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Liverpool (h) Premiership
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Date: Saturday
10th February 2007, 3pm Venue: St. James' Park
Conditions: no
snow, but 24 hours of rain had left the pitch sodden and the fixture
survived two pre-match inspections by the officials, who successfully
bounced a ball. |
|
Newcastle United |
Liverpool |
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2 - 1 |
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| Half time: | 1 - 1 | |
 |
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| Score Sheet: | ||
Martins (26)
Solano (pen) (70) |
Bellamy
(6)
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Teams |
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Harper Taylor Onyewu Bramble Babayaro Solano Parker Butt Milner Dyer Martins |
Reina Finnan Carragher Agger Riise Pennant Sissoko Gerrard Zenden Bellamy Kuyt |
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| Substitutes: | ||
|
Sibierski for Dyer (81) Duff for Solano (86) |
Guthrie for
Zenden (75) Arbeloa for Pennant (76) Crouch for Finnan (84) |
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||
| Subs not used: | ||
|
Srnicek Luque Huntington |
Dudek Hyypia |
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| Bookings: | ||
Bramble |
Gerrard
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| Dismissals: | ||
| None |
None |
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| Referee:
Mark
Halsey (Lancashire). The same official had presided over our 2-0 loss
at Anfield back in September and on that occasion had refused
Newcastle penalty claims for a handball against Carragher. He may have righted that wrong today, but much of his other work was less satisfactory - certainly the official running the line in front of the East Stand in the second half had normally placid punters out of their seats with his indecisive flag-waving antics. Liverpool will also take a dim view of the decisions to penalise Bellamy for second half clashes with Harper and Onyewu when the home players looked to make the most of whatever contact there may or may not have been. Some Merseyside-based grumbling will also doubtless follow the time-wasting from Newcastle in the closing stages, with the ball being kept down by the Strawberry corner flag and Roeder bizarrely managing to get two goes at replacing Milner. |
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| Attendance:
52,305 - highest at SJP this season, beating the Man U figure by
three. Roeder rightly paid tribute to the part the crowd played in shouting the team home in the final 20 minutes, but in truth there wasn't a great deal to get excited about before the Martins goal. And it may have been our vantage point or cloth ears, but the abuse of Bellamy wasn't quite as vitriolic as some may have expected after the initial pre-game booing subsided. Having said that though, there was no lack of volume or enthusiasm in late "what's the score" chants and there were a few bars of "sh*t scared of Shearer" aired more than once. Half time hero: Peter Beardsley, followed by a brief pitchside appearance from Ricky "the hitman" Hatton complete with his title belt. Everton got Rocky, we got Ricky! Black armbands were worn in tribute to the club's former patron Trevor Bennett, not as was unkindly suggested in some quarters for recently deceased Playboy centrefold turned gold digger Anna Nicole Smith. Kicking against the Hicks Leaflets were handed out to fans on their way to the game. One protestor with a banner tried to get on to the pitch in the second half from the South West corner, but was intercepted by a steward. Tom Hicks and his new Liverpool co-owner George Gillett did not attend the game. "If you
take the approach that you want to scrape every last nickel off the
table, that'll work one or two times, but after awhile, your
reputation will precede you." From The Liverpool Post, Friday: American tycoon Tom Hicks may have only just come on board as the new co-chairman of Liverpool FC, but he is already being promised a hostile reception if he attends his first away game at Newcastle United tomorrow – and it has nothing to do with football. Members
of the GMB union are planning to lobby him as he goes into the St
James Park ground over £2.5m of unpaid severance money they claim he
owes when a company he ran in the North-east became insolvent. Since
Via Systems, employing 850 workers in South Shields, became insolvent
in 2001, union members who lost their jobs have been campaigning to
recover money they consider that the company, run by Mr Hicks, owes
them. |
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Goals |
6 mins Steve
Harper's miskick went straight to Jermaine Pennant who went past Celestine Babayaro before
pulling the ball back from the byline to Craig Bellamy - the old boy side-footing into the Gallowgate net with the
goalkeeper stranded. The
knee-slide celebration in The Strawberry corner did nothing for his popularity
but there was no pitch invasion or missile throwing.0-1
26 mins
Martins
chased a Kieron Dyer ball down the Newcastle right, only for Jose Reina to race out
of his goal and inexplicably blast the ball against team mate Daniel Agger, leaving
Obafemi Martins to take a
couple of touches before stroking the ball into the empty Leazes net. 1-1
Half time:
Newcastle 1 Liverpool 1
70 mins Steven Taylor jinked his way into the Liverpool area, drawing a rash tackle from John Arne Riise and tumbling over in a manner that could have seen him booked by other officials. With Dyer intervening to prevent Martins from grabbing the ball, Nolberto Solano stepped up to hit a low penalty into the corner of the net as Reina guessed wrong and dived to his left. 2-1
Full time: Newcastle 2 Liverpool 1
We Said |
Glenn Roeder said:
"The second half performance was absolutely fantastic. Everyone
played their part, and there is not a cooler man in the house to take a penalty
than Nobby Solano.
