Reading 1 Liverpool 2 - Prem (Apr 7 2007)

[TLW]

Reading 1 LIVERPOOL 2

Report by Mark Ingram at the Madejski Stadium

Scorer(s) - Alvaro Arbeloa, Dirk Kuyt Half Time - 0-1 Venue - Madejski Stadium Date - Sat 7 Apr 2007 Star Man - Alvaro Arbeloa

 

 

 

 

After such a good midweek result in Eindhoven, Saturday’s trip to the Madjedski Stadium was always in danger of being a case of ‘after the lord mayor’s show’. There was also the danger of players subconsciously wanting to save themselves for the return leg on Wednesday, so Benitez had a job on his hands to pick the right team and get the boys up for the game.

His starting eleven proved to be typically unpredictable with Agger, Alonso, Kuyt, and Riise all rested in favour of Hyppia, Sissoko, Bellamy and Gonzalez. The initial concerns arose when we saw this enormous gaping hole in the right side of midfield, with Sissoko, Mascherano and Gerrard all preferring to stay in the centre. It was a truly bizarre set up, and no one seemed to want to do anything about it for at least the first quarter of the game. The thing that made it even more strange, was that Reading hardly seemed to notice and didn’t even try to exploit the space to their advantage. The other slight worry was the laboured trudgings of Crouch and a few others who had given their all on Tuesday night.

The first real action, apart from a decent save by Reina, was a Reading free kick just outside the Liverpool box for a Ronaldo-like dive from one of their ginger players, Kitson I think. Nothing really came from their free kick but the ball immediately broke our to the left and Arbeola raced up field with it, linking well with Crouch, receiving the ball back and planting a right footed shot in the far corner past the slap headed keeper.

It was a very cute finish and a fine way to open a goal scoring account. I’m liking this signing very much, it’s pure Spanish nouse on Rafa’s behalf, no Englishman alive could have claimed to know much about this lad before he turned up but he’s got a lot of the qualities required to make a good full back.

In that move alone he showed composure, speed, awareness of his team mates and the bonus feature of tidy finishing. He’s not quite got the comedy factor of Traore but he knows how to defend and he quietly gets on with his job, building his reputation with every game.

Aside from the goal the general performance was pretty sloppy in the first half to be honest. Sissoko got stuck in but lost a lot of the ball he won and Bellamy was having a stinker which was clearly getting the little man frustrated. He’s a very moody player is Bellamy, so when he’s in the mood it’s great but when he’s got his knickers in a twist he’s a bit of a pain in the arse, more on him later.

Sissoko was another one to cause the travelling fans a bit of frustration. Whether you love him or you hate him, you’ve got to admit he can be pretty annoying. He’ll bust a gut to win the ball with a crunching tackle but then he often gives it straight back to them. I personally love watching Sissoko get amongst them and irritate the life out of the opposition but at the moment his all round game isn’t quite up to what it should be and certainly all the ‘new Viera’ talk has died down.

He’s got a lot of potential but at present he’s no Viera and in my eyes he’s not quite in the best starting eleven we have at our disposal. I hope he starts making me eat my words because when he’s having a stormer he’s unplayable and we could do with a few more unplayable players.

At half time the general mood was good because we certainly hadn’t looked like the best side but there were a fair amount of grumblings in the air. These grumblings soon became all out criticisms when Reading drew level at the start of the second half through a hell of a finish from Gunnarson.

It would have been worse too if it hadn’t been for a brave block from Finnan who put his whole body in the way of a fierce shot and it could have been worse still if Crouch had found his own net with a ‘defensive’ header. What was the big man playing at? God only knows, but Rafa wasn’t going to hang around and find out he hauled him off in favour of Pennant and hauled Bellamy off for Kuyt.

At least that is what he tried to do but Bellamy was in such utter disbelief that his awful afternoon was getting worse that he just stood there when he should have been jogging off. He then proceeded to amble off like a stroppy five year old on his way to the naughty step whilst the rest of the team and a few thousand fans wanted to get on with the game. This kind of thing really winds me up. He needs to have a serious word with himself over this. When the gaffer wants you off, then get the hell off the field, Craig, you stroppy little git, we’ve got a game to try and win here.

Thankfully, young Mr Bellamy did finally depart from view and the replacements fared a whole lot better as the team pushed for the winning goal. Then we saw the best move of the match which was started by that man Arbeola, who brought in Sissoko and Kuyt who fed a neat little reverse ball through the defence, carving them apart, only for Gerrard to just miss out on a far post stretch which almost cost him a hamstring tear.

It was delightful and deserved a goal but agonisingly just slid wide. Gerrard was at this point playing in a roaming role up front with Kuyt as there was no room in centre midfield and Pennant had taken up position in the previously gaping right hand side. It’s not his best position but quite frankly I’m bored of saying that about Gerrard, everyone knows he should be playing in the middle of the park but he rarely does these days.

Surely the first thing you do when you pick a team is put your best players in their best positions and build your team around them. Here we have the greatest central midfielder England has seen in a generation yet he’s rendered far less effective as some kind of floating gap filler for both club and country. But what would I know anyway?

Maybe that’s why I spend my working week tapping keys in an office for a relative pittance whilst Benitez earns muchos deniros waving his arms around on the touchlines of Europe’s most famous pitches as he masterminds European Cup Successes.

Anyway, back to the game, and Pennant was starting to exert some influence, seeing a fair amount of the ball and succeeding to get some decent crosses in to the box. To say that he was ‘running them ragged’ would be a bit of an overstatement but he certainly was providing the most problems for Reading and looked most likely to create the winner. And sure enough the winner came from a Pennant cross, not his best cross of the day, a bit of a looper, but it did enough to make slap-head flap at it, leaving Kuyt with more of a target to aim his header at.

It was a well taken header and it was duly celebrated by the players and the fans alike. Riise could have made it three were it not for a decent block from the defender but as the final whistle went the fans knew that we got just about what we deserved from the game, anymore would have been flattery. We’ve certainly played worse but we certainly need to be playing better.

News of Arsenal’s woeful end to the season filtered through from Upton Park which added to the celebrations and then on the way home the result from Fratton Park put a cherry on the cake. A top afternoon of football results all round.

I’d expected Reading to be a bit better than that to be honest, Coppell is doing a decent job there, with a young team, some with a fair amount of talent, but people were saying that about Jewell last year, so next year is their biggest test.

A very satisfactory result for the reds, not the greatest performance, but we’ve got away with it, and are now sitting safely in third place. Not many individual performances to choose from, most of them were no better than a seven out of ten, but Arbeola should probably get the Star Man for his all round game and his goal, no one else really came into the running.

Something has to be said for Rafa’s rotation policy that was blamed for our poor start to the season. It certainly seems now that it’s bearing some fruits, it’s just a pity that we were so handicapped by it to begin with.

All eyes now on Wednesday night, and especially the team selection. Benitez has to be very careful which personnel he trusts for the game. I expect a few squad players to start but whoever does should be treating it as 0-0 which isn’t easy to do. All being well we should be in the last four in Europe which is bloody great stuff and gives us the opportunity to experience more history. Bring it on.


Team: Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Arbeloa; Gerrard, Sissoko, Alonso, Gonzalez (Riise): Bellamy (Kuyt), Crouch (Pennant):