The Rovers Return

Yes, Liverpool were awesome yesterday, but there wasn’t enough fight in our boys to satisfy me.

As I said in my previous post, I wasn’t expecting anything in terms of a result, but when we just turn up and allow ourselves to get pasted like that it really annoys me.

Samba up front was the best player for us, although as he was on his own it was impossible for him to do anything. I have no idea what Benni McCarthy has done but Sam seems to have fallen out with him.

If it was up to me yesterday, the South African would have been introduced at half time to replace a midfielder (preferably Treacy with Dunn pushing out to the left hand side) to give us a chance of scoring, which would have put some pressure on the home side.

Outside of Rovers I got the impression yesterday we were never supposed to surprise our hosts and take anything. Indeed, if we had, we’d have spoiled their Hillsborough memorial.

This may sound harsh but the Scousers do like to revel in everybody’s sympathy when it comes to this time of year, and if we came in and nicked a result it would have been what nobody wanted on the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

On a Hillsborough note, it was nice to see Scouser Stephen Warnock present a memorial gift to the Kop End prior to kick off. Moments like that really sum up the true spirit of the game, where things like that transcend the hatred and fury shown vented towards the opposition fans on the terraces.

Not much to say about the match. Torres’ goal was outstanding. His second annoyed me as I can’t see how Chris Samba, at 20 feet tall, can be beaten in the air… The third was an excellent finish, I don’t care what Andy ‘I’m the God of football’ Gray says on Sky (he’s a right twat) about Robinson needing to do better. Yes, he was beaten at his near post, but I doubt many keepers would have kept out that strike.

The third goal was shite defending, and for Ngog to score against us is just embarrassing!

In the end, we should have lost by double figures. The 4-0 scoreline does nothing for our steadily recovering goal difference, and other results really went against us.

Still, four points off the drop our safety is well and truly in our own hands.

We are level on points with Portsmouth, who we are still to meet at Ewood, and Hull, with Stoke just two points ahead who we take on at the Britannia Stadium next week.

One thing’s for sure, we could really do with Santa Cruz back!