The Bravehearts from Anfield…

A last gasp strike at the Stade De Gerland left a lot of Kop hearts broken all over the world. Liverpool now have to win their remaining 2 matches convincingly and hope that Lyon beat the Viola to enable them to qualify through the group stages of the UEFA Champions League.

All Liverpool fans will however take heart from a battling performance in Lyon. True, that it was not the most fluent performances from a side which has struggled in recent times, but the Reds showed a lot of character and were willing to fight it out. They completely dominated the first half and had it not been a series of amazing saves from the Lyon keeper, Hugo Lloris, Liverpool would have been 3 ahead at the break; the attempts coming from Insua, Kuyt, Voronin and Torres.

This was, however, not the case and both teams went in at halftime at par. The Lyon coach has surprisingly put up a squad quite different from the one he fielded at Anfield. Two injuries caused a couple of substitutions within the first half for Lyon. Liverpool were already without a lot of players from the starting lineup out injured. The squad though, included a half fit Fernando Torres and captain Jamie Carragher as right back. As usual, the Reds captain did complete justice to the position he was put into.

Neither team could get a foothold into the game until the 83rd minute. It took a wonder strike from the boy who showed a lot of promise, but never fulfilled it – Ryan Babel – to break the deadlock. It should have been that way till the end, but a late strike from Lisandro broke Liverpool hearts leaving everything to chance for the Merseysiders to qualify through the group stages.

With only meagre resources with which to architect a win, I feel Rafa did a fabulous job of getting the result that we got in Lyon. Any other manager would have given up all hopes of a win. Rafa had said before the game that, when we walk through a storm and emerge on the other side, we should hold our heads high. We are walking through a catastrophic storm right now, and yes, we are emerging with our heads held high. Go for it Liverpool.

YNWA!!!

Anfield humiliation for the Kop

It was not going to be an easy game.  Footballing pundits had already given their opinion on how detrimental a failure in this particular game at Anfield could prove to be for the Kop. And none of them believed Liverpool could get a victory here without the inspirational Steven Gerrard and marksman Fernando Torres. How right they were!!!

Liverpool tried to start in aggressive fashion and keep the ball against a fluent Lyon side. However, it was the visitors who would almost go ahead courtesy Brazilian striker Lisandro. It was only the athleticism of Pepe Reina that saved Liverpool from an early embarrassment. This failed attempt by Lyon seemed to have injected some life into Liverpool. From here on in the first half, the Reds kept most of the possession and dominated proceedings. This did not mean that Lyon did not pose a challenge. They always looked threatening when coming ahead and one was particularly noticeable, Sidney Govou. I would say that what Steven Gerrard is to Liverpool, Sidney Govou is to Lyon.

Liverpool managed to go ahead on 41 minutes courtesy Yossi Benayoun who was the man trying to guide a very scrappy Liverpool midfield. Credit has to be given to Fabio Aurelio for the excellent cross into the box which caused numerous problems to the Lyon defence and resulted in the only goal for Liverpool in the match. Liverpool went into the break 1-0 ahead. The home fans expected a much better performance from their team in the second half, but it was Lyon who stole the show. A goal on 72 minutes and another one deep in injury time from the Lyon super subs meant that Liverpool now have to win the remaining three games in the Champions league convincingly to go past the league stages.

Several things were clearly seen in this game. For instance, Liverpool no longer have the free flowing game of football that we were seeing last season. Surely this has not been caused by the absence of just one man Xabi Alonso. No, there is more to this than meets the eye.  There seems to be an absolute lack of awareness about where the other team members are. Most players look up to see where their nearest teammate stands before passing on the ball. Also, there seems to be no anticipation amongst the players that the ball is going to be played to him and no runs across.  In my opinion, this is nothing but the lack of teamwork. Yes, individual skills have to be improved, but football is a team game and if the players in a team cannot read each other’s minds, there will be no success for that team.

In comparison, the Lyon players were so well aware of each other placement that when they had the ball, Liverpool almost never managed to get it back cleanly. Another surprise was the team selection. You can see from the teams Rafa has been putting there, that he is trying to build a young team. What with players like Lucas and Insua getting regular first team appearances, and Ngog getting the look in once in a while. But, the question we must ask here is; is this being done at the expense of losing out in the top four slots in the league and an early exit out of the Champions league?

Rafa has been saying a number of things to defend himself and his team selection. He has been trying to mould Lucas to place in the place of Xabi Alonso. Lucas though seems to be following in the footsteps of Nani i.e. contributing nothing in every game. To be very frank, he only showed one good bit of skill till date, and that too in this game against Lyon, when cornered near the left corner of the field. He is weak in possession and needs to improve his tackling and defence capabilities on a whole. Maybe it is a little too early to be giving him a regular place on the team.

Also, considering that Liverpool now have a few strikers, namely Torres, Voronin, Babel and Ngog; its a wonder why Rafa never plays 2 of them up front. Its always better to have 2 up ahead who can score than one. Dirk Kuyt has been working as the makeshift striker during El Nino’s absence, but the guy is not really a striker. Mind you, he works like a horse in the field, but Liverpool could do with someone having a little more imagination up front.

Rafa – as everyone knows –  is a defensive minded manager. If he plays 2 strikers, he can put defensive midfielders out there and shore up his defence to take care of a counter attack from the opposition.

That said, Rafa knows the team better and the strengths and weaknesses of each player better than anyone else. Lets hope that he does some out-of-the-box thinking and starts getting those results that the fans always expect from the Reds.

***If I were Rafa, i would consider the following lineup against ManUtd on Sunday.

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Torres             Voronin

Aurelio                Benayoun                 Kuyt

Mascherano

Insua             Agger          Carragher         Kelly

Reina

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I would prefer Kelly to Johnson since Kelly has shown very good defensive qualities as well as looking good while moving forward.

And Voronin might seem to be a waste of money to many, but he has shown glimpses of his abilities during his time on the field. I would definitely put my money on him to score at least once every two games provided he plays regularly.