Crouch in a spot of bother
Liverpool 3 Portsmouth 0
Brian Glanville at Anfield
POOR Peter Crouch. He has still to score for Liverpool this season, even from the penalty spot. And Portsmouth have still to win at Anfield for more than 50 years.
Liverpool’s manager Rafael Benitez was not dissatisfied with Crouch and philosophical about the missed penalty, which, after all, simply led to Bolo Zenden heading Liverpool’s opening goal from the rebound.
“For me,” said Benitez, “it’s a shame, because he plays really well. He needs only to score a goal and he has more confidence. But you can see him playing really well on the ground and in the air, passing the ball.” Asked whether he would give Crouch another penalty, Benitez explained that it was the players themselves who made the decision on the pitch. “If one of them has confidence, he decides to shoot. Peter decided to shoot.”
As for future penalties, Benitez responded, dryly: “the next game, I hope to see another penalty when it’s 2-0!” This was a Portsmouth team parsimonious in attack. The Pompey manager, Alain Perrin, his job hanging on a slender thread, decided to play his Congo international, Lomana Lua Lua, alone up front. It was not a day in which we were ever likely to see Lua Lua’s spectacular hand springs after scoring a goal and it was somewhat puzzling that Perrin should tell us that he did not want to keep the player on the field beyond the 70 minutes because he had recently been ill.
Keeping him on alone for all that time hardly seemed the ideal form of convalescence.
So Liverpool were handed the initiative and duly grasped it, frequently defied by the resilient Portsmouth goalkeeper, Jamie Ashdown. Sadly, ironic and typical of the goalkeeper’s lot, was that Ashdown, for all his catalogue of saves, should give away so farcical a second goal.
Crouch was on target as early as the 15th minute when he met Steve Gerrard’s right-wing corner with a header that Ashdown pushed away. Six minutes later, when Zenden, the Dutch winger, went past the Portsmouth right-back Andy Griffin, from the left, Griffin fouled him inside the box.
Portsmouth and their manager felt a penalty was extreme. Perhaps the referee could have given obstruction. As it was, Crouch shot right footed, Ashdown played a gallant diving save but Zenden had only to nod the ball into the inviting goal.
On 38 minutes, Djibril Cisse, who had been pushed out of the middle to the right flank to make way for the ebullient substitute, Fernando Morientes, floated a high ball in from his wing. Was it intended to be a cross? Possibly Ashdown thought so, for the ball flew over his head to land in the far, top corner.
From that moment, thoughts of winning disappeared for Portsmouth who might, it seemed, at least have pushed Laurent Robert, with his formidable left foot, up beside Lua Lua. On 54 minutes, a shrewd piece of refereeing allowed play to continue and Crouch to run on when there had been an obvious foul. Crouch was clear, he hit the ball hard, but Ashdown once again parried the ball.
Eleven minutes more, and a quick, movement between Morientes, Zenden and Dietmar Hamann ended with a drive by the German international, but Ashdown, by no means demoralised by his first-half error, saved that one, too.
Two minutes later, Portsmouth at long last did threaten the goal. From a corner, Brian Priske, who had stolen up from defence, prodded the ball at goal, but Steve Finnan blocked it on the line.
When Lua Lua was eventually substituted, it was to a chorus from the Portsmouth fans of: “You don’t know what you’re doing”, the measure of their frustration. There was a third Liverpool goal to come, in the 79th minute. Gerrard crossed from the right, Crouch headed the ball back, Sami Hyypia ever adventurous, couldn’t make full contact but Morientes emphatically could. It crowned what, for him, had been a most satisfactory afternoon.
That old Spanish form seems to be coming back at last.
STAR MAN: Fernando Morienties (Liverpool)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-1880775,00.html---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spot of bother haunts sad Crouch
Ian Whittell at Anfield
Sunday November 20, 2005
The Observer
Life is beginning to look far rosier for the champions of Europe, an effortless victory against a woeful Portsmouth continuing their rise up the table. Yet Peter Crouch's frustrations mount. This was his nineteenth consecutive match without scoring and he missed a penalty to compound matters.
For much of the week, the talk around Anfield had centred on the 6ft 7in striker, still seeking his first goal in Liverpool colours, 14 club games after arriving from Southampton in the summer. Add four England appearances into the equation and Crouch's goal drought has become a major issue for a £7 million centre-forward.
