by Joel Rookwood
I have never subscribed to the notion that teams who flirt will relegation won't go down because they are simply 'too good to go down' - the league table doesn't lie. But I must confess I make an exception with West Ham. With Cole, Carrick, Hutchison, Lomas, Di Canio, Kanute, Defoe and Sinclair in the side it baffles me how they can be propping up the table. But after seeing them in the flesh at the weekend I have to admit that they are going to have to pull off a master stroke if they are to avoid relegation, which I believe they will do, but only just.
Liverpool travelled to Upton Park on Saturday, and put on a decent display, but were certainly not spectacular. But West Ham, despite clearly possessing an abundance of talent were just awful. They don't seem to have any leadership, a Roy Keane figure who's capable of giving them the kick up the backside that they so sorely need. They lack solidity, stability and belief, so on the day all Liverpool really had to do was turn up, take the three points that Roeder's side practically gift- rapped for us and head back to Liverpool.
After five minutes Milan Baros, at last awarded a place in the starting line-up opened the scoring with a bullet header form a Riise cross. Then within three minutes Gerrard had doubled Liverpool's lead, with a rasping drive into the bottom corner. Former Liverpool 'keeper David James could do nothing about either effort, but he did spend the remainder of the half reminding us why we sold him, flapping at crosses and shots at every opportunity. But after going two up Liverpool took the foot off the gas a little for the remainder of the first half. West Ham simply had no answers to our slick passing game, and despite all their quality attacking players seemed incapable of mounting any kind of assault on the Liverpool goal.
Despite Liverpool's obvious dominance however, the jubilant travelling Kop had to wait until the sixty-seventh minute to see the Scousers extend their lead. A trademark David James blunder saw him drop a John Arne Riise corner into the path of Heskey, with the number eight making no mistake from close range. And whilst the game was effectively over after only eight minutes following two early strikes, the enigmatic striker's effort served as the final nail in the Upton Park coffin, as he hammered home with aplomb, rendering the victory
We got on the coaches after the game just relieved to get this one out of the way in all honesty. With West Ham struggling, three points was an absolute necessity, and anything short of a convincing win would have further dented our confidence. It proved a fairly uneventful trip, with nothing remarkable about the game or the day itself. We got up, got bevied, went to the match, and then came home, and I'm boring myself telling you about it.
So on that note, I'll leave those London opponents, and consider the events of a more recent contest against fellow Londoners, Crystal Palace. Having secured a draw at Selhurst Park, the FA Cup fourth round tie had to be decided in a replay at Anfield. I had promised a Cockney annihilation in this game, and was left rueing my arrogance. The first rule of business in my book is 'don't talk about it until you've done it', and I think I might have to give that book another read. I predicated a comfortable win for Liverpool, but the men in red obviously hadn't read the script. For in some of the more significant scenes, there were one or two who really fluffed their lines.
For this was an embarrassing evening, and not even the most biased of Liverpudlians could argue to the contrary. But while most fans on leaving at the final whistle offered opinions of doom and gloom, I was slightly more philosophical, as I have to be, or I will go insane. For our first half performance was as good as anything I've seen this season. We passed the ball well and created numerous chances to have the game killed off well before the interval. But unfortunately the only man who was really likely to find the net wasn't even playing. That was why we went out of the FA Cup at home to a side not nearly as good as our own.
Michael Owen started up front, a man who couldn't finish his tea in his current vein of form. He's a world-class striker, but as with most forwards, his contribution is relative to his level self-belief, which fluctuates, in his case oscillating between supreme confidence and low self-assurance. And you could see it in his body language that he wasn't going to score, or even come close, as sitter after sitter went begging.
But I refuse to blame him. People can rant and rave all they like, but as a striker, if it's not happening for you, there's not much you can do. As a schoolboy forward, I was once in a side beaten 9-0 by West Ham, and I just couldn't seem to get the ball on target. You just know when it's going to be 'one of those days'. Houllier got his selection right, with one exception. At Upton Park, Baros started and scored, and Owen came on in the second half when the game was won. If the manager had have repeated those tactics, the outcome would also have been repeated, of that I have no doubt. That's how simple the distinction between failure and success can be.
