Heads held high…

By: Magnusson | September 18th, 2008

I like to watch our games once they’re over. I usually watch them again when I want to review the performances just because sometimes I get owverwhelmed and don’t have enough distance to be objective when I first watch it. I usually let it sink in before I watch it again but this Tuesday’s game was different. It was us playing hard, with heart. We were playing well. We played better than them , goddamnit!

I know I always sound optimistic but watch the game (you won’t be dispapointed, easily one of the better matches this season so far) and you’ll have to admit that we handled the shit out of that game. Up until Steven Gerrard doned his tights, stepped inside some booth and became “Super Stevie.G”. In about four minutes, Gerrard scored a goal from another planet and then a penalty for Liverpool, showing once again how crucial he remains to that childgood team of his.

As was the case against Bordeaux, Eric Gerets had two choices, either play the very attractive and offensive minded 4-2-3-1 or stick with the more cautious 4-4-2, leaving one technical leader out for one more DM. If he made it clear that he was ambitious for this game, Gerets chose the latter, playing with a Cana-Cheyrou-M’bami- midfield, leaving only to Ben Arfa the responsibility of our offensive game. The trick was to suck Liverpool in and then proceed to systematically counter attack. This strategy worked perfectly since the goal from Lorik Cana came from a Benoit Cheyrou assist. Cheyrou received the ball himself from Modeste M’bami. His plan was great.

The feeling that we could win this game did not even have time to settle in our minds that Liverpool, who had been pressing us up and down the pitch since the beginning, decided to double their efforts and one Modeste M’bami, in one of his now trademark mental absences grossly let the ball get taken away from him in th emidefield and not only didn’t he have enough time to come and help defensively but Steven Gerrard scored a beauty of a shot, that only he and a handful of other players (most of those playing in the Premiership I must admit) could fathom, let alone make. Steve Mandanda was left completely speechless and did a Greg Coupet (detractors of the ex-French goalkeeper used to highlight the fact that he mostly was stuck on his line when shots were fired from outside the penalty area. For more examples, youtube “Netherland-France” at this year’s Euros). Seldom had he looked so powerless.

Five minutes later, while we were just getting back into the game, Ronald Zubar, who was at that time still surprisingly decent a defender for someone who had been left off the team at some point last season, was just outskilled and outpowered by Ryan Babel whom he fouled obviously in the penalty area when the dutch boy was about to eliminate him and face Mandanda. I would have taken my chances knowing the keeper we have. Anyway, penalty that Gerrard scores twice by putting the ball twice in the same exact spot. Top class.

After that, Gerets switched tactics and figured that it was better to give the public (for once, the Vélodrome was not full, the fault to a TF1 broadcast and wildly high prices. Only 48.000 fans were in the stands) what they came for, something to remember and he then decided to put an end to Modeste M’bami’s misery. It was for the better since the cameroon native was becoming a little too eager and would have certainly been given a yellow card eventually. Gerets replaced him with Mathieu Valbuena and went with the 4-2-3-1.

And as everyone watching the match, Eric Gerets figured soon enough that Hatem Ben Arfa was just not fully recovered from his recent injuries and decided to replace him with Karim Ziani a few minutes after we came back from helf-time. These two substitutions were the main reasons why the second half was all us.

At that point, Liverpool seemed very tired and their two superstars, one of them being totally transparent up until then were both replaced by fresh blood. The game still remained ours with a few incartades by players such as Kuyt and Babel. Mandanda even going as far as to save some shot by Ryan Babel so powerful and accurate that it couldn’t have looked more like a goal. Somehow, Mandanda’s hand stretched extra-high and beecame concrete for a second.

It was the moment for us to score, but this is when our lack of realism kicked in. Karim Ziani decided to shoot twice and missed two clear chances in as many minutes. Benoit Cheyrou and then Mathieu Valbuena joined in after Mamadou Niang missed the sure equalizer at the 89th minute. Mamadou Samassa, who had replaced Baky Koné (this replacement was great and seemed obvious after his first two minutes on the pitch. Samassa was a lot more difficult to deal with by the Reds defense because of his size than Baky Koné and his speed ever were in that game.) was too polite and decided to pass him another ball at the 92nd. If Mamadou has taken a whole other dimension in the last few months, it would be nice to see him try a little more than he does.

Once Reina blocked Niang’s last minutedramatic shot, Liverpool locked everything in and Babel who was at that moment playing left back tackled Taiwo and gave us a last corner that didn’t do us any good.

All in all, we played like we meant business and had our defense been a smidge better (Either Erbate or Rodriguez healthy, or even if Gerets didn’t trust Zubar with a quite difficult task), I doubt we would have conceited that penalty. Marseille is slowly but surely gaining momentum and becoming a stronger team. Hopefully this continues and we can finally get some points agaisnt Atletico Madrid. I just saw them humiliated the other outsider of the group, PSV Eindhoven