Liverpool 1 Aston Villa 3
August 25, 2009 2 Comments
To say that I lack enthusiasm for writing this post is as big an understatement as when the Captain of the Titanic said that they’d ‘sprung a bit of a leak’. And since I’m a blogger and not a professional journalist, I feel well within my rights to skip any match details and keep this as brief as possible.
The atmosphere in Anfield seemed weirdly subdued from the start (although I was watching on TV), and this translated in to a weird match. Liverpool had more possession and far more chances during the game but came away well beaten. In a first half that saw the Reds have the better chances, they came in at half time two nil down. The first came from an innocuous free kick deflected in off an unlucky Lucas’ head (and he seems to have gone straight back to being the scapegoat for a poor performance). The second goal came at the end of injury time, from a corner, when the Liverpool players seem to have totally lost their heads.
The second half saw some pressure from the home team and eventually this paid off with a Torres goal. Minutes later, Gerrard gave away a rash penalty and Ashley Young slotted it away. From this point on, with 15 minutes left, the Reds looked like beaten men and the closing minutes of the match was painful to watch.
Villa deserved their win, the defence were solid, they were dangerous on the break and Brad Friedel was outstanding in goal.
I find it harder to make any sense of Liverpool’s performance. The players looked dejected by the final whistle; Rafa Benitez has a tough job on his hands in getting this squad psychologically ready for the rest of the campaign.
A quick note on the coverage as this was the first match I’d seen on ESPN. Ray Stubbs: great signing, Kevin Keegan: always entertaining, Jon Champion & Joe Royle: bloody awful and cliche riddled.
I’m not going to jump to any conclusions on what this result means for Liverpools season, as I said, I’m not a professional journalist. But for a team allegedly going for the title the start to the season has been a disaster.
Who’d be a football fan?
About sherby57
2008-09 season: Liverpool lose 2 of their 38 league games.
2009-10 season: Liverpool lose 2 of their first 3 league games.
It’s going to be a tough season for them, but Liverpool will most likely come 3rd by the end of the season. They just don’t have the quality to win the league, especially compared with United or Chelsea. As much as I’d love it to be, it isn’t a slight against Liverpool. It’s just a fact. Liverpool are pretty much Torres, Gerrard, Carragher and a bunch of average-to-good players. Much more investment is needed!
It doesn’t look good to lose as many games in your first 3 games as you did in the whole of the previous season. Well, it’s not just that it doesn’t look good, it isn’t good. Stranger things have happened at sea though, and a league campaign is very long and very strange.
Who would have thought that a team only losing twice wouldn’t win the league? And yet that is what happened last season. With the emergence of Man City and a seemingly revitalised Spurs, I think we may see the biggest roller-coaster ride the league has had for many a year.