidence among the players should be pretty high after the victory. While Gerrard may be missing, we will be boosted by the return of Mascherano. He is a very important part of the teams spine and there`s no doubt we`ve missed him, so it`s great to have him back.
Alonso will also have a big role to play in the game but he has often played some of his best games for us when Gerrard isn`t in the side. In such circumstances he tends to play a bit further forward and with a little more freedom than is usually the case. That`s the role he played last season when we played Derby at Anfield and we won that game 6-0, and if memory serves I think Xabi got two of the goals that day. Now granted Aston Villa are no Derby County and they are at home but nevertheless Alonso can be very effective in this role, assuming of course that Rafa will play a 4-4-2 formation.
There`s also the fact that the Torres and Keane strike partnership is going to click eventually and it might very well be on Sunday. I haven`t watched any of Villa`s games so far but I know that they have conceded two goals in their victory over Man City and three goals in their defeat by Stoke, so it would appear that their defence is not all that it should be and maybe our attacking duo can take advantage of that.
However, in order for them to do some damage they need to be receive some quality balls preferably into their feet and Rafa has really got to do something about our lack of width. I really can`t see him dropping Kuyt especially in this game but Benny Onion has had a nightmare in our last couple of games and needs a spell on the sidelines. Babel certainly hasn`t pulled up any trees in the two substitute appearances he has made so far but at least until this signing of Riera is tied up, he is the only one who offers us any kind of width on the left and has got to return to our starting line-up.
I`m assuming the gaffer will stick with the 4-4-2 formation he has been using so far but it`s possible he might revert to the 4-2-3-1 formation he used last season. In such circumstance he could perhaps consider playing Keane in the Gerrard role or maybe bring back Lucas and leave Keane on the bench. I would prefer it if he stayed with the 4-4-2 but Rafa usually favours a more cautious approach to such games and just might be tempted to change things around.
It would be a huge boost for us to go into the international break with our 100% start to the season intact and would certainly have us full of confidence going into our Premiership clash with the mancs at Anfield on the other side of the break. I believe that we will and in a tight game, my money`s on a repeat of last season`s score line, a 2-1 win to The Reds.
On a final note, I`ve noticed that the club`s official site have announced that there will be yet further delays in the construction of our new stadium. They really shouldn`t waste our time making such announcements because I think that even the dogs in the street realise that this stadium is nothing but a white elephant and it will never happen while these two American clowns are in control of our club.
I also noticed that they made a pathetic attempt to temper this news by adding that they will use this extra time to revisit the possibility of increasing the capacity of this mythical stadium to 73,000, but an extra 20% of nothing, is still nothing. Do these morons seriously expect us to believe that if they can`t finance a 60,000 capacity stadium, they are somehow going to be able to finance a 73,000 capacity one? I am totally uninterested in hearing anything these pair of knob-heads or their spokespeople have to say. The only official announcement I want to hear from them is that they are leaving and hopefully that they are taking Parry with them!
Keep the Faith
Share this article
