Portsmouth 0 Liverpool 0 - Prem (Sep 15 2007)

[TLW]

Portsmouth 0 LIVERPOOL 0

Report Mark Ingram at Fratton Park

Scorer(s) - Half Time - 0-0 Venue - Fratton Park Date - Sat 15 September 2007 Star Man - Pepe Reina

 

 

 

 

What a wasted trip that was. The first thing Rafa was supposed to have learnt from last season’s slow start was the need to reduce his obsessive tinkering in the early stages of the season to maintain momentum and pressure. So with one eye on a tricky midweek champions league tie at Porto what does he do? Tinkers, like a travelling Irish gypsy.

The whole body of the team changed from the mauling at home to Derby two weeks ago and along with it a vast proportion of the team’s creativity and finishing ability. Fratton Park may be a pikey little village green on the outskirts of a pikey little village but it’s not an easy place to come and win as an away team, and Rafa knows that.

The only reason they are still plying their trade in the Premier League is because of their very impressive home record, easily matching that of the ‘big four’ clubs, and for me Rafa missed a trick here. Not an impressive day in his managerial record by any means.

Crouch and Benayoun found themselves on the team sheet for a rare outing, whether that means they won’t be needed on Tuesday remains to be seen. Crouch was playing against one of his many former clubs but to be honest, you’d never have known it. There wasn’t much in the way of pantomime booing and hissing coming from angry sections of home fans, instead they were more interested in singing their trademark Play Up Pompey chant. To be fair to them, they do create an atmosphere there, much of the credit for their home record must therefore go to the home fans.

Benayoun started the liveliest, getting a decent snap shot away which James comfortably guided past his near post. Always worth getting a few speculative shots away against James as you never know how dodgy he’ll be one day to the next. Today, unfortunately, he wasn’t dodgy at all and was never really troubled by the Liverpool team at all, which is very annoying to have to say.

The most likely we looked to score was in the first half when Crouch was put through from a decent move involving Voronin, the big man did all that could be asked of him, hitting a low shot with his wrong foot towards the far post, but the angle was against him and James got his lumbering frame down fast enough to take away the danger. These two shots were the sum total of all the pressure placed on the Portsmouth defence in the whole of the first half – pretty poor stuff.

The main talking point of the half happened at the wrong end. That waste of time ref Riley gave yet another one of his trademark soft penalties for what? Lord only knows, but if it was a clear goal scoring opportunity that Arbeloa infringed then I’m an athletic world class striker. (I’m not by the way. I’m a pretty average 5-a-side journeyman with a gut and man-boobs that Wank Lampard would be proud of).

So anyway, Riley gave them the penner, Carra, Arbeloa etc. stood around with their hands on their heads screaming blue murder at Riley, Kanu lolloped up and passed it, waist height into the line of the superbly engineered parabola that was Reina’s dive, the ball flew away to safety and lots of south coast pikies screamed ‘NOOOO’ in unison.

Kanu’s name was then added onto the long line of past Pepe penner victims. Of course it’s good to see justice being done but, I’d have preferred him to save Lampard’s four weeks ago at Anfield, although this one was barely a more deserving award. Can referees as a whole please take note: WILL YOU PLEASE STOP GIVING DAFT PENALTIES AGAINST LIVERPOOL. Thank you.

There was no sign of any big stars undergoing rigorous warm ups during the half time break which immediately led us to believe that the mandatory wait until the hour mark before the first sub would occur. It’s very rare that Benitez changes his systems and this is one that he seems very set in his ways about.

Another one is the lack of double substitutions. In this instance, the use of a double sub at half time would have shaken things up considerably and would have provided the subs with enough time to get into the game and make a difference.

As it was, Gerrard and Torres arrived within about five minutes of each other around the customary hour-mark and only really combined once to create a decent chance, which Torres very disappointingly sliced into the crowd. I must admit to expecting a far better finish from Torres, which I suppose is a credit to how he’s played so far.

It was a bad miss though and I screamed some very loud obscenities after that one, Gerrard had done enormously well to create the chance but it was spooned hopelessly. Very disappointing. He did his best to make amends a few minutes before time when he turned a defender on the by line, eased into the box with some exceptional grace and provide a beautiful ball across the six yard box only for Voronin to miss by the length of a stud, a la Gazza v the Germans in Euro 96. He nearly got there but his telepathic understanding with Torres wasn’t quite as in tune as it could have been and so the ball drifted agonisingly wide. Very disappointing indeed.

Voronin also made something out of half a chance, when he grazed the crossbar with a speculative roundhouse kick, but it wasn’t to be either. He’s a good all round forward, by the looks of things is Voronin, one of the qualities I like the best is his following up on the keeper for rebounds and pre-empting loose balls in the six yard box.

We need a poacher like that and he will score goals like his Derby goal for us this season but, alas, today he didn’t, and the three points were not to be. The same applies for Torres, good forward, will score goals from similar situations to the one he spooned, but not today.

All in all, a very disappointing trip to a horrible little part of the country. Two points wasted, most of the blame lying with the manager, and now we’ve lost almost all the advantage we had over the mancs and the chavs from our early season run. Not the end of the world by any means and I refuse to get all down about it on the lads or Rafa, but I expected better to be honest.

No one played particularly well. Carragher & Agger more than held their own against the three man attack, although had Utaka been less of a donkey, we’d have been a goal down early in the second half.

Finnan & Arbeloa didn’t do much wrong but didn’t do a great deal to remember either. Alonso didn’t impact the game enough and Sissoko won a few free kicks with some dodgy diving but otherwise wasn’t as influential as he has been.

Benayoun tried his best but wasn’t the threat he should have been and likewise Pennant didn’t do enough to do his recent reputation any merit. Crouch was a bit of a handful but by no means a complete menace and Voronin was encouraging but didn’t quite have the luck that would have transformed his near misses into hard currency.

Gerrard & Torres both made a bit of a difference and both supplied qualities, no, but neither could make it count. I suppose that leaves Reina as star man who brilliantly saved the penalty that never was, and made a couple of other decent stops, but to be fair didn’t have a great deal to do otherwise.

It was all pretty disappointing but I suppose the positives need to be taken from it. At the moment we’re a bit like Kiera Knightly, very tight at the back, pretty hard to penetrate whilst being a little dodgy up front.

All in all the whole package isn’t quite out of the top drawer, but it’s certainly looking better than it has done previously.

Team: Reina; Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Arbeloa; Pennant (Gerrard), Alonso (Babel), Sissoko, Benayoun; Voronin, Crouch (Torres):