For the first time in the Rafa Benitez era, Liverpool opened a Premier League season with a victory. Traveling to the midlands, the Reds came away from Villa Park with a narrow victory on an own goal from Martin Laursen and a blisteringly beautiful free kick by Stevie G just moments after the Villans had equalized on a penalty taken by Gareth Barry.
The Reds’ starting lineup was a bit of a surprise to me. Despite splashing out over $100 million on new signings, Benitez included only one of them in the starting XI; of course the one was the costliest, Spain striker Fernando Torres. The other surprise to me was seeing John Arne Riise on the left side of midfield. Riise was a fixture at left fullback last season, deservedly so in my eyes, and there’s also the fact that most of the team’s purchasing went to midfielders, especially players like Ryan Babbel and Yossi Benayoun who could provide width.
Since John is my favorite on the current squad I was happy to see him have a place. With the controversial deal to bring Gabriel Heinze over from Manchester United still to be decided, I suppose the boss wanted to give my boy a chance to show his primacy in the regular rotation. Remember, Benitez is the manager who named different starting squads in each of his first 99 games in charge and then, to avoid being pigeonholed, used the same team in the 99th and 100th matches.
Anyway, on the field today the team looked potent on attack, Torres pairing well with Dirk Kuyt (and my number two Peter Crouch not even on the subs bench!), though Jermaine Pennant has yet to convince me he deserves first slot on the right wing depth chart. Pennant’s crossing lacks sufficient quality and he’s too easily agitated, almost getting booked after a hard foul by Stilian Petrov.
The other big issue was our back line. The past few years our defense has been the team’s greatest strength and Pepe Reina replacing Jerzy Dudek two years ago as well as the gradual introduction of Daniel Agger as Jamie Carragher’s partner in the center over the course of last season seemed like good upgrades, but for the last 20-25 minutes this afternoon the cement appeared to have crumbled. Carragher handling the ball in the area in the 85th minute to give Aston Villa their chance to equalize was the culmination of a steady stream of mistakes and poor positioning, the only surprise was how long the dam held.
Fortunately Petrov got whistled for a foul two minutes later and Gerrard took a brilliant free kick that curved around the defensive wall and arched into the top near side corner of the netting. Villa keeper Stuart Taylor got a few millimeters of fingertip onto the ball but it had too much velocity to be deflected and the Reds were on top to stay.
The team travel to France for a Champions League encounter at Toulouse Tuesday, first leg of their third round qualifying tie. No TV here (thanks for nothing ESPN!) but that team can’t be taken lightly after they beat six-time Ligue 1 champions Lyon in the season opener today. Then it’s back to Liverpool where we host Chelsea next Sunday–which apparently will be on Fox Soccer Channel, yay–a very tough week but three wins or two wins and a draw would make for a terrific launch.
BillSaysThis 