"I was delighted with the two lads in centre midfield. They were up against
two of the best midfielders in the Premiership in Steven Gerrard and Momo
Sissoko and they coped very well.
"They got right in the faces of the opposition and it was very satisfying."
On Onyewu:
"It was a big game for
him, his home debut against Liverpool in front of 52,000 people, but from what I
know of him already - I don't know if it's the American bit in him - he is a
tough guy.
"He is very, very mentally strong, does not appear to have too many nerves and the longer the game went, the better he got.
"Come the end of the season he
might have earned the contract he is desperate to earn to stay here over the
next few years. I am delighted for him. He is a really good guy.
About Celestine Babayaro:
"Celestine has had difficult times at Newcastle and he is not everyone's cup of tea with regard to the fans.
"I have read and heard that some of them have questioned his heart, but he lost his brother late on the night before the match and to play 90 minutes and put that all behind him is all credit to him.
"It shows he has got heart for
this club and I just wish him and his family all the best.
“Celestine phoned me at 11.30 last night to tell me his younger brother had
lost his life and died of tuberculosis in London. We had known for some weeks
that he was ill and that’s why I put my arms around him when he came off the
pitch. That takes courage.
“Celestine consulted his other brothers and they all agreed their younger brother would have wanted him to play. I know exactly how he felt as I did exactly the same when my father died (Roeder played the same day).
“I
told Celestine of my own experience and would have accepted whatever he wanted
to do. After winning three points he feels happy and sad at the same time.”
Babayaro spoke about his decision to play and his brother, Kennedy:
"Kennedy would have loved to
see me play that game.
"I discussed it with my family and together we all agreed to honour him. It was tough to deal with the situation, but I simply had to do it for him.
"It was so fulfilling that the result went our way, but everything I was doing on the pitch was simply for him - on Saturday I defended the Newcastle colour in his honour.
"It was a difficult time but I simply had to put up a brave heart to concentrate on the game. I think it was after the game that a lot of the picture came out to the rest of the world.
"A very heavy heart was all I possessed on the day but thoughts of him made me stronger. And knowing that he was watching me from above made me feel light at heart."
They Said |
Rafa Benitez commented:
"After the first half it could have been 3-0,
then we gave away a stupid goal and a stupid penalty.
“When you are away from home and you have these chances, you must finish the game. In the second half we gave them the chance to win.
"It’s difficult to explain losing a game when you have these chances. We were one on one with the keeper, then without the keeper, but if you can’t score and finish the game it changes.
"Kuyt had a chance in the second half, and now we’ve lost a game we were thinking we could win by two or three. We were controlling everything but we gave them half a chance.
"The conditions are no excuse. We played well in the conditions in the first half. We were doing everything right until the second half. Then we started making mistakes.
"With the pen, John said it could be. It was stupid and you need to be more careful in the penalty box. This is a lesson for the future. You need to work hard always.
"All you can do in this situation is keep winning and see the situation in two or three weeks. But if you can’t win, you can’t change things.
