FA PREMIER LEAGUE:Fulham 3 Liverpool 1: AS EXCRUCIATING moments go, those that Liverpool had to endure after Clint Dempsey had tapped in Fulham's clinching goal on 87 minutes were down there with the worst.
The nicest home fans in the Premier League bellowed “Ole” as their players showboated in possession; they cried “Easy, Easy” and they revelled in the light-hearted demand for a fourth goal.
Emboldened by a performance that had got better and better and by a Liverpool team who had been reduced to nine men by two controversial sendings-off, they issued a further playful request, that they could play such opposition every week.
One of the doomsday scenarios confronting Liverpool is that they could yet return to this stadium later in the season. It would be in the Europa League. This was no way for Rafael Benitez’s team to prepare for the crucial Champions League Group E tie away to Lyon on Wednesday. Defeat would almost certainly see them finish in third place and drop them into the Europa League.
After their fifth defeat of the Premier League season, what chance now of Liverpool winning their first championship since 1990? The club’s lengthy injury list added extra beads of sweat to Benitez’s brow but not for the first time there were also question marks over the depth of Liverpool’s quality.
The two-man-team accusation is glib but, without Steven Gerrard and with Fernando Torres lacking full fitness and playing only 63 minutes, Liverpool failed to ally movement and penetration to possession. They hogged 74 per cent of the ball in the first half and chiselled out four half-chances, the last of which Torres took clinically. Yossi Benayoun rattled another against the crossbar.
In the second half, though, they created nothing. “The league will be difficult but you can see that all the teams can lose and can lose points,” said Benitez. “We have to approach every game thinking about how to win. First it is Lyon. My future is against Lyon. After, we have to think about Birmingham [next Monday] and we have to win against Birmingham.”
It was difficult to disagree with Benitez’s assertion that Liverpool had “controlled” the first half. Bobby Zamora’s opening goal came wildly against the run of play. Equally Fulham were not pulled apart and in the second half they turned the tide.
“Liverpool weren’t scaring the life out of us,” said the substitute Erik Nevland, who scored Fulham’s second goal with a deft back-heel. “We basically had the game under control. It didn’t feel like you were on the edge of your seat. It is hard for me to analyse Liverpool’s performance but you probably would expect a bit more.”
Fulham had already sensed Liverpool’s weakness when Dirk Kuyt was caught out by Paul Konchesky – “a massive mistake,” said Benitez – and the full-back’s cross was headed back by Zoltan Gera for Nevland.
Liverpool’s dismissals followed shortly afterwards. Philipp Degen’s lunging challenge on Dempsey appeared to warrant yellow rather than red while Jamie Carragher, who specialises in perilous last-ditch tackles, was adjudged to have got one wrong after he let Zamora get goalside of him for the second time. On the first occasion he had narrowly avoided the concession of a penalty. Carragher did nick the ball on the challenge that led to his red card but he had also pulled Zamora back. The stand-in captain was a case study in desolation as he was forced to walk almost the length of the touchline to the tunnel in the corner of the ground.
“These are tough times and it hurts, it is hurting a lot,” said Carragher who, like Degen, hopes to have his dismissal overturned on appeal. “We made up for a few things by beating Manchester United and now we’ve lost to Arsenal in the Carling Cup and to Fulham.
“We have got to sort this out because Lyon is another massive game. We can’t afford to be too downhearted. This is un-Liverpool like but it’s not just the fans who are disappointed, it is the players, staff and management. ”
- Guardian Service
