Anfield crap
Liverpool 3 - 0 Newcastle Utd
A depressingly familiar goalless return from Anfield (our last goal on the red side of Stanley Park coming in December 2004) saw Newcastle remain on 41 points, just above the relegation dog-fight.
With the game still in its infancy, and after some good early play by Newcastle, Mike Williamson's poor defensive header fell to Maxi Rodriguez, who volleyed the ball goalwards. The ball looked to be heading straight for Tim Krul, only for Danny Simpson to react and, in doing so, divert the ball away from the keeper and into the net.
After that, we huffed and puffed without ever really looking like we could draw level before half-time. Our best chance fell to Kevin Nolan, whose shot on the turn from the corner of the area sailed harmlessly wide of the goal.
After the break, and after ASBO had missed our best opportunity when he shot wide of the Liverpool goal, a further defensive mistake by Williamson gave Liverpool a cushion which was never troubled. This time, our centre-half tried to shepherd a long ball out of play, only to get it horribly wrong and allow Luis Suarez to nip past him and keep the ball in play, leaving Williamson to haul the Uruguayan to the ground on the edge of the area, with one-time Toon target Dirk Kuyt slotting home the resultant penalty.
Suarez added a third a few moments later and the only notable occurrence after that was the introduction of Rocky, to a decidedly hostile reaction from the away following. However, he didn't need to respond, with the home team comfortably seeing out the remainder of the match.
With Williamson in particular enduring a particularly miserable afternoon, and a distinct lack of a cutting edge up front, this was a pretty lousy end-of-season performance with the victory going to the side who played like they weren't mentally halfway to the beach.
A Liverpool fan's view: Liverpool Football Club Blog
Other reports: BBC, Guardian
A depressingly familiar goalless return from Anfield (our last goal on the red side of Stanley Park coming in December 2004) saw Newcastle remain on 41 points, just above the relegation dog-fight.
With the game still in its infancy, and after some good early play by Newcastle, Mike Williamson's poor defensive header fell to Maxi Rodriguez, who volleyed the ball goalwards. The ball looked to be heading straight for Tim Krul, only for Danny Simpson to react and, in doing so, divert the ball away from the keeper and into the net.
After that, we huffed and puffed without ever really looking like we could draw level before half-time. Our best chance fell to Kevin Nolan, whose shot on the turn from the corner of the area sailed harmlessly wide of the goal.
After the break, and after ASBO had missed our best opportunity when he shot wide of the Liverpool goal, a further defensive mistake by Williamson gave Liverpool a cushion which was never troubled. This time, our centre-half tried to shepherd a long ball out of play, only to get it horribly wrong and allow Luis Suarez to nip past him and keep the ball in play, leaving Williamson to haul the Uruguayan to the ground on the edge of the area, with one-time Toon target Dirk Kuyt slotting home the resultant penalty.
Suarez added a third a few moments later and the only notable occurrence after that was the introduction of Rocky, to a decidedly hostile reaction from the away following. However, he didn't need to respond, with the home team comfortably seeing out the remainder of the match.
With Williamson in particular enduring a particularly miserable afternoon, and a distinct lack of a cutting edge up front, this was a pretty lousy end-of-season performance with the victory going to the side who played like they weren't mentally halfway to the beach.
A Liverpool fan's view: Liverpool Football Club Blog
Other reports: BBC, Guardian
Labels: liverpool, match report
posted by Paul at 3:34 pm
1 Comments:
Nice post title...
We can bemoan our misfortune (the deflection on the Rodriguez shot, the fact that Williamson's foul on Suarez was outside the area and the Uruguayan fell dramatically into the box to con the referee) but ultimately both goals were still the result of shoddy defending. Williamson's been largely solid this season, but he didn't have a very clever afternoon at all.
Our attacking efforts were summed up for me by Big Lad trying to score with his left foot from 30 yards. Never going to happen. We seem to have got the same sort of inferiority complex at Anfield as we have at Old Trafford - the fans turn up expecting defeat, but surely the players shouldn't as they've at least got the capacity to do something about it?
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