The Two Faces of Liverpool Cast a Smile over the Red Half of Merseyside

What a difference a day makes, well three in this instance.  After a woeful display on Saturday from both players and tacticians, tonight, Liverpool ensured bragging rights across the City with a 3-0 victory against bitter rivals Everton.

Within the first couple of minutes those inside Anfield could see Liverpool had the bit between their teeth, they had the desire and passion to right the wrongs of the past weeks. 

Prior to kick off Baines and Pienaar had been touted as a potential game winning left side, Martin Kelly dealt with both easily, in fact the young defender has to give thanks to Adidas who provided him with big enough shorts to pocket both players. If it wasn’t for a Steven Gerrard hat-trick then Kelly would have easily scooped the Man of the Match award, exceptionally unlucky not to be on the score sheet himself (twice), the young defender now must be a serious contender for the permanent right back position.

The midfield pairing of Spearing and Gerrard looked comfortable at all times.  Spearing’s defensive qualities and crisp passing allowed Gerrard to penetrate into the Everton half at will, something which has been lacking when the latter has been paired with Charlie Adam this season.

Special praise must be given to Andy Carroll, who had his best game in a red shirt tonight. Carroll showed the level of desire needed to wear the Liverpool number nine shirt, putting himself around the field, winning almost all the aerial battles he contested and holding the ball up well, supplying Suarez at every opportunity. Carroll looked hungry, going close in the second half as he tried to bend the ball with the outside of his boot into the right hand corner of the Kop end net.  More impressively though was his desire to win, late on Everton had a free kick just inside the Liverpool half and Carroll sprinted back to the Liverpool defensive line and made sure he won the header and cleared the danger. Tonight his desire to win was evident.

Luis Suarez, free of the shackles of being the only playmaker on the field, looked relaxed and played with a style that has been missing of late. His interlinking play with Carroll looked sharp as did his that with Gerrard, selfishly setting up the captain’s third goal when faced with a goal scoring opportunity himself.  Suarez terrorised the Everton left all evening, weaving and cutting inside, he gave the kind of performance Liverpool fans came to expect before his nine game enforced break.

Finally we come to Steven Gerrard who tonight personified everything about his ‘Mr Liverpool’ mantra.  Pre-match the talk was of improving the standard of play, how performances of late hadn’t been of the Liverpool calibre, Gerrard not only talked a good game, tonight he played a good game. The right place at the right time for the opening two goals, the first a delectable loft into an unguarded Everton net, the second a power blaster after some excellent work by Suarez on the right. He was rewarded with his hat-trick after pressurising the Everton midfield into a slip, one touch to Suarez who in turn tore at the Everton defence before casually releasing the ball to the waiting Gerrard to fire into the roof of the net. 

Kenny Dalglish may still not yet know his strongest eleven, but on tonight’s performance he must be 99% of the way there. The Anfield faithful can now only pray that this Liverpool side turns up on Sunday to bring a second Wembley date in as many months.

Lack of ‘clinicality’ leaves Reds frustrated and RVP shows why Arsenal should keep him at any cost

Clinicality, is it a word or not? Either way it perfectly describes Liverpool’s season to a T.  Be it in front of goal or from set pieces the Anfield faithful witnessed nothing new today; woodwork, open goals, poor crosses and own goals. Just another day at Anfield.

Liverpool started brightly and should have been a goal in front after 18 minutes, but once again fluffed their lines from 12 yards and then failed to convert the rebound, Dirk Kuyt guilty of both. Undeterred though, the home side pressed on and thanks to Koscielny took the lead on 22 minutes as the hapless defender slotted the ball past his own goalkeeper, it was one of the rare moments throughout the match that the Arsenal defenders stayed on their feet, at one point it looked as if the Anfield turf had been transported to an Army training range as Vermaelen and Sagna gave performances normally reserved for victims of sniper rifles. 

Once again though Liverpool gifted their opponents an Anfield equaliser as rather worryingly Robin van Persie was left unmarked to head the ball past Reina from close range. 

For the next 69 minutes Liverpool fans found themselves trapped inside Groundhog Day as chance after chance went begging.  Luis Suarez was unlucky not to have been rewarded with a goal but once again a visiting goalkeeper pulled off a fantastic save to deny the home side.  Liverpool fans have been saying all season that the lack of killer instinct in front of goal has cost their team dear, and no more so than today as the reds failed to punish an Arsenal defence that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the division below.  The visitors looked scared of the ball, unwilling to take it on and take the game to their opponents; Martin Kelly was the wrong man in the right place as he failed to find the net after a sublime Dirk Kuyt cross. 

Just as the locals were contemplating another home draw Robin van Persie calmly and clinically smashed the ball past Pepe Reina for the second time to steal the points.  How Liverpool fans wish they had a finisher of van Persie’s quality as if they did this game would have been over by Half Time.

Charlie Adam continued where he left off at Wembley with a disastrous performance, every inch of him looking like a player who should be in the Championship and not gracing the turf of the five time European champions, Stewart Downing looked busy but failed to give any real end product, Henderson though much improved looked too scared to shoot and not good enough to pass at times whilst Jamie Carragher looked devoid of ideas and resorted to lumping long balls out of defence.  

On a day when Liverpool should have been out of sight by the break they fell victim to Robin van Persie’s clinicality and a lack of their own.