The View from Anfield

The View from Anfield


Spurs come to Anfied in 4th place and just one point behind us and looking to jump above us in the table.

Whole sale changes have been made to the Spurs team that was knocked our of the cup last week.with five players from that team dropped and Edgar Davids and their Captain Ledley King returning from injury. We are looking to beat an 80 year old record of not conceding a goal at Anfield for 10 consecutive matches. Elisha Scott was the keeper involved in that previous run. More importantly as I take my seat the news has just come through that City have beaten United 3-1.

We kick off playing away from the Kop and Tottenham are keeping the ball away from us and during the first 20 minutes they are looking more like us than we are.
They pass and move play in zones and are working harder than we are. In fact for 10 of these 20 minutes they look the better side. They are competing harder than we are they are first to the second and third balls and dominate midfield. After 20 minutes Raffa calls for more effort from his side and signals then to move up a gear in tempo.
Liverpool respond and we now start to control the game and push the Spurs back and keep them back. Half time comes with few clear cut chances being created, this is in part due to the man for man marking job Tainio is doing on our most creative player Alonso. This means Xabi is not supplying the ball to the front 2 of Crouch and Morientes. Kewell looks threating throughout Spurs are having to double up on him every time to stop his runs.

During the half time break Raffa has seen the weakness in the Spurs side and we come out and move up another gear in tempo. Spurs have no answer to this and dominance is really starting to tell. I would imagine Raffa has told Finnan and Stevie G to concentrate on getting at them down their left flank where Lee looks shky in defence. All our attacks are now going down this flank and it is no surprise when that it is Finnan who puts in peach of a cross to the far side of the Spurs box for Kewell to hit as sweetly as you possibly can into the right hand top corner of Robinsons net. This could be a candidate for goal of the season. We are in total control of the game now and there is no way back for Spurs.

Concusions; I said when we drew at White Hart lane that not many teams would come away from there with a point this season. Martin Jol is putting together a very useful side at Tottenham and they really made us work for these points and where we normally create 20 chances at home they severely restricted us. The fact that we could find the way to get the points we needed speaks volumes for the character of our side. The loss suffered by United would have meant nothing if we didn’t win.

Finally is it just coincidence that in the week that a new right back and central defender join the club both Sami H and Steve Finnan put in for me their best performances of the season. Sami in particular really imposed himself on this game. Far too often this season Carra has been covering for him. Not today though when he won, distributed,brought the ball out into the opposition half and some of his passing was on a par with Gerrards. Finnan got forward far more often and put in some quality crosses.
So the stage is nicely set for the showdown at Old Trafford next week, I for one can’t wait.

Thank you for this view, Shankly Gates. It's good to win against a threatening (and brillant ) rival.

Will you be at Old Trafford next sunday ?

Yes I'll be there JLB and I quite fancy our chances. United have a cup game midweek to get the loss to City out of their system but I thin they are going to be nervous at the back and I don't think there midfiled compares with ours.

They can't even rely on being more physical than us as now we can fight with the more physical sides as well.

What do you think?

I think we really can make the difference this sunday. We are definitely a better side than manure and this is the chance to prove it.

Their defense is not that good, particularly since Heinze is injured.
As far as the midfield is concerned, we are by far better than them.
And, you're right, they can play physical if they want (dare ?), this is not a problem for us anymore.

The only thing that worry me is that we are still missing too much chances and we shouldn't have too many goal opportunities at Old Trafford, even if I'm sure we have a real good chance to win and let them behind us til the end of trhe Prem.

We go there full of confidence 1 point behind them and 2 games in hand. There is no presssure on us all the pressure is on them to get a result against us. Having said that I wouldn't be surprised if Fergy sends out a team to get a point against us. That would probably be the greatest compliment he could pay us without realising it.

I accept your point about the chances although against Spurs we didn't create as many as usual largely due in my opinion to the man marking job done on Alonso. The worrying factor is if other clubs copy this tactic we could be a lot less creative because of it. Although I think Raffa would find an answer. In fact the answer would probably be that Xabi would drop into the back four to try and pick the ball up from there.

If we win it is a 2 horse race between us and Chelsea and I haven't given up on them slipping up yet. They were lucky again against Sunderland a deflected shot for their winner ( how many times have they done that this season) and 2 good penalty appeals for Sunderland refused. They will run out of luck soon, and we need to be there to take advantage of it.