"“We needed to use them both (Sissoko and Zenden) because we had some problems, particularly with Mark Gonzalez who couldn’t get back from being away with Chile.
"“Once again, after a very, very ‘important’ international break we’ve lost some players, which meant we had to use players who’ve not played for months.
"My idea before when we were closer is the same as it is now, we think about the next game. You can’t waste your time talking about the gap or how close we are if you don’t win every game.
"The players were not thinking about this, they were thinking about winning the game. If you don’t win these games how can you close the gap?”
"We will go now to the training camp and we can start thinking about the next game and the Champions League against Barcelona. But we need to learn that when you have these opportunities you must finish the game.
"The conditions were not the best but in the first half we were much better than them.
"We had clear chances because our play was
good so I cannot say anything about the conditions.”
Once again we feel compelled to include the
"thoughts" of The Liverpool Echo's resident bigot Chris Bascombe, who
has a bigger problem with us than even the most unhinged mackem.
We can only assume his account of the game
is so poor due to his obstructed view from the back of the visitor's dugout.
Make no mistake, this twit has suffered somewhere along the line at our hands: being force-fed pease pudding and black bullets or exposed to an endless loop of the Lindisfarne/Gazza record perhaps.
News of
Liverpool’s defeat filtered through to Dallas and Montreal, there was at
least one consolation for Messrs Gillett and Hicks.
At least the
Liverpool fans didn’t follow the traditional Geordie lead and start calling
for heads at the top to roll.
Technically,
the American Revolution doesn’t begin until the requisite number of shares
have actually changed hands, but this was an inauspicious end to a momentous
week.
It was grim,
it was grisly, it was bleak and it was uninviting. The weather, that is.
Given the
circumstances, much of the football was admirable. Liverpool’s Eagle and
Child met Newcastle’s Dog and Duck as the Premiership was reinvented as an
alehouse game and, although technical expertise paid the price, it was no less
exciting.
The central
midfielders of both sides seemed to relish the battle. It was one of those
afternoons when the gulf between the bravehearts and the phoneys was brutally
exposed.
For the likes
of Steven Gerrard, Momo Sissoko and Scott Parker, the prospect of throwing
themselves into more 50-50s in the first fifteen minutes than they get the
opportunity to enjoy in a season was stirring.
For others,
those hours of practice on the training ground spent mastering the art of
turning a 50-50 into a 60-40 in the opponent’s favour had a tremendous
benefit.
Dare we name names? You know who they are, so do they and, most
importantly, so does Benitez. Liverpool had
their battlers, but the pitch helped the hosts more than the visitors by
preventing any chance of a sustained passing game.
The
exceptional Parker, overlooked as the home side’s man of the match in the
most ridiculous act of Geordie nonsense since they sacked Kenny Dalglish,
ensured there was as much to admire in Newcastle’s midfield as
Liverpool’s.
If there were
satellite pictures being beamed to the United States, one shudders to think
what they made of it. Not for the last time, they’ll have required a word on
the ear of a more understanding spirit explaining what was going on.
Although
you can anticipate the usual soul-searching after a defeat, this was another
of those occasions when the final score told half the story. Or more
appropriately, it told the story of one half.
Once Dirk Kuyt maintained the worrying trend of Liverpool strikers needing far more than one chance to score, the ascendancy held before half-time was lost.
Defeat still seemed improbable given Newcastle managed to break into the Liverpool penalty area just twice, but they were assisted by another mindless error.
Benitez’s language was stronger. “Stupid,” he said, choosing not to elaborate whether he was referring to the challenge, the culprit, or both. He certainly didn’t disagree with the decision leading to Nolberto Solano’s winning penalty, so take your pick.
This was the lowlight of a particularly disappointing season for John Arne Riise. Just how disappointing was summed up when one wag said he’d recently found himself contemplating the seemingly impossible. Maybe we sold Djimi Traore too early,” it was suggested. Ouch.
It almost goes without saying the usual problems were apparent yet again.
