Liverpool 2 Birmingham City 2

At least it wasn’t a loss?

I promised myself that I was going to be a ‘bad fan’ tonight and avoid the match at all costs.  But, with the kick-off rapidly approaching, I found myself looking for an internet stream.   Sadly, I easily found one.

The first half sums up Liverpool’s season in a nutshell – they completely outplayed Birmingham but, inexplicably, came in behind.  Ngog scored first (13 minutes), for the Reds, and everything was looking good.   Then I lost the stream for a few minutes and when I got it back the score was 1-1 (Benitez, 26 minutes).  Brilliant.  Liverpool then battered Birmingham until the 47th minute of the half when Cameron Jerome lashed in a long range effort to put the Blues ahead.  How very depressing.

The second half continued the Liverpool barrage, but it was only with a dodgy penalty in the 70th minute that they were able to draw level.  Ngog made a great run in to the box but then went down with no contact made on him, and a penalty was incorrectly given.  Gerrard stepped up and coolly slotted it home.  It’s worth noting that Gerrard started the game on the bench and came on, for an injured Riera, in the first half.  He could be considered half-fit, at best.

It was all Liverpool for the next 20 minutes but a winner looked increasingly unlikely and the match finished 2-2.

I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel about the match.  It was a game completely dominated by the Reds, but in the end we were only able to scrape a draw by means of a dive and a wrongly given penalty.  On 76 minutes, the TV coverage gave the incredible statistic of the number of completed passes for each team: Birmingham 92 – Liverpool 421.  This can often be misleading as a team can have lots of possession but not look dangerous, but Liverpool had plenty of good attacking play.  To be honest, I feel a bit baffled.

Where do Liverpool go from here?  I’m honestly not sure.