Liverpool 6 Hull City 1

Another Saturday 3pm kick off for Liverpool, another battle with internet streams for me.  There is some improvement over last week when I couldn’t watch any of the West Ham match.  This week I just have to suffer really patchy coverage.  I spent the hour or so leading up to kick making sure I had as many options to watch as possible and come three o’clock I was watching a rock solid stream.  Which lasted for 3 minutes.  I managed to get another stream going until 8 minutes in, and then that packed in too.  Another frustrating afternoon was on the cards.

When I got the stream back, around 14 minutes in, I had missed Liverpool’s opener, and I didn’t know who had scored (Torres, of course).  I then promptly lost the stream again and desperately spent my time getting one back.  After a gap of more than five minutes, I switch on the TV to get an update from Soccer Saturday.  Hull have now equalised, a goal by Geovanni on 15 minutes.  To make matters worse, Paul Merson is doing the game summarising.  Merson is a Liverpool anti-fan.

Miraculously, I got the stream back on 25 minutes and so was able to see Torres’ second goal, two minutes later.  Fernando showed great control as he took the ball around a defender and then round the goalie before casually slotting the ball home (I did think he was going to cock it up for a minute).  30 seconds after the goal and the stream went again.  After that, the stream was intermittant until half time; one minute on, 3 minutes off.

It was a relief to get to half time without wanting to put my head in the oven, but it still wasn’t great.  At least they were winning.

Torres made it 3-1 a few minutes after the break, I didn’t see it, but I was happy.  Missed the first 15 minutes of the half and then got the stream back working.  Amazingly, this was just in time to see Steven Gerrard make the score 4-1, with a cross-shot from near the touchline.  Actually, as it’s Gerrard, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was a shot.

Torres was replaced on 67 minutes by Ryan Babel; he wouldn’t have wanted to come off, but it’s best to keep him fresh for Fiorentina on Tuesday.  Gerrard also got subbed on 73 minutes for Mascherano, who seems to have fallen from favour.  The stream has been quite reliable at this point and the Reds have been in total control of the match, although, that’s easy when you have a three goal cushion.

Typically, as soon as I type that the stream freezes.  I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.  Technically, I should have kept my fingers idle, since I typed it.

Quite incredibly, the coverage returns just seconds before Ryan Babel scores a good striker’s goal on 88 minutes.  I think I’ll be watching Match of the Day tonight!  A couple of minutes later, an Albert Riera shot deflects wickedly off Babel and loops over the goalie, it made the final score 6-1 and sealed a cracking win for the Reds.

It would be nice to be able to write all my match reports on games that I had actually seen, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.  After being on the Liverpool season ticket waiting list for 10 years, I’ve still got another 10 years to go (barring them suddenly building the new stadium), so I guess that the internet streams are better than nothing.  It has to be said though, you wouldn’t persist with such sporadic coverage for anything other than football.