Benitez’s delight with the spine of his team can be interpreted as ongoing concern about what’s happening on the flanks.
Jermaine Pennant created the first goal, but must know he’s barely halfway up the mountain in terms of convincing Benitez he should command a regular starting place next season.
Bolo Zenden’s comeback was in his less favoured left midfield role where, even before his injury, he’s ever looked comfortable.
And while
Riise’s problems continue, Steve Finnan continues to defy expectations of
a dip. Until he was subbed late on to allow Alvero Alberoa to make his
debut, he was the Reds’ best player.
The delay
inviting Peter Crouch into action as Liverpool searched for an equaliser
spoke volumes of how mistrustful Benitez is of his striker when he returns
from an England international.
No sooner
do Liverpool get within sight of Chelsea, back down come the shutters. Benitez
has consistently refused to talk publicly about the gap to the leaders, but
it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been thinking about it. Privately
at least, he must now accept his side has suffered one defeat too many.
His
players simply had too much to do because of their slow start to the season.
The
second defeat in 15 league games – as undeserved as the last one at
Blackburn – wouldn’t be so disappointing if Liverpool hadn’t created a
must-win situation so soon into the campaign.
When the
analysis of his third year in English football is complete, there’s no
doubt this is an area Benitez and his staff will point to. Winning the
Premiership is tough enough without giving your rivals what was,
effectively, a 10-point head start. A top four place is the best Liverpool
can hope for now.
This was
a week when Benitez warned an obsession with a rich, potentially exciting
future could undermine the more urgent priority of the present. After the
loss which ensured the Reds’ renewed title bid lasted just a month,
Benitez may be forced to join everyone else thinking ahead to the next
Premiership season.
PS - We hear that old Pinocchio Thompson on Skysports was equally as
one-eyed in his description of the game. Ha!
Stats |
Reds @ SJP - Premiership era: 2006/07: Won 2-1
Martins, Solano (pen) Obafemi
Martins (Newcastle) 29 starts 3 subs 12 goals (10 in
Prem) Martins reached double figures for
the season in the Premiership - and in the process beat Bellamy's best
ever league return for us. Obviously hopeless - as that mickey mouser
wrote.
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Waffle |
The SJP PA man got it
right with his pre-kick off airing of "Thunderstruck" -
although "Singing in the Rain" would have been equally apt or
perhaps "Stormy Weather" for the returning Craig Bellamy.
Two teams
with no chance of claiming domestic honours this season contested a game that
defied the conditions, the home side ultimately claiming what is as a good a
result as any under Roeder.
Defeat for Rafa's Reds removed any doubts that their new owners won't be
celebrating a first Premier League title come May. Meanwhile, three points were
timely in sustaining our bid for a top ten finish after recent profligacy
against West Ham and Fulham.
Having rightly
been deemed playable, the pitch proved to be a great leveller in terms of
exposing the collective mind set of the two sides and provided a reminder
of the time we routinely turned on the hoses to get it to the requisite
clagginess for our requirements.
In simple terms, there were fewer passengers in the black and white
lifeboat today compared to the Mersey equivalent - where one or two looked
vainly to the sidelines for an early rescue when the tide turned -
Taylor's dispossession of a pussy-footing Zenden after the break being a
prime example.
The early exchanges were painful indeed from a Toon perspective - the
visitors seemingly capable of scoring every time they streamed across
halfway and the Welshman marking his first return here since 2005 with a
seemingly inevitable opener.
At that point Babayaro, Taylor and Onyewu looked shaky in the extreme. And
with Titus making up the back four there were no bairns to be blamed
today.
But we rode our luck and although chances continued to appear, a
combination of Harper and the woodwork kept the opposition at bay in a
manner similar to Aston Villa at the same end of SJP recently.
And when Obafemi Martins showed hints of Bellamy in proving that he's a
taker of half chances and a chaser of lost causes, what had seemed like a
re-run of previous straightforward Scouse successes here suddenly became a
far more captivating contest.
That yet another new defensive combination kept
Bellamy and Co. out after a fraught opening was doubtless the source of satisfaction
to Messrs Pearson and Roeder - although the opposition did their bit to
help.
