Liverpool – Champions League

After the 1-1- draw in the first leg the pundits were claiming advantage Liverpool! You can’t argue with the fact that they had an ‘away’ goal, but with several decent wins at Anfield under our belts in recent years we travelled up to Liverpool with some confidence that the boys could do it.

Was this to be our year to reach the final again, and this time go on to win it? Would we be forking out fortunes for Visa’s and flights to the capital of Russia – could we put out indifferent league form behind us and produce a performance as good as the one in Milan? We could, but the question was - would we?

As with all trips to Liverpool, the M6 seemed to be pretty heavy traffic wise and we arrived slightly later than planned. Still in time for a pre match beverage or 2 in the Arkles though, or so we thought – upon arrival we were told that no more away fans were being allowed in…… unusual but apparently that was on the instruction of both the London and Merseyside police.

After some negotiation we did eventually get in and found the mix of home and away supporters to be the same, with both sets singing and with no trouble. And inside were some of our Gooner friends from north of the border who had been in there since 2.00, and you could tell.

We left in good time and made our way to the away stand, which was packed. The stewards were having trouble keeping the aisles clear – this was a game where nobody was going to sit, and not everyone was standing where they should have been. Did people get in with Ted Drake’s? It wouldn’t have surprised me, there were certainly a lot of people in there!!!

And onto the game – and the famous atmosphere that we’ve heard so much about, so special on European nights. The singing of ‘you’ll never walk alone’, or ‘get a job’ depending on who you supported was impressive but once the game started, and once Arsenal took control, the Kop was quiet!

And Arsenal did control the early part. The fat Spanish waiter had again tinkered and had Gerrard out left presumably to accommodate a new formation, which included the beanpole Crouch, as well as Torres. It wasn’t working and Arsenal took a deserved lead through the somewhat maligned Diaby after 13 minutes.

I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Diaby, a serious injury at Sunderland, which put him out for a year, followed by a stint playing out of position on the wing. Anyway, some neat football saw the ball switched from the left flank to the right, and then all of a sudden Diaby was in…. and he shot…. and we saw the net move…. but it wasn’t until we saw the players celebrating that we knew for certain that it had gone in. One of those surreal couple of seconds where you’re thinking, ‘we’ve scored, no it’s hit the side netting, no we have scored’ and everyone went mental!!!

Arsenal were now firmly in control and passing the ball beautifully, if we could keep this up then there would be no problem. Another good move saw the ball whipped in from the left with Ade very nearly getting on the end of it.

Far from creating their ‘famous’ atmosphere, the Kop were getting very twitchy! Until Arsenal left Hypia unmarked from a corner to plant a header firmly in the corner. Cue noise from the home support, and cue Liverpool possession and pressure for the rest of the half.

Arsene managed to re-group the players at half time and the 2nd half was pretty even until Torres turned and fired in half way through. Cue more noise from the Kop. Arsenal had needed a goal anyway to stop the tie from going to extra time, now they needed one goal to try and win it on the away goals rule.

Adebayor had a great chance when a through ball unexpectedly came through to him. I say unexpectedly as I though it would be cut out before it reached him – unfortunately it looked like he was surprised as well and he put a very good chance horribly wide. Was that the chance we thought, had we blown it?

The answer was no – on came Theo as a sub and what a substitution it turned out to be. With less than 10 minutes remaining, he picked up the ball on the edge of his own area and ran, and ran, and ran – at great speed, with the ball always under control, and with a couple of Liverpool players failing miserable with their crude attempts to take him out.

Not only did he show great physical strength the ride those challenges, he also left a couple of other players for dead, and then played the prefect pass at the end of it to give Adebayor a tap in! Pandemonium in the away end, bodies flying everywhere, could we hold on for the 7minutes plus stoppage time?

Sadly the answer was no. Babel, on as a sub himself, ran at the Arsenal defence near enough straight from kick off and as soon as he got in the area you knew what was coming – minimal contact, down he went, the Kop screamed and the ref gave a penalty. It was hard to see from the other end of the pitch exactly what had happened but having now seen it on TV, it was very harsh.

Harsh or not, Gerrard doesn’t usually miss penalties and I was duly despatched into the back of the onion bag. Arsenal only had a few minutes left to try and pull this round and with all the players pushed forward for a free kick, Liverpool scored a fourth in injury time and it was game over.

A brave effort from the boys but it was not to be. I’ve always said that you need a bit of luck somewhere along the way to win the Champions League, a cup competition of the highest quality, and we certainly didn’t have any this year. A clear-cut penalty not given in the first leg and Bendtner's goal line clearance denying us a win, and a far less clear-cut penalty being given against us in the 2nd leg.

And to top it all, after the long journey home and 3 hours kip, I awoke to hear some Liverpool Muppet on the radio claiming the Arsenal Whinger should shut up because Liverpool had scored a fourth and they would have therefore won anyway even without the penalty. Of course they would, at 2-2 and in injury time Arsenal would have had all of their players in the opposition half wouldn’t they!!!!

And a final word on Liverpool and the famous European nights at Anfield – this will go down as one of them as the game was of the highest quality, great entertainment and went one way and then the other. You do have to wonder though how many ‘get out of jail free’ cards that Liverpool have in this competition. And as for the famous atmosphere, don’t get me wrong, when they make a noise, they can make a noise, but you can also get long periods of silence that would do the ‘Highbury Library’ proud. As for some suggestions that you won’t get a more intimidating atmosphere in Europe, I suggest that you should look at this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2qFFv8SZtU&feature=related

Sadly I’ll miss the trip to Man Ure as I’m flying to Barca on Sunday, so until the next time……

Slip