Twice inside the opening 22 minutes he was presented with glorious opportunities to end that barren run. After 11 minutes, he appeared on the end of a perfectly judged right-wing corner from Steven Gerrard and, unmarked on the six-yard line, he headed the ball directly at keeper Jamie Ashdown, who kept it out with a one-handed save.
More alarmingly, midway through the first period referee Peter Walton correctly awarded Liverpool a penalty after Andy Griffin impeded Boudewijn Zenden with an unnecessary two-handed shove. After deliberation among the home team, and to the delight of the Kop, Crouch stepped up to take the spot-kick. But Ashdown made a superb dive to his right to save. Unfortunately for him, Zenden arrived at pace to head in the rebound.
Ashdown was soon in action again to save brilliantly from a Fernando Morientes header, while the closest the visiting team came even to threatening the home goal was an unsuccessful penalty appeal after John Viafara claimed he had been impeded by Jamie Carragher.
By the time Liverpool's second goal came along, six minutes before the interval, the outcome appeared a foregone conclusion, even allowing for the freak value of Djibril Cisse's effort. The Liverpool striker, having collected a pass from Dietmar Hamann wide on the right, swung over a cross that curled viciously and looped over Ashdown and in at the far post.
The opening stages of the second half brought no change in Crouch's inability to find the net against a poor Pompey. After 53 minutes, the England striker had a shot blocked by Griffin and the ball rebounded to Morientes, whose cross was tantalisingly close to being turned in by Crouch. A minute later, Crouch was played in by Morientes' back-heel, but he shot straight at Ashdown.
With his next chance, Crouch tried an audacious chip from the edge of the area that missed by perhaps three times his own height.
The rout was completed when Morientes hooked in a loose ball after an untidy goalmouth scramble.
Man of the match Steven Gerrard - peerless.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,6903,1646704,00.html--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liverpool shine but Crouch is shut out again
By Trevor Haylett at Anfield
(Filed: 20/11/2005)
Liverpool (2) 3 Portsmouth (0) 0
Another comprehensive victory, Liverpool's fourth in succession while maintaining a shut-out at the other end, was warmly greeted by the Anfield hordes but what they wanted almost as much was to acclaim a goal from their misfiring striker, Peter Crouch. It proved another unfulfilled afternoon.
It is already a long-running saga with 15 appearances now in red and not a single strike to Crouch's name. It wasn't for the lack of opportunities, none more obvious than the penalty he saw saved. And with fellow strikers Djibril Cisse and Fernando Morientes among the goals, his omission from the scoresheet was even more pertinent.
Perhaps if Crouch had enjoyed better fortune with an early header, which drew an instinctive, one-handed stop from Jamie Ashdown, it could have become the kind of afternoon he envisaged when he speculated on jumping into the crowd to celebrate that long-awaited goal.
His chance came in the 23rd minute after Bolo Zenden was blocked by Andy Griffin. As Crouch composed himself a huge roar of encouragement emanated from the Kop, but the moment proved too much and his weak attempt from the spot was easily repelled. Luckily for Crouch, Zenden followed up to score with a downward header.
At the same time, Morientes had come on for Luis Gacia so Liverpool had all three of their strikers involved, each of whom has some way to go to convince the Anfield worshippers of their worth.
To be fair to Crouch, his touches after that were always positive though it was Cisse, pushed out to the right flank, who doubled Liverpool's lead. He probably meant it as a cross but was delighted all the same to see his chip sail over Ashdown's head.
Portsmouth, lacking their captain, Dejan Stefanovic, did have Lomana LuaLua back after a bout of malaria, and if they were to pose any threat it would come from this lone front-runner. He was ever willing, but it was an afternoon of unrewarded toil.
With Pompey's ambitions restrained at the outset and diluted even further by the impact of those two goals, it became a case of how many Liverpool could score. Or, more specifically, would Crouch at last get that huge weight of his back?
He made a hash of another chance eight minutes into the second half after Morientes had screwed the ball back into the heart of goal. His footwork can never be the quickest, but Crouch really should have done better two minutes later when the referee played a
sensible advantage that permitted him a clear run at goal. He struck the ball early and true but straight at the goalkeeper.
With 11 minutes remaining Morientes showed him the way, squeezing home a ball that Crouch had headed back from the far post. Perhaps that is how he's destined to be remembered: the goal-maker rather than goal-taker.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2005/11/20/sfgliv20.xml&sSheet=/sport/2005/11/20/ixfooty.html
Home 