Friday Night Preview

Despite their fantastic heritage, great players, huge fan-base and a manager who’s taken them to two Champions’ League finals in the last few years, Liverpool F.C. is in turmoil. Most of the fans want the American owners to sell the club while an increasing number of them also want Raffa Benitez to go. I agree with them that his system of rotating players is bewildering and frustrates both the players themselves as well as the fans, while his substitutions, or lack of them, sometimes make no sense at all. Wednesday’s last minute defeat at West Ham just put the icing on the cake of a string of poor results that’s left them struggling to maintain their status as a top four team. To make matters worse their place has been taken by their neighbours Everton. In contrast our own club is showing, perhaps surprising, unanimity from the chairman and the board through the manager, coaching-staff, players and fans, and all this despite our recent history and present position in the drop zone. The Football Echo letters page was recently devoted to those who wanted Roy Keane to go but at the last game I went to – at Spurs a fortnight back – I didn’t hear anybody chanting “Keane out!” though the roof was echoing with chants of “Keano!”

Tuesday’s leap up the table from a relegation slot to the dizzy heights of seventh from bottom shows how much one victory, or defeat, can change things. If we lose at Liverpool, as form would dictate, we could well find ourselves back where we were on Tuesday morning but this is a prime opportunity to rattle them and I’ve a feeling that we’re going to surprise a lot of people tomorrow and come away from Anfield with a result. The way we came snapping at Birmingham from the kick-off told me that we were going to win and if we can get an early goal tomorrow, we can really put the cat among the pigeons. We’ve got nothing to lose really as most pundits don’t give us a chance. The Wigan match is next on the menu and I’m sure we can win that and really it’s a far more important game. Fulham have relegation written all over them while Derby are clearly planning for promotion from the Championship next season so who’s going to join them? Reading have lost five in a row. They always say that winning becomes a habit but, as we know all too horribly, losing can be too and on Tuesday Birmingham looked weak to me. With Edwards and Richardson close to returning plus the two talented additions to the squad in Bardsley and Prica, I’m confident that we’ll survive this season despite what happens at Anfield.

Saturday Afternoon

Among our rivals today some points had to be dropped as Brum played Derby and Reading were at home to Bolton. It was no doubt asking too much of Derby for them to get a win so a 1-1 draw was a decent result from our point of view while though a draw would’ve been better in the other game at least Reading suffered their sixth defeat in a row. Wigan won 1-0 and so they and Bolton went above us but even if we lose this evening, we’ll still be fifth off bottom.

The Match

I was caught on the hop as I’d expected my local pub, The Pavilion, to be watching the England v Wales game till 6pm or so and was listening to Talksport when I thought I’d better double-check by calling the pub. When I discovered that they were watching the rugby as well as our game, I skidaddled round there and only missed the first ten minutes. Richardson had already had to go off but we were looking confident. The pub was full of QPR fans happy after their win as well as folks watching the rugby. The rugby commentary was on and nearly everyone was watching that.

For the first half I thought we played well and there wasn’t much in it. Pennant looked dangerous down the right and the best chance of the half came from his cross in the 38 th minute when Gordon saved well from Torres’ header. I didn’t see us have a shot worthy of the name on target during the first-half but 0-0 at half-time was more than pleasing. Does Keano get sponsored for his chewie consumption? I’m sure he’s worth a million or two from Wrigley’s. I watched the final stages of the rugby during the break and have to say I was rather pleased that Wales won. Last year I discovered I was one eighth Welsh. In 1981 a pissed South African guy called me a Welsh cunt so he was at least partly right.

It was a different story in the second-half and Liverpool scored two good goals through classic finishing from Crouch and Torres. We looked a lot better after they went 2-0 up and had our best chances but O’Donovan and Chops should’ve done better with the goal gaping before them. We also had a very good penalty shout denied in the 73 rd minute when the ball certainly hit Carragher’s arm in the box. It looked to me a much better claim than the one which led to their third goal two minutes from time when Nos appeared to get the ball cleanly. Gordon almost saved it and he also made two or three great saves. I’ve criticized him in the past but he’s recently shown what he’s made of. If Richardson had stayed on; if we’d got that penalty…lots of ‘ifs’ as usual after such results but, as the man said, “If me aunty had balls, she’d be me uncle.”

So, we’ve come away with nothing but we’re still fifth off bottom and a win against Wigan next week will do us a power of good.

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