Fulham 0 Liverpool 2 - Prem (Apr 19 2008)

[TLW]

Fulham 0 LIVERPOOL 2

Report by Mark Ingram at Craven Cottage

Scorer(s) – Jermaine Pennant, Peter Crouch Half Time - 0-1 Venue - Craven Cottage Date - Sat 19 April 2008 Star Man – Jermaine Pennant

 

 

 

 

 

To be honest I was fully expecting re-run of last year, as were the press, as were a few of the away fans, and as were a vast majority of the home fans. With Everton’s recent whimpering form there’s no pressure whatsoever on the fourth spot anymore which makes it easier on us the fans, but I can’t help but thinking it creates an unhealthy mindset for the players. I just feel that, perversely, if Everton had kept the pressure on, then the Liverpool players would be in no doubt whatsoever that every game from here on in is a must win, which would have done them a lot of good.

With all that in mind, I was expecting this game to be fairly abject in nature with little drive, determination and heart on show, resulting in a disappointing day out. Thankfully I was wrong. Rafa, of course had one eye on the Chelsea tie but the players he chose gave a very decent account of themselves.

The truth is that naturally, the Chelsea tie as all that’s on everyone’s minds and all that anyone was talking about in the pubs on the Fulham Palace Road before kick off. The Fulham fans want us to beat the billionaires almost as much as we do, so there was a certain amount of corresponding banter before the game.

Benitez made all the changes you’d have expected him to make. No Gerrard, Torres, Carrgher, Kuyt or Babel, the only surprise inclusion being Mascherano but that was understandable as he’s not had many minutes on the pitch of late.

This meant starts for Crouch, Riise, Lucas, Voronin, Finnan, Benayoun and Pennant. The last of which was getting a fair portion of boos from the crowd and bit of early shin treatment from the Fulham defenders. He almost set up the opening goal with one of his quality crosses from which Crouch couldn’t quite direct on target, and then he went one better minutes later. Lucas put him through on the right side of the box and he hammered it straight past Keller, who didn’t move, into the top corner.

Reports since have blamed Keller for both goals and you could argue that his positioning was poor for this one, but as far as stopping the shot itself, I’m not sure he’d have stood a chance anyway. Pennant hits all his crosses with a lot of swazz on the ball. This particular shot went pretty much dead straight but only because of this aforementioned swazz. In most cases such as this with the ball running away from you, a normal shot is sliced off towards the corner of the ground, fans behind the goal give it the wide arm signal accompanied with a bit of ‘aaaaaaah’, and the player trots back to receive the goal kick feeling pretty foolish. Not our Jermaine though.

His normal shot has, what golfers would call, a bit of hook on it and he deserves to take credit for that, because by wrapping his foot right round it as he does, he hit it straight and made a difficult finish look easy. Nice goal I thought, not a goal keepers error.

Pennant then almost created a goal for Riise after a sublime move involving Lucas & Voronin later in the first half but the ginger man wasn’t quick enough to take it and in the end the angle was far too tight.

Pennant began the second half where he left off and he was becoming a real menace for the Fulham defence. He developed a stronger confidence as the game went on, controlling long diagonal balls in mid air and sending them back into the mixer with venom. It was only a matter of time before something he did came to fruition and sure enough he was later rewarded for his work rate when he slid a pass in for Crouch to beat Keller with an awkward shot that made the keeper look a bit foolish. I’ll give that one to Keller: that was a goalkeeping error, but fair play to Crouch for chancing his arm. The game was then safe, and Fulham were as good as down.

The Rafa Benitez’ la bamba duly got an airing which almost immediately resulted in Rafa appearing in his technical area waving his arms about like he’s trying to seal a deal in sign language. He loves a bit of that does Benitez. Most of the time none of the players even acknowledge what he’s doing, but he loves doing it anyway. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the three fingered hand over hand forward and backward movement accompanied with facial expressions means ‘draw your man and pass’ in Spanish sign language – who am I to question it?

He’s got some strategic thinking to be doing now, has Rafa, just what he loves doing an just what he does better than anyone. The game today would have given him some nice problems in terms of fringe players seemingly being on form. Particularly Pennant, did I mention that I thought Pennant played rather well?

There were many decent performances by Liverpool players but Pennant’s really stood out. Rafa must have told all of them before the game that he’s yet to decide his starting eleven for Tuesday night and a decent performance could earn any one of them a place in the side. Pennant really went for it and must have put himself in contention after that display. I seem to remember the last time he was up against Cole; he gave him the severe run around, so maybe that could be the way to go.

Who knows what Rafa is thinking, and who knows whether the Gerrard injury was a smokescreen, a means to appease fools like Warnock, or a legitimate worry. He’ll probably stick with Dirk on the right and use Pennant as an impact player like against Inter. Who knows?

It was a very encouraging performance all round. Pennant was the star man but Mascherano would have run him close if he’d not the victim of a couple of hefty fouls early in the second half, one from an ex-Liverpool player (Murphy) and, bizarrely, one from a current one (Lucas). Mascherano seemed to be relishing a bit of freedom and was seen to be doing a bit of playmaking rather than just his usual destruction, although he did a hell of a lot of his usual destruction too. He was spraying the odd ball around, finding men out on the wings with pretty decent accuracy, it was nice to see.

Voronin is looking a bit sharper, he wasn’t a million miles away from scoring a fairly spectacular overhead kick and a lot of his link up play and holding up of the ball will not have gone un-noticed by Benitez. Lucas, Crouch and the back five all did well although the west Londoners they’ll be up against in the week will be a far tougher breed.

This Chelsea tie is very worrying, even more than the last two. This time there’s no pressure on them. Expectancy for Chelsea evaporated the minute Mourinho left and since then they’ve quietly gone about their business in their tedious but solid manner. Granted, they haven’t won as many games as they’d have liked but they haven’t been beaten much either.

The major factor though is them playing the second leg at home. This is going to make a massive difference. Not so much advantageous for them because it’s a pretty lame atmosphere there, but it’s the extra push that we will be missing from the Anfield crowd which has been so influential previously.

Team: Reina; Finnan, Skrtel, Hyypia (Carragher), Riise; Lucas, Mascherano (Alonso); Pennant, Voronin, Benayoun; Crouch: