Liverpool 1 Sunderland 0 (Prem) Aug 20 2005

[TLW]

LIVERPOOL 1 Sunderland 0

Report by Dave Usher at Anfield

Scorer(s) - Xabi Alonso Half Time - 1-0 Venue - Anfield Date - Sat 20 Aug 2005 Star Man - Momo Sissoko/Xabi Alonso

 

 

 

 

 

Seven days ago, Liverpool produced an excellent display at the Riverside, but were held to a goalless draw by ten man Middlesboro. Today, once more the opposition were reduced to ten men, but this time maximum points were collected, despite the performance being way below par.

Last week was encouraging. Today was anything but. A lot of question marks hang over the European Champions at this moment in time. There is a chronic lack of ability in wide areas, and unless a top class option is found for the right hand side, sustaining a position at the top of the table will prove tough.

And what of the striking situation? Morientes has a lot to prove, and at times is looking a forlorn figure. Cisse has been shunted out to the wing as a result of Benitez's preference for a 4-5-1 system, which begs the question: where would Michael Owen fit into the side if he did come back?

Sunderland arrived at Anfield on the back of a heavy home defeat last week by Charlton, and a look at their starting line up hinted at a convincing home win for the reds. Credit to the Mackems though, they produced a battling display and can feel slightly aggrieved not have gotten something from the game.

It started well enough for Liverpool. Gerrard's wickedly swerving ball into the box after only two minutes struck a post, and Morientes headed wide from a right wing corner. He should have done better, especially as heading is his biggest asset.

Nando has come in for a fair amount of criticism after failing to live up to the high expectations that accompanied his arrival from Madrid. Some of it has been fair, some of it over the top. He hasn't looked the best in pre-season, but some players don't shine in pre-season.

Morientes is proven quality. He has a great goalscoring record, a big reputation and is still involved with the Spanish national side. On top of that, he's said to be absolutely world class in training. Writing him off would be foolish, but there are doubts about whether he will cut it in England, and those doubts will only have been intensified after another lacklustre display against the Black Cats.

To be fair to Nando, he is trying and there's no lack of effort. Things didn't happen for him in this game, but he never sulked, he just worked harder at tracking back and trying to help out the team. Unfortunately, that's not really what we need from him at the moment, although credit to him for his effort.

The biggest worry I have about him is that at times he doesn't seem to know where he should be playing. He is coming deep to collect the ball, but when he does that it leaves nobody up front. When he stays up front, he doesn't have the pace to play on the shoulder of the centre backs.

As a lone striker, he is proving to be pretty ineffective. He doesn't have pace, so he offers no threat in behind. Despite being a decent size, he isn't especially strong and can be knocked off the ball. And he is often caught in possession due to wanting too long on the ball. It's a worry.

The thing that he undoubtedly excels at is attacking crosses. Sadly for him, the weakest area of the Liverpool squad is wide midfield. Morientes is struggling, and maybe he will never adapt to English football. But a couple of high quality wingers putting the ball into the right areas for him would certainly make a difference.

Zenden's crossing looked good in his first couple of pre-season games, but he's gone off the boil as the standard of opposition got higher. I thought he played well in the first half today, but faded badly after the break. One gorgeous volleyed cross into the danger area from the Dutchman should have resulted in a goal for Cisse, but he didn't get enough contact on the ball and a great chance was lost. It would prove to be the story of Djibril's day.

Thankfully Cisse's wastefulness didn't prove costly, as a stunning Xabi Alonso free-kick was enough to secure the points. Zenden's direct run was halted by a crude lunge by Carl Robinson, and Xabi whipped the free kick around the wall and into the top corner.

A class goal from a class act. Alonso wasn't at his most influential, but along with the once again impressive Sissoko, he bossed the midfield and showed a level of intelligence and quality that was sadly lacking in most of his team-mates. He wasn't at his best, but he was still a class above. The goal highlighted why he should be the main man when it comes to set pieces.

The goal should have been the catalyst for the reds to go on and wrap up the game. Up to that point, the performance had been pretty good. As has so often happened in recent years however, the foot was taken off the accelerator, and the opponents were allowed to regroup.

Sunderland weren't overly ambitious, but they did get men forward when the opportunity presented itself. I had no idea who many of their players were before the game, but players such as Welsh and Lawrence on the flanks performed well. Tactically, they were giving us a few problems down our left flank. Warnock - who I thought had another excellent game, often found himself outnumbered, as Whitehead and Lawrence doubled up on him.

Zenden didn't offer enough protection, and when he swapped flanks with Cisse late in the half, the Frenchman offered even less. The visitors worked some good openings down the flanks, but thankfully they didn't have the numbers in the box to make it tell.

Warnock had been marauding forward in the early stages of the game, but Mick McCarthy put a stop to that by ensuring the reds full back had his hands full defensively with Lawrence and Whitehead. Welsh was looking a threat on the opposite flank, and came closest to grabbing an equaliser when his cross skimmed the bar at the Kop end.

Inspiration was needed to lift the reds, and as Milan Baros warmed up his name was enthusiastically chanted by the Kop. He may well be soon to depart, but he's still popular, and for what its worth, in my opinion he's still the best striker at the club.

Garcia and Riise were also on the bench, and it was those two who were put through their paces by Pako at half time, suggesting that Milan would have to wait longer than those two for his opportunity. And so it proved, as not long after the break Garcia replaced the injured Gerrard.

Not long before that, Gerrard had looked like he may be leaving the field via another route, as the despicable parrott faced Alan Stubbs did his level best to ensure the reds' skipper left the field due to a second yellow card. Stubbs was dallying on the ball on his own 18 yard line, and Gerrard had attempted to rob possession. The defender cleared the ball, and on his follow through he was perhaps caught slightly by Gerrard.

