Liverpool 2 Manchester City 2

I’m sure that there used to be a time when I looked forward to watching Liverpool’s matches – but that seems like a distant memory now.  Anyway, the good news was that Steven Gerrard was back in the starting line up.  The bad news is that Fernando Torres was still missing.  Some might argue that, since Manchester City are the team most likely to push Liverpool for a top-four finish, this was a crunch game.  Given the Reds recent run of form, I’d say that every game is a crunch game.  I wish I was only being hyperbolic about it.

In the opening few minutes, Liverpool looked quite bright, but the game was disrupted by a head injury to Daniel Agger, who had to go off.  A few minutes later Ryan Babel went off with an injury, despite the efforts of Gerrard to get him to run it off, and the Reds had suffered two enforced changes in the first 20 minutes.  The first half never recovered from the two disruptions, despite Liverpool dominating the possession.

The opening minutes of the second half continued to be a dour affair until Martin Skrtel turned in a free kick, on 49 minutes, to score his first ever Liverpool goal.  Sadly, this only seemed to spark City in to life and they inevitably equalised, on 68 minutes, through an Adebayor header.  It was a dismal goal to concede from the Reds point of view; the former Arsenal striker was completely unmarked at a corner – it was worse than schoolboy defending.

Things went from bad to worse when City took the lead with a goal from a possibly offside Stephen Ireland, on 75 minutes.  To be fair, it was an excellent move and good goal.  Just as I was about to hold my head in my hands, Liverpool went straight down the other end and equalised – a sloppy goal scored by Benayoun.  Despite some late pressure from the home side, it ended 2-2.

Another desperately disappointing day for Liverpool.  I feel like I’ll never see them win ever again.  I was going to write a bit more, but the will has left me.