Yet again, Liverpool caused my heart to race up and down yesterday! To start off with, I am glad we got the 3 points and went to the top of the table. As I write this, the West Ham – Manchester United game is about to kick off and off course I will be behind West Ham for this one. I will say that when I saw our starting eleven walk out yesterday against Portsmouth I was not only shocked but concerned. It is not every game we start with 3 centre backs in Carragher, Skrtel and Agger and I wondered what the heck was Aurelio doing playing in central midfield. I will not even go into seeing Ngog starting upfront, I really do not rate him highly.
For me it just went to show that we may have a good squad but it is not good enough. We lack quality in the squad. It can be seen when a key players is injured or rested that we struggle. But hats off to the guys that played, they got us the 3 points.
I can not believe how Ryan Babel missed the sitter in the second half that would have given us a 1-0 lead. Babel says he wants to be a striker but in being a striker you have to score goals and if you are missing sitters like that then there is a problem. If Babel has scored that goal we probably would have cruised to a 2-0 win. But as football goes, we got punished for that miss and Portsmouth went on to score. I watched the game in a pub full of Manchester United supporters and you should have heard the cheer that came with the Pompey goal. Thankfully Aurelio silenced them when he equalised. Then the roar went up again when Portsmouth made it 2-1. At that stage I was dejected and actually thought of leaving the pub and going home but I still had a glass full of beer and I thought I should just stay and get my monies worth for the beer.
The game changed for us when Alonso, Kuyt and Torres got onto the field. You can just see the quality these players have. When Kuyt got us the equaliser I was over the moon as I could atleast walk out the pub with a but if pride. And when Torres got the late winner I ran around the pub as if I was the one who had scored! It is not the first time this season we have left it late to win. I will not complain if the rest of the season ends with these late wins, as long as we are winning.
Now we have a break and hopefully the lads can rest their legs for a bit. Carragher is visibly tired and thank goodness he has quite England and he can rest for the next few days, he really needs it.
All in all, not the best performance we have put in but we got the result.
Yea, great to get three points but it is very evident how much work we are having to put in to secure maximum points compared to ManU. They seem to be winning with ease – made a lot easier by 13 clean sheets in a row. i am worried about our defense which was great last season. We are leaking too many goals. Having to score 2 or 3 goals every week to win a game aint good. Give me three 1-0 wins in a row anytime.
I think Rafa got away with it by the skin of his teeth , if the result hadn’t gone our way then all fingers would have pointed to him regarding the starting eleven.In his pre match interview his reasons for the selection didnt stand up to the interviewers questions !Why are we resting Torres ? So he’s fit for Spain in the week ? Yes he’s still recovering from his injury but isnt it better to start him , kill the game off then sub him ? Same with Alonso , Kuyt and Riera ! Take em off when the game is won , not bring em on when were losing !!! We were lucky and Rafa is taking too many risks regarding our title challenge ….. Worrying times !