Monday, February 26, 2007

Sheffield stuffed

Liverpool B team 4, Sheffield Utd 0. It doesn't get much easier than that. We never even had to get out of second gear.

Two penos from Robbie made it the perfect start. Some punters feel that Stevie went down fairly easily under the challenges. John Giles on RTE's the Premiership programme didn't agree. He reckons that Neil "Colin" Warnock has no grounds to complain as they were both legitimate penalties. In fairness, the ref did warn the defender not to hold onto Gerrard before he awarded the peno.

Sheffield Utd weren't at their most attacking anyway and they didn't improve when they conceeded early on. Crouch took a kick in the head and had to come off to be replaced by Kuyt. There was some impressive link up play but it wasn't until the 70th minute before Sami stuck one in. As the goal went in I was saying how it's surprising that we don't score more from them. I was talking about Sami in the air but all goals are welcome. Gerrards goal was the pick of them. Great pass from Fowler and gerrards first touch was sublime.

Javier Mascherano made an impressive debut and gained confidence as the game went on. He won the ball cleanly and distributed it cleverly. His positioning and strength in the tackle enbled Stevie to rampage up the field knowing that Javier was behind him as an insurance policy. Good to know that we won't have to panic anymore if Momo and Xabi are out.

Man Utd visit Anfield in the early kick off on Sat. Usually I would be very excited and nervous about this game but with the states of our league and champions league campaigns, I'm more excited about the Barcelona match. It looks like we will finish either third or fourth in the league. While I would like to finish third, as close to chelsea as possible, it probably doesn't matter that much in the greater scheme. There may be a small financial difference between both places, but both teams will have to pre qualify for the champions league. I'm not saying that it doesn't matter on Sat, far from it. But regardless of what happens I think that Utd will win the league and we'll finish third or fourth. For the sake of laying down a marker for next season it could be important to get a win as we have haven't had too many against Utd in recent years.

The free signing of Voronin was confirmed today. Not really one to set the pulses racing or an "edge of the seat" signing. But he could be usefull as the fourth choice striker and will probably mean that Robbie will be off in July. If that is the case then it's thanks for all the memories Robbie. A true red legend.

2 comments:

Katherine said...

Was JAR playing? He's my favourite. I think you should do a profile of him.

Mal said...

JAR did play the full 90 mins. Maybe I will do a profile of him sometime.