Following a football team can be a very emotional experience, especially for us Reds who tend to wear our hearts on our sleeves a bit more than other fans do. One minute we can be feeling the ultimate in lows and pessimism and within a short period of time things can do a complete turn and we’ll be on top of the world again. This was demonstrated perfectly last weekend as we went from despair on Saturday to singing with joy on Sunday.
On the back of four straight defeats even the most positive fans among us must have been feeling a little negative about our prospects for the rest of the season, even if one chose to keep such thoughts private. I was worried going into the game against the filth. We had been absolutely awful in the games preceding it and Man Ure just had the habit of winning games no matter how they played on the day in games. However despite such concerns I still had a feeling that we would win on Sunday, I knew the crowd would be extra loud and I just knew that this would be the perfect chance to end the bad run and get the season going again.
As I had hoped last week there was a mega dose of Scouse Power on the Anfield turf as Jamie Carragher had his finest game in a very long time. With the marvelous Danny Agger alongside him, Carra was an absolute colossus proving that he still has plenty to offer the team. He was winning tackles, blocking shots, winning headers and putting on an awesome display throwing himself about to make sure that nothing was getting past Pepe Reina. His foul on the turncoat near the end was a terrific sacrifice and a smart piece of play as he knew he wasn’t last man and would probably only get a yellow card.
Lucas had his finest game ever in a Red shirt and really got stuck in dominating the midfield alongside a rejuvinated Mascherano. Although he got himself stupidly sent off at the end, Mascherano was absolutely brilliant. Freed of the stresses of carrying a country through a poor World Cup qualifying campaign, he was able to play like he was doing until late last season when he went off the boil a bit.
Yossi Benayoun was once again simply unbelievable. He has to be our player of the season so far and has proven that with hard work you can go from a squad player to a guaranteed starter in most games. The two goals were also fantastic, Torres did what he does best and frightened the life out of Vidic and Ferdinand. You could tell that Vidic was concerned about Torres when he fouled him in the first minute of the game, and it was no surprise that he got himself sent off for the third game in a row between the two sides. David Ngog continues to show a steady improvement and continues his excellent goals per time on the pitch ratio. I thought he was excellent against Leeds a few weeks ago and he did well against Lyon considering he was left stranded for long periods. The way he took his goal on Sunday was brilliant and I have high hopes for him as he develops at Liverpool.
We had a blip a few days later with the loss to Arsenal in the League Cup but there were still some positives to take out of the game. Degen had a really good game in my opinion and Insua’s goal was an absolute cracker, hopefully we’ll see a few more of those in the coming months. The big positive to take out of this game was the first team debut from the bench of Aquilani. He looked really impressive in his short time on the pitch, he looks confident on the ball going forward and his passing looks to be every bit as good as what we’ve been hearing from his time in Italy. I can’t wait for him to become a regular and start threading balls through to Stevie and El Nino. Just thinking about it is a mouth watering prospect!
So we’ve gone through all the emotions over the last seven days and now we really do have lots of hope in our hearts once again.
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