Results tagged “babel” from Liverpool Echo - Another Red Letter Day
LAST night, Liverpool FC surrendered limply to a side struggling at the wrong end of the Championship.
Not only we beaten, at supposed fortress Anfield, but we were outplayed.
The Reds were palpably second best in terms of fight, commitment, ideas, creativity and skill.
Now is not the time for delusional hopes, skewed statements of how we just need our luck to change, but for cold, hard, plain facts.
It's only facing up to the reality that will possibly drag us out of this sorry, sorry mess.
AND so the gloom deepens.
We traditionally have too much for The Arsenal at Anfield, our power, physicality and high octane tempo often winning out over pretty passing patterns.
But the way we surrendered in the second half, limping through the last 25 minutes without so much as a whimper, was truly alarming.
ANOTHER game, another absence of a win....it seems that we're in for a long hard season boys.
It's a song we could have hardly imagined we'd have been singing at Old Trafford.
But we were.
Man United were mauled in their own backyard.
You can be certain it's been a good night for Liverpool when much-maligned full back Andrea Dossena sprints 60 yards to get into the box, controls and fires into the net of the best keeper in the world with aplomb.
And so Robbie Keane moves back to Spurs to complete one of the most bizarre, frustrating and downright puzzling Anfield transfer sagas in a long time.
But has Benitez got this one right?
AS the clock ticked down towards 90 minutes on early Sunday evening, the knives were being sharpened to further puncture Liverpool's faltering title challenge.
But three mad-cap minutes changed all of that and breathed vital new life into the pursuit of Man Utd's at the top of the table.
ON ANY other day, securing a point at the Emirates against an Arsenal side who have already disposed of Man Utd and Chelsea would have been considered a good result.
Except this time, the 1-1 draw felt us wanting a whole lot more.
It was hard not to think that Sunday's point apiece was a chance lost to make a huge statement of intent on the Premiership race.
I'm going to say it, yes I really am.
Lucas Leiva was excellent last night. Man of the match.
I'll go further. Ryan Babel was very promising too.
Jeez. I've done it. I need to go and lie down now.
CAN WE play every game away from home please?
The relief was palpable at Saturday teatime after Liverpool finally notched up three points in a Premiership game to reaffirm our title credentials.
And after two consecutive, nervy and error-strewn performances at home to Fulham and West Ham, I'm bet the players were glad to get away from the frustrated Anfield arena for a weekend.
Still, it still wasn't exactly vintage Reds was it?
THREE wins, one draw since the season started. Only one goal conceded.
Joint top of the league and in the Champions League proper.
Yet it all feels so very depressing.
THE start of the new season approaches faster than we think doesn't it?
A week on Saturday we make the trip to The Stadium of Light for Sunderland.
I wouldn't be surprised if there some frenetic transfer activity over the next fortnight as Rafa looks to hone his squad for the coming campaign.
IT'S BEEN a topsy-turvy year.
Such high hopes at the start of the season, thoughts that this really could have been our year, but instead a lot of what-might-have-beens.
The activity off the pitch with the Yanks was even more of a talking point than the football itself.
So now the last 10 months have been taken care of, it's time to pick out the good, bad, ugly and bizarre from the season that was 2007-2008.
A panel of well-respected Red pundits have sat down together in The Paraffin Oil Shop and discussed over a few pints our winners and sinners.
All victors will get a hat, scarf and a badge from a scally looking bloke on Skerries Road.
AS time rumbles on until the day of reckoning, Rafa has a few selection headaches on his hands.
That last minute blunder at Anfield suddenly changed the Spaniard's thinking for the second leg, and ultimately, how the Reds might now line up.
SO, a deserved 1-0 to the Reds and city bragging rights to us for the second time this season.
Truth be told, it should have been a lot more comfortable.
I don't think 3-0 would have flattered us.
