After a string of poor results stemming from even poorer
performances, yesterday
The team sheet had a rather end-of-season look about it:
Rodgers opted to return to the double-pivot of Henderson and Gerrard that was
such a disappointment in the first half of the campaign, and Lambert was also
given a start. As it happened, this worked rather well – Gerrard’s defensive
weaknesses weren’t exploited at all by an underwhelming QPR, and Henderson was
able to force the issue at times with some wonderful long balls that his
central midfield partner would be proud of. Lambert, too, did very well. He put
in what was surely his best performance in a Liverpool
shirt, making some decent runs and linking up fairly well with the rest of the
attack. It was he who created the opening goal: a lovely pull-back across the
box was controlled exquisitely by Coutinho, who proceeded to use his second
touch to curl the ball unerringly into the top corner.
From then on in it was total control for the hosts, and in
truth they should have added more goals. Lallana got through on goal, but
smashed it wide at the near post rather than aiming for the far post or
squaring it to Sterling .
At the time this seemed like the wrong choice, but having seen what happened a
little later on maybe it was sensible not to trust Sterling with an open goal! Early in the
second half the youngster was picked out by a glorious Henderson ball, but despite being just six
yards from goal he was unable to keep his effort down. This summed up his
post-Christmas form: ever since the contract saga begun, he’s contributed
little more than Victor Moses managed in a Liverpool
shirt. Obviously we all know that Sterling
possesses immense quality, but if he cannot produce that consistently then he
is in no position to hold the club to ransom. For me, if he doesn’t soften on
wage demands and doesn’t round off the season with three absolutely world class
performances, he can leave.
His miss became even more depressing when Liverpool
were punished for their wastefulness by Leroy Fer. The visitors had barely
created anything all game, but then Fer steered the ball home from a Joey
Barton corner to level the game up. It looked like, despite the vastly improved
performance, Liverpool’s severe problems in attack would come back to haunt
them once more to continue what has been a torrid end to the season. However,
just when all seemed lost, the man who has always been there for us when we
need him stepped up.
And missed his spot kick.
Steven Gerrard will undoubtedly be gutted that he’s missed
what could well be his last ever LFC penalty, particularly as it was in front
of the Kop, but the captain did not waste time dwelling on his poor effort.
After Onouha got sent off for a second bookable offence the reds began to
totally dominate once more, and Gerrard grabbed the reward for this dominance
with just minutes to go. Coutinho’s corner found the skipper, who towered above
Barton and emphatically headed the ball beyond Green.
With United having lost their game against West Brom, there
is an outside chance that this win could earn Liverpool
more than pride. I’m not getting my hopes up – LFC’s run-in includes a trip to Chelsea , and even if they
do win all of their games it is unlikely that the Red Devils will drop 4 points
(realistically five due to goal difference) in three games. However, it does at
least mean that we’ve kept the pressure on: if United do slip up horrendously,
we need to be in a position to capitalise. That said, the best thing about this
game was the performance – in all likelihood the season is over, but it is
vital for confidence that we go out with a bang rather than a whimper.
-James Martin
Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013
No comments:
Post a Comment