Portsmouth 2 Liverpool 3
Fernando Torres Revives Liverpool’s Premier League Challenge
The Reds have been stuttering of late, with a surfeit of draws and a deflating cup defeat at the hands of local rivals Everton.
However, the drama began before the kick-off, with yet another highly individual team selection by maverick manager Rafa Benitez. Rafa has made something of an art from of keeping the press guessing, and this was possibly his most eccentric line-up yet. No fewer than four players were rested from the previous game. And it was their names that caused more surprise than the numbers. Torres, Alonso, Riera and Kuyt are the backbone of the team, and to add even more to the drama this all came after talismanic captain Steven Gerrard was already ruled out through injury and the controversial Lucas Leiva through suspension. The formation was also out of the ordinary, with a three-man defence that had not been used all season.
Incidentally, evidence for Benitez’s decision-making was not just confined to his own team. The Portsmouth line-up contained no fewer than three players who have worn the famous red shirts themselves, with Peter Crouch and Germain Pennant having been off-loaded by Rafa only recently.
Liverpool Off to a Flying Start
Given all this, it was some relief to Reds fans that their team started well, with the Liverpool domination continuing through the first half. Despite the change in personnel, however, one feature of the performance did not change. That was the seemingly perennial failure to turn possession into a commensurate ratio of scoring chances. This team do not score many goals because they do not create the opportunities to do so. In turn, this creates pressure on the normally outstanding defence, who will inevitably concede on occasion.
Portsmouth Break the Deadlock
Struggling Pompey had not recorded a win in eight games, and their manager Tony Adams's job is under threat. However, the deadlock was broken through South Coast scouser David Nugent, latching on to a pass from beanpole striker Crouch. It seemed that a script had been written, with the boyhood Evertonian carrying on the damage already done to the Reds’ trophy ambitions by his erstwhile heroes. This, too, after an astonishing miss by Babel which should have put the Reds in front a few minutes earlier.
Fortunately for the Anfielders, though, Crouch had not read the script properly and set up the Reds’ equaliser with an absurd back-pass that his goalie James (yet another ex-Liverpudlian!) was forced to handle illegally. This conceded an indirect free-kick, and to their credit Liverpool took full advantage through Aurelio, following a pass by Alonso who was now on as a substitute.
Predictably, the equaliser put the wind back in Liverpudlian sails and there now seemed only one winner. Yet again, though, Pompey surprised the 20,524 crowd and many millions more watching on live TV with a second goal via Hermann Hreidarrsson’s head.
Torres Has the Last Laugh
It looked like not just one but three critical points were vanishing for Liverpool until the fateful moment when Rafa decided to go for broke and send on his biggest gun. Without doubt, Torres is a cut above normal Premier League strikers, indeed strikers everywhere. He was simply too much for Pompey’s fragile backline. First he set up fellow-sub Dirk Kuyt, who squeezed a shot in from an acute angle. Then, with seconds of injury time left, a bullet header from the man himself bulged the back of Pompey’s net.
The Merseymen headed back north with a much-needed victory. And Rafa some much-needed credibility.
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