I bless the Reina down in Anfield
11 comments August 16th, 2010
Liverpool 1 – 1 Arsenal (Ngog 46, Reina 90 og)
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
As football fans, we savour the great moments. It’s rare you remember a full ninety minutes. You’d never recall a game and say, with a glint in the eye, “Ah, we kept possession marvelously that day”. You remember flashes of decisive action. Usually goals. Take our FA Cup Final victory over Manchester United in 2005. For 120 minutes, we were dire, but I don’t recall any of it. The only image that has burned itself indelibly in to my retina is that of Patrick Vieira firing home the winning penalty.
Hopefully, over time, we will be able to forget the dross we served up yesterday, and just remember the glorious hilarity of Pepe Reina’s stoppage time own goal. The man who orchestrated the bundling of Cesc Fabregas in to a Barcelona shirt got his karmic comeuppance. Distracted by the sun and an onrushing Marouane Chamakh, he could only fumble the ball in to his own net when it cannoned back off the post towards him.
Going in to the game, I’d have taken a draw. That changed shortly before half-time, when a flat half characterised by our keep-ball ended with Joe Cole being sent off for a lunge at Laurent Koscielny. Whilst Koscielny escaped injury and Cole’s intentions appeared benign, the tackle was irresponsible and reckless, and a red card was the correct punishment. To paraphrase commentator Martin Tyler, the referee’s responsibility is to judge the offence, not the damage caused or the character of the perpetrator.
So as the second half kicked off it was ten vs eleven. I feared a stoical Liverpool side would become even more cautious and difficult to break down, so the one thing we didn’t need to do was give them something to cling on to. Arsenal being Arsenal, that is precisely what we did. Jack Wilshere miscontrolled Andrey Arshavin’s pass on the edge of his own area, and David Ngog pounced to hammer a shot in to Manuel Almunia’s near post. I’ve seen plenty of pundits saying he should have saved it, but there was a lot of power behind the strike. Credit to Ngog.
After that we threw on a flurry of attackers to try and claw our way back in to the game – at one stage we had Chamakh, Van Persie, Arshavin, Walcott, Rosicky and Nasri on the field. Despite the wealth of talent at our disposal, we didn’t carve out a clear opportunity until the 85th minute, when Tomas Rosicky slalomed through the defence only to be denied by the fingertips of Pepe Reina. There were a couple of fruitless goalmouth scrambles, but it looked for all the world as if we’d slump to defeat in our opening game. And then, Reina.
A better performance would surely have seen us take all three points, but I’ll take our lucky escape and be grateful for it. Arsene’s demeanour in the post-match press conference had the upbeat feel of a man who knew we’d got away with it. I felt we were very poor on the day, particularly in the final third: we barely created a clear goalscoring opportunity all game.
Manuel Almunia started in goal and whilst I think that was the right call his performance won’t have filled fans with confidence. He flailed hopelessly at a couple of crosses, whilst sticking up for him over Ngog’s goal would be easier if he wasn’t beaten so regularly at his near post. Asked about the possibility of signing a goalkeeper after the game, Arsene said:
“At the moment it is better for me not to talk about that because it doesn’t help the keepers who play for us, so it is better that we focus on the goalkeepers we have. I believe Almunia had a good game today.”
Hardly the most ringing endorsement of his current crop of keepers. I’m hoping we’ll see some movement on the Mark Schwarzer front this week.
At the back we weren’t hugely stretched, but I thought Laurent Koscielny had an impressive Premier League debut, winning a couple of duels with substitute Fernando Torres before receiving a second yellow card for what was wrongly deemed a deliberate handball. Perhaps Martin Atkinson was simply looking to level the numbers up. His suspension means we face Blackpool next week with only one recognised centre-half.
In midfield we struggled. Abou Diaby looked, unsurprisingly, like a player who hadn’t kicked a ball in pre-season, and showed off his tendency to hold on to the ball for too long on several infuriating occasions. Jack Wilshere, meanwhile, seemed a little overawed. I do feel that he’s far more suited to the creative role occupied by the impressive Samir Nasri than the deep position he’s currently occupying – though injuries to Song and Denilson mean we have little choice about that at the moment.
Emmanuel Eboue made little impact, whilst Andrey Arshavin wasn’t kidding when he said he was out of form. I don’t think he was as lazy as some suggest – I’ve certainly seem him run less – but absolutely nothing he tried came off, and only his Anfield hoodoo prevented him from being hauled off.
Marouane Chamakh had a difficult debut, losing the majority of his aerial challenges with Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel, who looks increasingly like the serial killer in ‘Red Dragon’. That said, we was in there when it counted to help claim the equaliser, clattering Reina with what may or may not have been an illegal challenge.
All in all, a decent result from a poor performance. Apparently that’s the mark of a good team. We’ve now got a week in which to regroup and get the ship in order before the visit of an exuberant Blackpool side. Arsene also has some time in which to address the major gaps in the squad – though don’t be surprised if that drags right on until the very end of the window.
Football is back. How did we manage without it?
