The surprise at opening was seeing Emile Heskey in the starting lineup at left midfielder in place of last week’s goalscorer John Arne Riise and El Hadji Diouf once again paired with Michael Owen upfront. The reason became clear later in the match as the announcer explained that LFC manager Gerard Houllier was upset with the Norwegian national team coach, who’d played Riise the entire 90 during a midweek friendly against Holland. The configuration change paid off immediately though as Diouf scored in the third and 50th minutes off assists from Heskey each time. Southampton’s Williams took a foolish yellow early on for protesting too much on a foul call against him and otherwise the remainder of the first half was quiet and mainly dominated by the Reds’ midfield play.
Liverpool avoided a troubling pattern of collapsing into defense after taking 1-0 leads last year and remained aggressive through the second half. In the 70th minute Houllier made his first change, sending Riise on in place of Michael Owen. Owen had a good match, with a goal disallowed for offsides on a rebound on a Danny Murphy blast off the top wood, but otherwise several nice runs. Heskey moved to the front with the substitution but in 10 minutes playing together he and Diouf could not team up for a third score, and Vladimir Smicer made his season debut by taking Diouf’s place. Bruno Cheyrou the came on in 85th minute for Stephen Gerrard. Just a few minutes later Danny Murphy made it 3-0 by putting a penalty kick into the top left shelf after defender Bridge took Cheyrou down just off the goal line.
Strong games were played by Murphy and Jerzy Dudek, although the keeper was really never challenged by the Southampton strikers in recording a second straight shutout. Hyypia and Henchoz were very strong in central defense to make that happen, and Traore kept his backline commitment while often involving himself on the attacking end. One question for Houllier has to be whether Abel Xavier will keep his place for Wednesday’s meeting with Blackburn or if Jamie Carragher or Markus Babble will be given playing time. My vote is to sit Xavier and see if one of the others can improve the right back space.
180 minutes and the sheet is still clean! Houllier has said he wants the Premiership title this year and six points in the first two matches is a great start on that path. Wednesday’s match, on the road at Blackburn, should be good as the Rovers have four points so far after slipping past Birmingham 1-0 today. I’m really starting to love Fox Sports World–they’ve shown both matches so far and will have Wednesday’s as well. Plus weekly doses of Australian Rules Football.
Go Reds!
BillSaysThis 