We came through it
with Babayaro digging in on the left flank and Onyewu getting to grips
with the aerial threat as had been hoped. And once aimless headers
stopped dropping for opponents and the midfield and defence opened up some lines
of communication, we looked much more confident.
A blank return and some general clog-footedness from Kuyt may also have
provided some additional vindication of our reluctance to match Liverpool
in meeting Feyenoord's asking price last year - although matching his ten
goals to date in our colours would have made a world of difference to our cause.
Meanwhile in the world of Craig Bellamy nothing much
changes.
Not for the first time in front of Newcastle fans he left the field at
half-time with a goal to his name - but not the hat trick that could
easily have claimed.
But it wasn't just
in the goalscoring stakes that the upstart was upstaged on his first
return to Tyneside in two years.
As the afternoon wore on, Bellamy was to be found in the familiar role of
railing against the inadequacies of others - principally his colleagues
and the officials, although the opposition and even himself came in for
some rants.
Obviously barking, obviously talented and no longer our
problem. Inevitably he will play for us again.
Butt and Parker seemed to relish the
conditions and both were rightly singled out for praise by Roeder for
their contributions, although we lacked creativity as a result of the twin
holding role.
The departure of
the former Man U man against Villa had unsettled us and after his
expensive rick at Fulham this was a timely return to his previous
effectiveness. Parker also seemed to be boosted by Butt's presence and his
display may have also have betrayed some residual frustration at not
having got on in place of Gerrard for England in midweek.
There was still much to worry about -
Harper's kicking, Taylor's distribution, Solano's inability to get down
the right, an over-reliance on the knackered Dyer, our failure to create a
single chance in the game - but through it all we found the energy and the
spirit to come out the other side clinging on to the gifts handed to us by
Liverpool.
Perhaps the high point of the game (apart from seeing Gerrard lose his rag
with the linesman to the delight of the East Stand) was in the realisation
that we'd been the more committed of the two sides - something we
certainly couldn't have been accused of at Craven Cottage eight days
before.
Benitez may have wittered on about his options
being limited by the midweek round of international friendlies, but it was
Roeder who had the more reason to be narked about Dyer's 90 minute workout -
with Gerrard putting his feet up at half time (something we understand was communicated
to the England boss in fairly forceful terms by GR).
Some odd decisions in this game from the Spaniard saw our grip on the lead
barely tested by an increasingly demoralised opposition, who had
disappeared up their
arse to such an extent that they lacked the presence of mind to lamp the ball forward to
Crouch when he made a belated entrance.
By then we were running the clock down big style with Duff playing the
Shearer role (and with a similar hindquarters spread to utilise) taking
the ball into the corners.
Our tenth league win of the season
and defeats for the sides immediately below us saw us achieve a seasonal
high of ninth place, boosting hopes of UEFA Cup involvement next season -
even if that has to come via the Intertoto Cup.
Third-placed Liverpool meanwhile left for their Algarve training camp to
prepare of a Champions League tie against Barcelona, while our lot took a
breather ahead of facing some Belgians who don't even own a ground with
proper floodlights.
The Kopites may moan, but we can only look on enviously at their level of
underachievement - and seeing Bellamy back in Toon was a reminder of how
recent those Nou Camp and San Siro nights were. Still, little victories,
acorns etc.
It's sixteen games since we last played in
Europe, with the scoreless draw in Frankfurt the last time we managed to keep a
clean sheet in any form of football.
Despite yet another enforced change in the back four with Onyewu ineligible and
Babayaro's attendance uncertain, our first objective needs to be to stop the
Belgians from scoring.
With more positive news from the training
ground though, even the most cynical opponent of the current regime would
concede that we're papering over the cracks with a slightly firmer hand, as Rafa
Benitez followed in the footsteps of Martin O'Neill, Alan Curbishley and Alex
Ferguson in failing to beat a "lucky" home side.
We may not be the pub team that some claim, but the beer certainly tasted better after this one.
Biffa