Playing the opening match of the English season, Liverpool travelled down to London to face Hotspur with new headman Rafa Benitez, a completely new starting strike force and without Michael Owen. On the latter move, captain Steven Gerrard spoke for the whole team in saying “Shock, really. Obviously, we came back after pre-season (training) and Michael was here, so we thought he was going to be playing for us this season. But Real Madrid have come calling and everyone knows how difficult it is to turn them down.”
The Reds opened well, dominating the first half and leading on Djibril Cisse’s lovely little redirect of Carragher’s push. Spurs seemed a little unsettled by comparison, even after 13 warmup matches, and had nothing in the offensive third; ‘Pool had six of the first seven shots on goal and we were a bit robbed of what should have been a PK once, if not twice. Whatever new manager Jacques Santini said in the locker room must have been heard by his players as they came back to the pitch much better organized and determined to go forward together.
Lots of back and forth for more than 15 minutes and then Benitez pulled a little shocker of his own, making a tactical substitution of Florent Sinama-Pongolle (as a midfielder) for Cisse in direct opposition to expectations that he would be a more adventurous manager than Gerard Houllier. Here we go, playing to not lose instead of playing to win.
And sure enough not 10 minutes later the home side made us pay with a brilliant little twist away by Jermain Defoe that squeezed in between Riise and Dudek and into the back of the netting from short distance. Benitez said he was satisfied with a result on the road and that he took out both starting strikers because they’d run out of energy, but that doesn’t explain why he stopped the aggressive tactics that went so well early; there’s no question that FSP and Stephen Warnock (Baros’ replacement) could have both played up top rather than the 4-5-1 form.
The starting XI was a bit surprising as well:
- Dudek in goal over Kirkland even though the latter is finally reported healthy
- Carragher in central defense partnered with Mr. Rock Sammi Hyypia, Josemi and Riise to either side
- Finnan giving width on the right side of midfield, his first appearance out of the back line since coming to LFC, a surprise since in preseason it was Riise in this spot and Finnan as fullback
Didier Hamman played most of the game as our defensive midfielder, until being replaced by Igor Biscan in the last minutes, was a non-entity most of his time and I wonder if we will see more changes in midfield for next Saturday’s home match against Manchester City. Depends on whether we do sign Xabi Alonso, if Nunez (the throw-in from Real Madrid on the Owen deal) can prove his fitness in time, or perhaps even Biscan will move Hamman aside.
For sure another draw will not be acceptable.
BillSaysThis 