Liverpool 2-0 Spurs
Postponed a few weeks ago due to the snow the arrival of Tottenham to Anfield is one that would strike Liverpool fans with either fear or hope. Some hopeful that this could be the start of our big turn around and that we’d do it against one of the leagues form teams. Unfortunately for me it was fear that we were looking likely to suffer yet another home defeat.
Torres, Gerrard, Benayoun, Johnson and Agger just to name a few all out injured so a fairly make shift side for the game. A fairly strong central midfield with Aquilani, Mascherano and Lucas but surprises in the form of Phillip Degan as our right midfielder and Albert Riera starting his first game for the reds in a number of weeks. New signing Maxi Rodriguez started the night on the bench.
To the first half then and Liverpool unusually attacking the Kop in the first half. That’s normally a bad omen but a crazy little 30 second spell saw Liverpool centre back Kyrgiakos almost concede an own goal but for a sequence of three saves from Reina. Whilst the Sky cameras focused upon Krygiakos; Liverpool were making their way down the pitch, after what looked to be a foul outside the Spurs penalty area the ball falls to Dirkaldinho who slots into the bottom hand corner to make it 1-0. After this the game became very possessive and saw a lot of the play occur in the centre of the park. Another positive for Liverpool was that for the first time in a while they were defending better and looked like a unit at the back. I would just like to make a point that so far one of our best players was Pepe Reina. First the Spaniard made that treble save which eventually led to our goal and just on the brink of half time Spurs put together a great passing move which lead to Luka Modric being through 1 on 1 and once again Pepe answered the call and kept the Croatian out.
At half time the Reds went in a goal up but being outplayed. So hope turns to the second half and Kopites surely hoping that the second half will deliver a more attacking performance for Liverpool.
Well, the second half definitely started with the intensity of the first. A disallowed goal that has to be seen rather than told about, but I’ll give it a go. The ball was played forward from a Spurs defender to the offside Jermaine Defoe. Smartly Defoe avoids contact with the ball and moves into an onside position. Then a calamitous pass to Reina from Krygiakos. Reina tried his best to get away from Defoe but after what looked like a little tug from Defoe, Reina ends up on the deck as Defoe slots the ball into the net despite Skrtel’s best efforts. The goal is eventually disallowed for an extremely late offside on Jermaine Defoe. This for me was the wrong decision, as the only thing I saw as worthy of disallowing the goal was a potential foul on Reina because we all know how overprotected these keepers are. After this the pressure was really applied to the Reds defence. Substitution for Spurs saw former Liverpool striker Robbie Keane step on the Anfield pitch once more as again the pressure increased from the North Londoners.
As the game progressed Liverpool began to find ways into the Spurs penalty area but chances still went begging. Kyrgiakos and Riera amongst others had chances go begging whereas Spurs had put Liverpool under constant pressure but couldn’t find the final ball and ended up having one shot on target in the second half. I think once the board went up showing 5 minutes injury time everyone knew there was something big left in this game. We only had to wait two minutes to get it as a surging run from N’gog resulted in Bale bringing him down inside the area gifting Liverpool a penalty. Kuyt was entrusted with the responsibility. First penalty scored up in the top left corner but ruled out for encroachment. Kuyt very calmly placed the ball down in the right corner this time and earned Liverpool a 2-0 win.
Post match reaction then and a fair few contenders for man of the match tonight. Top three have to be Reina, Degen and Kuyt. As the commentator pointed out Degen represented everything about Liverpool tonight, lots of energy and enthusiasm. Reina was ‘the cat’ in goal for the Reds tonight and is well worthy of a nomination. And of course our two goal hero Dirk Kuyt who had a very productive game in the striking role. So who gets Man of the Match? This is to big for just me to decide so comment and give me your opinions on the man of the match or anything to do with the game.
media problem and plastic liverpool fans not supporting the boys and rafa.
1. Rafa is currently working under a buy to sell policy.
2. No credit at all being given to rafa and his staff, by the way we are currently developing players and the academy set up!
3. Constant injuries to the whole first team( not just the sqaud), torres and gerrard being out, any team in world football would be in trouble.
4. Working in the club while we have been under a car reck with these two owners that we have had for now 3 years of rubbish, most managers would have said, sod this im off!
5. No credit given at all for the way he is trying to get the team playing while including the youth/ academy players,
oh, how many other free’s are the coming?
And a shout out to the liverpool faithful who were their with me last night…. Fantastic support from the stands, could tell we all wanted it last night Y.N.W.A.
I don’t think spurs put us under massive pressure as above stated !
They had there moments in the first half, as did we . And a lul spell in the second half from us allowed them to be more adventurous for 10 mins but we did a fantastic job of pressuring their rhythm getting twos up on their front men and wingers and restricting their play to mainly having to come central or ‘Hoofing’ the ball up to Crouchie in hope.
And some of our chances in the latter half of 45 were brilliantly carved out by a thoroughly hard working team ( i can’t believe i used the word hard working !) Most notably the one which Degan should have buried instead of passing back to Kuyt ???
All in all i think we deserved the win allot more than spurs…..
How the hell liverpool were out played, i will never know, same old story, liverpool win a game and this countries media, anti liverpool based companies can not stand to give us any credit at all? it is a disgrace it really is.
no gerrard torres benayoun johnson, reira hardly fit, as for mxi same too! we have free transfer degen to rely on, on top of that rafa has tried to give youth a go; spearing, darby, pacheco, insua and so on, no credit at all for what happening at the academy. sky sports are just shite, andy gray was just praying for a spurs win last nite, and i just can not take him, hes a cunt, oh buy the way when tottenham can not even beat a well under par liverpool when they are spending over 114 mill in under 3 years?
I noticed that watching sky sports news !
They keep going on about spurs being robbed a goal but what about the two clear penalty’s we were denied by the ref on match day one ? and the fact that in this match we could have scored and ‘should’ have scored another three with another effort well saved by gomes ?
Well done on the win, Liverpool. We could argue about a couple of refereeing decisions but you lot deserved to win because you were hungrier than us, despite being without four first-choice players.
I think it was a reverse of the first game this season as we should have had a few pens that day but you wanted it more on the day so i had no complaints about the result.
Just annoys me because it shows us what this team can do ! but havn’t done enough of this season.
A shout, not for man of the match, but biggest impact in a brief appearance for Stephan Darby. What a very difficult position to be thrown into. Only up a goal in the dying moments of the game, with our form of late very tenuous, comes in right on the stroke of 90, takes the ball down beautifully, a quick drive forward, draws a defender, quick slot through to Maxi who one touches to Ngog, bam, penalty. We all go home happy. Darby started it all after being on the pitch for 30 seconds. Great job young man.
Man O the Match has got to be Jamie Carragher if only for his never say die attitude.
MOTM = Howard Webb yet again
Bassong brought down Ngog for the penalty.
degan for me worked his socks off….
Well, i was really surprised first why Maxi is on the bench and Degen start..but then..i realized that this kid show bravery and determination..something that we missed from these past few months. To tell you the truth, i think liverpool still didn’t play at their best..but Spurs was playing really bad..and the ref was kind of helping the team too..there is nothing wrong with defoe’s goal..it should be allowed. But overall, i think liverpool deserve to win tonight. Aquillani still didn’t quite there and Kuyt was missing incredibly good chances. Reina as always brilliant. Mascherano and Lucas looking good and more connected. Give props to “The Greek” for his performance tonight. The back four looking better. always believe! YNWA