FA Premier League
Sat 9th May (5.30pm) @ Upton Park
Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard both played for only the 12th time this season as Liverpool yet again demolished a team in the Premier League without breaking sweat, to take Liverpool back to the top of the Premier League, albeit on goal difference.
Within the first minute the reds had the lead after Steven Gerrard cooly went round the keeper and placed the ball in to the net. Simple but brilliant football.
Torres himself was brought down in the box as half time approached and up stepped Gerrard for the penalty. The pen was saved but the captain was the quickest to react and put the ball away from the rebound.
Similar heartache for the Hammers keeper later on when Babel fired a shot which was saved only to then put the rebound in the back of the net to give the reds their customary 3rd goal.
With Alonso out through injury, Lucas and Mascherano did a terrific job in the central midfield. The Liverpool engine looks so finely tuned now that even replacing the cogs in the machine has little effect on the overall outcome of fixtures.
Post Match Comments
Rafael Benitez:
“When you come to tough places like West Ham, it’s important to go in front and we did that. Looking at the game, we deserved to win.”
“We have done our job. We have to keep winning, that’s all we can do,”
“We needed to get three points and put them (United) under pressure, and now we will be cheering and supporting City,”
“United will have a difficult game, a derby is a derby.”
Team News
Liverpool: Reina, Arbeloa, Skrtel, Carragher, Aurelio (Insua 54), Benayoun (Dossena 82), Mascherano, Lucas, Gerrard, Kuyt, Torres (Babel 72).
Subs Not Used: Cavalieri, Hyypia, Ngog, Degen.
Booked: Aurelio, Mascherano.
Goals: Gerrard 2, 38, Babel 84.
West Ham: Green, Neill, Tomkins, Upson, Ilunga, Boa Morte (Payne 80), Noble, Kovac, Stanislas (Collison 59), Di Michele (Sears 70), Tristan.
Subs Not Used: Lastuvka, Lopez, Nsereko, Spector.
Booked: Boa Morte, Kovac, Di Michele.
Att: 34,951
Ref: Alan Wiley (Staffordshire).
i was in the dr martin stand as a liverpool fan, some west fans over behind us and they didnt but give liverpool players ,fans and benitez abuse the whole game
I love u gerrard ur the legend. But ohhhh the silly mistakes that we made in previous matches…… but we have to keep this sprit going for the next season too. I mean whether we got the title this season or not. It seems very difficult but nothing is impossible. Am very proud of u guys. keep it movin. YWNWA
Our strongest 11 is as good if not better than Utd’s. This has been proven by the way in which we humbled them in both league meetings this season. We even gave them a goal head start in both games. the key difference between ourselves and Utd is that they have a stronger squad, which means they can pick up more points than we can with a so called under strength team. Therefore when they play home matches against the likes of Stoke, Hull and Fulham, they can afford to rest their best players and still grind out wins with their ‘squad players’. This is all becuase they can spend at least £5m more per ‘squad player’ than we can and in some cases have £30m+ players sat on the bench like Teves and Berbatov.
That said, if Utd lose Ronaldo, they will lose a big part of the reaon they are successful. They are not a one man team, but losing any player that can score 25-30 goals a season will affect any team. Would we have won the title in 1989-90 had John Barnes not contributed 22 league goals? Scholes and giggs are not players for the future and many of the other expesnive squad signings haven’t really set the world alight. Step forward Berbatov, Anderson, Nani et al.
We have reasosn to be positive that we can topple Utd’s dominance. We’re the only team in England that has not lost a home league mathc, the top scorers, the best away record adn the bets record against the other big 3. We’re not far away
It was another solid performance by the boys in a match where three points seemed certain from kick-off!.Man U sadly won today and probably the title with it but we’re getting closer having made great progress this season.
With a few good signings the long wait to being crowned champs should hopefully be over sooner rather then later.
I love it! my liverpoolheart is warm!!
Great win, and Gerrard, what can you say about him, how he wasnt pfa player of the year i’ll never know. We may not catch Manure but at least we’re doing our job and putting the pressure on.