But Owen wasn't the only culprit. Diouf and Riise were raining quality crosses in on the Palace box but Liverpool's front line just couldn't convert the chances created. Owen missed several opportunities in the first half and Heskey continued the trend in the second period, frustrating the Liverpool faithful.
Whenever you play against a side better than your own, it's essential you work your socks off, keep it tight, hope you keep them at bay through a combination of good defending and poor finishing and then take any chances that come your way and hope for the best, which is exactly what Palace did. With ten minutes of the second half underway, Julian Gray found space in the Liverpool area and fired home. The Kop was stunned, and so too were Liverpool.
For even when Palace were reduced to ten men, when substitute Dougie Freedman saw red for elbowing Hyypia, Liverpool still didn't really look like getting back in the game. We looked shell shocked. And just when it looked like Palace would scrape through with a single goal, the unthinkable happened. That man Gray popped up again, beating Hyypia for pace before hitting a cross-come-shot, which deflected off Henchoz into the Liverpool net. Two goals at the Kop end to knock mighty Liverpool out of the FA Cup. Palace were rocking. The youngster looked dangerous in the first game at Selhurst Park but no one could have predicted the impact he was going to have on Anfield that night. As a spectator it was heart wrenching, believe me.
The most worrying news of the evening however came later that night when a friend informed me that he'd seen ticketing details of Liverpool's home game against Leeds in the FA Cup at the ticket office before the game. Unbelievable. I wouldn't have accepted such arrogance if it were only Accrington Stanley who stood in front of us reaching the fifth round, never mind a half decent first division side. This complacency is on a par with Man United giving out information on their website on the Champions League final last year before the competition had even got under way. On this evidence we got everything we deserved. It appears there are some people who assume we deserve a bye to the semi-finals simply because we are Liverpool. Well Palace came without fear of reputation and returned home with a home tie against struggling Leeds as their reward, leaving Liverpool with our collective tail drooping between our legs.
But before I get all high and mighty, I must confess to some arrogant behaviour myself, driven by my loathing of our opposition. It appears I too need to learn to shut my mouth. A few weeks ago I started to bemoan the impact of Mr Heskey, after which he put together a string of breathtaking performances. Then last week I claimed Crystal Palace would be swept aside with ease in the FA Cup replay, only to see them embarrass my beloved Liverpool, leaving Anfield with a 2-0 win. So assuming my foolish predictions are set to continue to prove similarly inaccurate, this week I'll hypothesise that Manchester United will beat us the Worthy Cup final, we have no chance of winning the UEFA Cup and Everton will finish above us in the league.
We were at least saved from abuse from Evertonians in the days following this cup upset, with our City rivals unable to mock us having gone out themselves at lowly Shrewsbury in the third round. But nevertheless the defeat hurt us, and we were desperate to get back in action in the league.
Houllier himself admitted it hurt to have been knocked out, but also suggested that it could prove to be a blessing in disguise. And while some fans are disgusted with comments like this, he's probably right. We have twelve games to secure fourth spot in the league, and could do without an added distraction of a cup we aren't going to win. I know the prospect of winning trophies is why we bother with this game, but we need that £10M Champions League money far more than a cup run. With the instability of the market in mind, and teams such as Chelsea and Leeds in dire financial trouble having mortgaged their future assuming they would qualify for Europe's premier competition every season, those funds are essential. Especially if we are to challenge for honours more seriously next season. So we are faced with twelve cup finals between now and May 11th. And I don't want to employ the overused football phrase, 'there are no easy games' but we still have to go to Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham and Chelsea, so it's going to be an uphill struggle.
So we continued our assault on the league at home to Middlesbrough at the weekend, a dreaded midday kick off against the side with the worst fans in the country. They held a flag up which said 'proud to come from Teeside', a sentiment which almost seemed sincere. I'm sure there must have been some element of sarcasm there that I didn't quite grasp. I simply can't imagine anyone being genuinely proud to hail from Middlesbrough, so if anyone can enlighten me, then please let me know.
We owed this lot. It was against 'Boro that our brilliant start to the season fell apart, as we lost to the North East side before going out of the Champions League in Switzerland. But Saturday's game was to prove no more enjoyable. It was a tight first half with few chances created. Both sides are built on defensive stability, which rarely makes for a display of aesthetic total football whenever the two sides meet.
