August 15th, the day marked on every Reds’ fans calendar – just a shame we couldn’t produce the result worthy of the anticipation.
A new season started for the Reds today and with fixtures approaching such as Man City and Rabotnicki, a win today was almost a necessity to keep the momentum going – and it would have been so had it not been for a fluke own-goal by Pepe Reina.
This was a game for debutants in the Premier League for Liverpool too – both Milan Jovanovic and Joe Cole.
In a fairly uneventful first-half, Arsenal started the match on the front-foot, keeping possession well and mainly dominating the midfield.
Reina's mistake ensured Liverpool drew.
Arsenal kept seeing more and more of the ball, and carried on upping the pressure on the Reds defence, but creating virtually no chances as the Liverpool rearguard held strong.
After a quick break, Liverpool ended up winning a corner, which Almunia flapped at and Kuyt couldn’t quite get on the end of.
Just before the half-time whistle, one of the debutants in Joe Cole made what appeared to be a two-footed challenge on fellow debutant for Arsenal – Koscielny.
Martin Atkinson quickly made the decison to send Joe Cole off – and Liverpool ended up playing the remainder of the game with 10-men.
That didn’t appear to matter after the break, however, as want-away Javier Mascherano played in N’Gog in the Arsenal box, who shot and beat Almunia at his near-post. And what a cracker of a goal it was too! 1-0 Liverpool.
10-man Liverpool kept cranking up the pressure on the Gunners, and should have had a second when Skrtel headed narrowly wide from Gerrard’s corner. The Reds were on fire.
Arsenal slowly started playing their way into the game after countless Liverpool attacks and corners which ended up being fruitless, but couldn’t make their possession count. Zero chances.
Jovanovic made way for Maxi Rodriguez on 65 minutes. The Serb had a truly excellent game, and is proving to be a diamond of a free-transfer from Standard Liege.
Torres was also readied and subbed on afterwards, replacing the goalscorer David N’Gog – both players were brought off (and on) to a standing ovation from the Kop.
Afterwards, Arsenal managed to carve out an opening for Rosicky which Reina did superbly well to palm over the bar. The Reds appeared to be hanging on by a thread.
Things got worse when Daniel Agger had to leave the field due to concussion after being hit in the face by a Sagna cross earlier in the game. But the Dane insisted he had to play on and came back, concussion and all, to play his part in defence. Liverpool were effectively playing with 9-men though.
Arsenal’s breakthrough came on the 89th minute, when Rosicky fired a cross into the box. Reina appeared to mis-judge it. Chamakh caught it, hit it onto the post, and it bounced off the Spaniard and into the goal. 1-1.
It was a brave display by the Reds in the second-half especially, but you’d be forgiven for thinking we should have won the game.
i thought we did ok in the 2nd half but in the 1st half it was shame full and we were down to 10 men for most of it and then down to 9 men cus agger hade conncustion (hope he will be ok sayin after the game he did’nt remember it) so if we play like we did in the 2nd halk i think we will do great and there will be all 11 men on the pitch.
Why are so people mentioning the fact that it was a good result against a team ‘like Arsenal’. We’ve been closer to winning a league and won more trophies than them in the last 6 seasons have we not? i fear a culture of mediocrity is setting in at our great club and all the smoke and mirrors in the boardroom can’t cover that fact. Getting in a manager that has only won 4 away matches in 2 seasons doesn’t inspire me with confidence.
Considering our performances last year my confidence was very low indeed, add to that a new manager and a lot of toing a froing with the background antics – I would have snatched a draw at the beginning!
Come on guys! First league game, our rebuild year – until we effectively went down to 9 men we could have held out for a win – luck sometimes just works against us. Overall I’d sum the day up as a confidence builder with some really plus points.
You don’t really deserve a response Digger, but I will anyway.
Jovanovic looked good, especially when you consider he was free. We weren’t good first half, but then Arsenal can just keep the ball and it’s hard to get a rhythm going.
Second half we were excellent and deserved the win.
Arsenals goal was a fluke, but then goals like that can happen (even to Pepe)
Gerrard looks back to his best and some key players are still to get fit and slot in after World Cup. Don’t be so negative.
It’s not negativity, it’s called being realistic. I wasn’t criticising Jovanovic, but surely it’s far too early to be calling him a diamond. Anyone remember Nigel Clough or Albert Riera? I seem to rememebr they started their careers well only for them to quickly tail off. I’ll start calling him a diamond when he’s performed well for 10 – 15 games. Arsenal only keep the ball well if you give it back to them cheap. I didn’t see them dominate possession against Barca last year.
Reina saved us so many times last season and it’s common knowledge that he’s one of the best keepers in England, in fact in my opinion, he is the best.
I honestly think people in general are very harsh on N’Gog, he’s still young and learning his trade, give the lad a chance.
It’s only the first game of the season, let’s be a bit more positive eh lads !!
Hi Mate, if you read back any of diggers remarks they are usually doom and gloom…. and as for imran….. he might even be a united supporter
Well let’s just hope we don’t need the 2 points we threw away in this game to claim a top 4 spot. In my opinion there are only 2 slots realisitically up for grabs as Man City and Chelsea will surely claim 2 of the 4, and that’s without even mentioning Utd, whom despite their advancing years continue to be strong. That leaves us in a scrap with the likes of Spurs, Everton, Villa and dear old Arsenal whom we had a great chance of taking some points off on Sunday. There is little room for error.
What’s it with this general belief that we played superbly when in reality Arsenal dominated where as we were average at best.Roy needs time and money to buy new players thereby improve the performances so it’ll a few months at the very least.This is still very much a Rafa Benitez team.
The good thing was that the bench looked so much stronger with Aquilani not even finding a seat.Ngog is frustrating and Riena capable of making costly errors.All in all it was a fair result in the end.
Flippin heck mate, did you watch the same match as me????
I will admit to missing some of the first half, but against a side as good as Arsenal, I think we did pretty well and could easily have won the game, only for one small error from Pepe.
In the second half we played together as a real team, it was great to see lots of communication between the players, the spirit’s looking good in the camp at the moment.
Cole’s sending off was very harsh but what do you expect from a prat such as Atkinson.
Jovanovic a diamond? Well done to Rafa for bringing him to the club then. This was a truly shocking day for us. What was Joe Cole thinking with a challenge like that and as for Pepe? Well obviously sitting on his bum all summer hasn’t helped him. We were truly awful first half, just pumping balls over the top for Ngog. We ain’t going far playing like that. We might just grab 4th spot though (4th from bottom that is!).
yes mate thats jus what we need from the beginning on… “supporters” to critisize at the start of the season! are u stupid or what
pepe had hell of some good saves in that match and if u ask me the red card was not justified!!! weve and we could have go 2 up but didnt happen
its a hell of a start compared to last seasons