It was clear to everyone in the ground that he was playacting in the hope of getting Gerrard dismissed, so quite rightly Djibril refused to put the ball out so Stubbs could receive treatment. The problem was, some of the Sunderland players did stop, and Cisse ran through on goal only to balloon a shot into the Kop. Breen was furious, and went head to head with Djibbers.

Thankfully nothing serious happened, but Stubbs showed once again what a horrible twat he is. Gerrard must have been concerned that he's pick up a second yellow given how Stubbs collapsed like he'd been shot, but the referee wasn't interested. Maybe if David Weir had been there to sprint 40 yards to complain things would have been different?

Gerrard would soon be forced off anyway, with a muscle injury which its rumoured was picked up whilst with Ingerlund. Thanks for that Sven, you Chelsea loving, skinny, baldy, phelandering piece of shit. Funny how Lampard was rested after 45 minutes eh?

Zenden then made way for Riise, but little changed. Liverpool huffed and puffed, but the longer it went on the worse they looked, and the more confidence Sunderland gained.

McCarthy made a couple of changes of his own, and the lad Elliot who went up front caused a few anxious moments and won a lot of possession.

It was clear that a nervous finale was on the cards unless we could get a second goal. Cisse thought he'd done just that when he had the ball in the net following Alonso's flighted free-kick, but the linesman wrongly flagged for offside. Sunderland will feel that was justice after they were refused a penalty following a handball by Sissoko in the first half.

I'm not sure on the penalty. It hit his hand, and his hand was slightly raised, so I couldn't have argued too much had it been given. In Sissoko's defence I'd say that the lad in front of him ducked out of the way of the ball, and Momo had been completely unsighted. However, had that been at the other end I'd have wanted a pen, so we were a but lucky I guess.

Cisse then volleyed just wide from a good position, and was shortly replaced by Baros. The Czech looked lively and sharp, but by this stage we weren't attacking particularly well, and he didn't see too much of the ball.

Sunderland were then reduced to ten men, following the harsh dismissal of Welsh. Arca had pulled back Garcia, and as the whistle went, Luis stopped and Welsh deliberately ran into him, knocking him over. It was a yellow card offence, as there was intent there, but a red was extremely harsh. I was sat pretty close to it, and what may have influenced the referee was that Welsh gave Garcia that look which says "yeah, and what the fuck are you gonna do about it?" It was petulant, stupid, but never a red card offence.

It was the most notable thing Garcia did in his time on the field. Many attacks were breaking down due to the infuriating little number ten. Luis does some great things, but sometimes he can be totally irresponsible and reckless in his decision making.

One outrageously poor timed back heel straight to a defender with four minutes to go had the entire stadium howling. A bollocking from Carragher no doubt followed soon after. It was a nervy finale, but thankfully they didn't create anything of note and we saw the game out to collect the full three points. The worry is that a better side would have made a lot more of the possession Sunderland had.

Overall, it was hard not to be disappointed by the performance, if not the result. There were many reasons to be pessimistic, but it's too early in the season for that kind of talk, so I'll look at the positives.

Firstly, I'd like to think we won't play this poorly again for a while. And if we can play badly and win, then that's an improvement on last season, where we lost whenever our standards slipped.

Then there's Sissoko. I really like this kid. I thought he was going to be shit, probably because of the 'new Vieira' curse he was saddled with. But there are actually a lot of similarities between Momo and Vieira. They move the same way, have a very similar style of play, and a tendency to collect yellow cards! Momo loves a tackle, and he can run all day. His touch is excellent though, which is perhaps the thing that has surprised me the most.

When the ball is played to him, it's instantly brought under control, and his use of it is generally excellent. His long game, ie his long passing and shooting, looks like it could use some work, but other than that he looks every inch a top player. At just 20 years old, he looks like he could be some player in the years ahead.

I thought Warnock was excellent too. His use of the ball is always good, his tackling always ferocious, but this year he seems to have a little bit extra in terms of fitness and pace. I'm made up he's being given a run of games with Traore sidelined, and if he can stay injury free he could really stake a permanent claim for the left back spot.

Xabi was neat and tidy, Finnan had a typical Finnan game, Reina had nothing at all to do, and Carra and Sami will be pleased with another clean sheet even if at times they didn't always look totally comfortable. Sunderland didn't create anything clear cut, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they could sneak one at any time. I never felt comfortable until the final whistle went. I was relieved at the whistle, and then disappointed at the fact that I felt relieved. It shouldn't have come to that, we should be beating them out of sight, shouldn't we?

Maybe expectations are unrealistically high this season, but that's surely understandable. After all, we are Champions of Europe. We all want a title challenge, and what happened in Istanbul makes us believe anything is possible. As a result, after every good performance many of us can get swept away with dreams of number 19. I'm as guilty of that as anyone, especially at this time of the year.

So maybe it's not such a bad thing to have the occasional game like this where we looked anything but title contenders? When you look at this performance and examine the quality of the squad, then fourth place would appear to be the best we can do, barring a woeful season by one of the top three. Unless some top class additions arrive before the transfer window shuts, it's unlikely we can mount any kind of sustained challenge at the top. So I'm looking at fourth place, with a vastly improved points total as a realistic aim for the season......

.......unless we win at Tottenham next week, in which case number 19 is back on!

Team: Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Warnock; Cisse (Baros), Alonso, Sissoko, Zenden (Riise); Gerrard (Garcia); Morientes: