this was me mates take on it (if you're arsed)
Liverpool’s quest for a sixth success in the European Cup started with a tricky away tie to Belgian champions Standard Liege. The first leg was played in Belgium at Le Rouges’ home ground Maurice Dufrasne tonight. It was our first competitive game of the season and we handed out debuts to our two biggest signings of the summer, eight million pound left back Andrea Dossena and our twenty million pound superstar Robbie Keane. We were without Lucas, Babel and Mascherano who are all at the Olympics and our skipper Steven Gerrard was the most noticeable absentee from the starting XI due to a thigh strain he’d picked up in pre-season, our number 8 was amongst the substitutes though.
The game started at a quick pace with the Standard Liege fans being very noisy from the word go. The home side didn’t let us settle into any sort of rhythm. We were pressured all over the pitch and within the first ten minutes we were in trouble. Alvaro Arbeloa gave away a needless free kick on the right wing, the resulting free kick showed up again the problems of our zonal marking. Thankfully the Standard Liege player missed the ball completely with his head and it bounced off his shoulder onto the post but just before it crossed the line Pepe Reina was able to claw it back. The danger hadn’t been removed but a wasted cross led to Xabi Alonso clearing the ball to Kuyt.
The early pressure continued and only a matter of minutes later the Norwegian official had given a very generous penalty for handball by Dossena. Replays later proved that Dossena was a good foot outside the box but a penalty was the decision. Justice was done as Reina made his second crucial save of the night. The first fifteen minutes was Standard attacking, Liverpool defending and heavily relying on our Spanish keeper Reina to keep us in the match.
Although the rest of the half wasn’t filled with many more clear cut chances, Standard didn’t drop their intensity and kept pressurising Liverpool in every department of the game. They forced us to keep going long to Keane and Torres without much joy and they were running us raggered in the middle of the park resulting in Xabi Alonso picking up a booking just before the half hour mark.
The second half started much the same way, Liverpool’s defence throwing aimless balls up towards Torres and Keane who were starved of any real quality all night. They were chasing lost causes with no support from the rest of the side. Keane was substituted just after the hour for our skipper Steven Gerrard. Although the doctors said it’d be better if Gerrard didn’t play, Rafa had little choice but using his trump card because of how badly we were playing at the time.
Gerrard was be thrown the armband from the stand in skipper Jamie Carragher, but his first real involvement was a corner from the left which he put long trying to find Kuyt. The corner resulted to nothing but another corner from the right. Gerrard started to try and pull the strings from just behind Torres and had a couple of close shaves with free kicks but there was still no penetrating attacking play from Liverpool.
The home side had another chance themselves when a long ball cut our open our defence again but again Reina kept us in the game with another good save.
The match frizzled out to a goalless draw although it wasn’t all bad as Nabil El Zhar was given his Champions League debut towards the latter stages of the match when he replaced Dirk Kuyt who was really poor throughout the match. French central midfielder Damien Plessis was also handed his Champions League debut tonight when he was chosen to start in place of the unfit Steven Gerrard. Pepe Reina was the best player in a Liverpool shirt by far. Without him we’d be going into the second leg at Anfield a couple of goals down.
Overall it was a massively disappointing performance and the result flattered Liverpool. The defence was caught out far too easily on a number of occasions. The wide players offered nothing all night. The top two were starved of any real quality in terms of service and were missing for large periods because of this. However a goalless draw away from home in Europe is usually considered a good result and I think this one is to. We’ve kept a clean sheet and now know any sort of win at Anfield in a fortnight will see us progress to the group stages of this year’s Champions League.
By the time the second leg comes around we’ll be a couple of weeks fitter, the players will know each other that much better, some of our Olympians may have returned and Steven Gerrard should be 100% fit. So although the performance leaves plenty to be desired the result isn’t as bad it could have been.
Pepe Reina was definitely man of the match and has hopefully done all he has to do in terms of this tie. Come the 27th Reina won’t be needed half as much as he was tonight.
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