SOCCER/ ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: A SPECTACULAR GOAL from a natural goalscorer gave Liverpool an important point in London yesterday, but Robbie Keane's future with the club remains opaque as the January transfer window draws near and Rafael Benitez grows restless.
Keane scored his goal, his third in 15 appearances in the Premier League since his €22 million transfer from Tottenham, with a tremendous flourish, racing between Johan Djourou and William Gallas to meet Daniel Agger's long volleyed clearance before burying a ferocious 18-yard half-volley in Manuel Almunia's net.
With just under 10 minutes of the match to go, however, he was withdrawn. Five clubs have paid a total of €62.4 million for the 28-year-old Dublin-born striker, who now holds the Republic of Ireland's scoring record with 35 goals. In his half-dozen seasons with Spurs, 80 goals in 158 league appearances persuaded Benitez to take him to Anfield. Yet last week, when Liverpool struggled to a 2-2 draw at home to Hull City, he remained on the bench. Yesterday he was replaced by Nabil El Zhar, a young forward who has yet to score a goal for the club.
Afterwards Adebayor accused Liverpool's Alvaro Arbeloa of acting "as if I put a knife in him", as he raged about his sending-off in Arsenal's 1-1 draw here in north London yesterday. Although video replays did little to support the Arsenal striker who, having already been booked, went over the top of the ball in the 62nd minute to clip Arbeloa on the shin and then also caught the Spanish full-back with his flailing arm, Abebayor felt that his opponent had gone down too dramatically.
The dismissal came hard on the heels of another setback for the club, Cesc Fabregas having been forced off at half-time with medial knee-ligament damage. The captain left the stadium on crutches and he faces an anxious wait to see whether Arsene Wenger's speculative prognosis of an absence of "one week or three weeks" proves correct.
"I hope when the referee gets home and watches it on TV he will see it was a foul but that I didn't deserve a [second yellow] card," said Adebayor. "It was a mistake from him. He said it was for the leg [rather than the arm] but if I don't put my body in there I would never score a goal in this league. The defender threw himself on the floor as if I put a knife in him and of course I am annoyed. We are all here to play and, if we win or lose, you have to do it with 11 [men]. I cannot say he cheated but what he did was not fair play at all."
Wenger had raked over an old wound from last season in the build-up to the game when he accused the Liverpool forward Ryan Babel of diving to win the decisive penalty in last season's Champions League quarter-final second leg between the teams.
The Adebayor flashpoint raised the temperature of yesterday's match and had Wenger apoplectic on the touchline, where he clashed with the fourth official, Steve Tanner. The manager felt that Adebayor's first caution, which was for a similar offence, mistiming a challenge over the top of the ball and catching Emiliano Insua, was also unjust.
"The sending-off was very soft," he said. "We had the [charity day for the Teenage Cancer Trust] 'Be a Gooner, be a Giver'. You cannot say the referee was a Gooner; he was a giver because he gave us yellow cards we didn't deserve.
"It is just unbelievable. If he sends Adebayor off, then he has to send [Robbie] Keane off in the first minute or we have two different rules. It hasn't cost us the title but it cost us two points today. I don't agree with the referee's decision at all. Ask [Jamie] Carragher what happened. Ask Arbeloa. Carragher was next to him; ask them what Adebayor did to them. They know that he didn't touch [them]."
Wenger was asked whether he felt Arbeloa had made the most of the incident for Adebayor's second yellow card. "No, no, I have seen him after the game. He has a blue face everywhere," he replied sarcastically.
The sending-off energised the crowd and, curiously, brought the best out of Arsenal.
Although Liverpool had the chances to win the game, they grew more cautious against the 10 men. "We would have settled for the draw before the game," said Sammy Lee, the assistant manager, who had taken charge of the team in the absence of Rafael Benitez, who was recovering at home from an operation to remove kidney stones. "The lads are disappointed. Maybe we didn't make the best use of our numerical advantage. But great credit must be given to Arsenal and to our players. Rafa communicated through the game with us by mobile phone. His bill will be quite big. He was pleased with the boys. He realised what a good point it was. You have to be very careful you don't lose [against 10 men]."
"Had Liverpool not any more resources, I don't know," said Wenger, who remains "convinced" Liverpool will drop more points. "Were they scared to be caught on the break, it's difficult to know. One or two players had cramps. So were they tired or were they scared to push on because we had a few breaks where they could smell danger? After that, maybe they became a bit more cautious."
The English Football Association may investigate an apparent elbow from the Liverpool winger Albert Riera on Robin van Persie in first-half injury-time as players jostled on an Arsenal corner.
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