Houllier wasn't at the game having been taken ill with a bout of gastroenteritis, and if he saw the game from his bed, I'm sure it would have done little to speed up the recovery process. When Geremi scored a stunning free-kick on the stroke of half time, 'Boro's first goal in eight away matches, you got the impression two defeats in as many games at Anfield was on the cards. Riise, Hamann and Diouf all went close, but it was the former Real Madrid player's strike that separated the two sides at the interval.
Baros came on in the second half, replacing the injured Heskey, though it was Owen who looked the more dangerous. The number ten didn't really look like scoring, but he was causing havoc in the Middlesbrough penalty area. Baros nearly levelled things on fifty-four minutes, but couldn't keep his blistering effort on target. Following that, successive corners brought successive missed chances, as the win we so sorely needed began to look increasingly unlikely.
We did find an equaliser however, with Riise finishing from close range after good work from Owen with a little over a quarter of an hour on the clock. But after the goal 'Boro tightened up at the back, and virtually killed the game off, with a draw looking inevitable. And just as the football from the players bored the spectators, so the spectators bored the players. The travelling support sang 'there's only one Steve Gibson', in support of the Middlesbrough chairman in his legal battle over the sale of Ziege to Liverpool last season. It was a great show of unity from the Teesiders. At one stage there were at least six people singing this catchy and not slightly monotonous tune. It was like they possess one mind.
Eager to put this game behind me, and the disappointment of not securing three vital points, as soon as the final whistle went I jumped in the car and headed for Preston, where I caught the second half of their match against Millwall. I'm not really sure why I headed for Deepdale, but in my defence, a game of football is a game of football. The away fans were virtually outnumbered by the police, who had escorted them to the ground, which I suppose was really the only reason I attended the game. It finished 2-1 to Preston in case you were wondering.
On Monday it was time to go and see Liverpool reserves in action against our good friends Man United. When we eventually got to their ground, which is at Altringham FC these days. It was pouring down, so it's just as well we got there seventy minutes late. We'd missed the only two goals of the game, a double brace from Neil Mellor, but amused ourselves with some heated conversations with some United fans, as we stood amongst them in their end.
In his book 'The English, a portrait of a people', Jeremy Paxman summed up the difference in the nature of Mancunians and Liverpudlians, by describing the Mancs as an aggressive Mill and trading town, and the Scousers as a gentler more wise-cracking port. He could have taken the conversation that transpired that cold evening in Altrincham as a prime example, a classic piece of evidence that could be used to substantiate his insightful argument.
For if a United player did something worthy of a clap, we applauded, and if a Liverpool player fell on his backside we laughed at him – because it was funny. Antithetically, our good friends with whom we were conversing could only shout 'kill the…' followed by some harsh expletive whenever a Liverpool player was in possession. They even made a point of going up to the United 'keeper after the game and demanding he spill some Scouse blood next time the two sides met.
But this was a reserve game for God's sake. There was nothing riding on it, not even a league position in the irrelevant reserves league. And whilst there has always been rivalry between the two cities, there is no particular political differentiation, no religious distinction, no ancient feud. And this was just an irrelevant game between two clubs both vying to be the best in the land. And while they had no answer to the song 'four European cups and eighteen championships' and could not explain the fact that they pretend 1969 to 1992 didn't actually exist, the fact of the matter is that neither side is currently the best in the country. We're both trying to catch Arsenal.
We won two-nil on the night, and I am indifferent, because Manchester, if you're listening, we don't care about you, or the fortunes of your reserves team. So please, next time I turn on the telly and you're playing please try and sing just one song that doesn't involve us. If we aren't playing, we don't need a mention. The Houllier revolution will have people talking about us enough come May 2004. Prepare yourself for Liverpoolmania.
Southampton, Blackburn, Preston & Newcastle, Birmingham City, Valencia, West Bromwich Albion, Spartak Moscow, Chelsea, The Fields of Anfield Road, Leeds United, West Ham, Middlesbrough, Fulham, Ipswich & Charlton, Vitesse, Sunderland & Villa, The Derby, Blackburn & Arsenal, Newcastle, Man City, Sheffield Utd & Villa, Southampton and Sheffield Utd, Crystal Palace & Arsenal, West Ham, Auxerre, Manchester United, Bolton, Spurs, Man Utd Again, Hillsborough Remembered, Everton, Charlton, Man City.