Sunderland 1 Liverpool 0: A HARSH and unforgiving searchlight will be trained full beam on Liverpool this week. It is no exaggeration to say the way in which Rafael Benitez' stuttering side respond to its unflattering glare could make or break several careers at Anfield.
With Lyon and then Manchester United preparing to visit Merseyside, Jamie Carragher accepts the next few days may prove a watershed.
“I am sure there will be a lot of stick flying around before the Lyon game,” acknowledged the defender after seeing his team’s title hopes left in tatters by a rogue beach ball. “We are not playing well, the supporters know that and we have given ourselves a mountain to climb.
“There is a long way to go yet but we are seven points behind Manchester United and, if we continue losing, it will be the end. Next week is going to be massive.”
Darren Bent’s early winner for Sunderland, scored courtesy of a hefty deflection off a stray, extremely bouncy, red inflatable bearing the Liverpool crest, should never have stood and seemed emblematic of the visitors’ current fortunes.
Carragher though is not a man given to excuses and, when it came to solving the mystery of his side’s vanishing title hopes, he creditably dismissed Mike Jones’s failure to disallow the goal and order a drop ball as a red herring.
Well aware that, at this rate, Liverpool will struggle to make the top four, let alone win the league, the centrehalf identified some less dramatic, but infinitely more damning reasons for their defeat.
Clues as to why Liverpool are malfunctioning – Benitez’ men have suffered three straight defeats and lost four league games this season – were strewn across the Stadium of Light pitch. Several were to be found in central midfield, where Steve Bruce’s men dictated matters and visiting fans were again reminded how much Xabi Alonso’s departure for Real
Madrid has diminished their side’s capacity to control the tempo of games.
Admittedly even Alonso’s composure might have been ruffled by Lorik Cana and Lee Cattermole’s carefully calibrated aggression but, even though this was an afternoon when Sunderland suggested they are now a force to be reckoned with, Carragher sees some truth in the argument that Liverpool have become overly dependent on two individuals.
Deprived by injury of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard here they failed to seriously threaten Craig Gordon until injury-time when Sunderland’s goalkeeper brilliantly parried Dirk Kuyt’s low shot before blocking David N’Gog’s follow up.
Significantly Pepe Reina and Glen Johnson were the only visiting players to enjoy anything like decent afternoons.
Benitez attempted to compensate for not only the absence of his talismen but the need to start a tired Javier Mascherano on the bench following the midfielder’s late return from international duty for Argentina with a 3-4-2-1 system.
Presumably intended to protect the relatively lightweight central midfield pairing of Lucas and the Premier League debutant Jay Spearing, this configuration instead served only to baffle its components.
Sunderland’s high intensity pressing frequently fazed Liverpool.
So much so that Carragher and company were unable to take advantage of re-shuffles forced on Bruce when first George McCartney became unwell at half-time and when the hugely influential Cattermole and Kenwyne Jones were stretchered off with knee and ankle injuries respectively.
Might the much lamented Alonso have made a difference? “We won a lot of games last year without Alonso,” replied a commendably calm and dignified Benitez.
“People should start taking Sunderland seriously,” said Carragher.
“They have some great players. I’m sure they’ll challenge for Europe.”
On this evidence Liverpool could find themselves facing Bruce’s side in next season’s Europa League.
Guardian service
No replay
The Premier League yesterday ruled out a replay of the match, despite the glaring error from the referee who gave a goal which should have been disallowed.
Referee Mike Jones allowed Darren Bent's fifth-minute strike to stand, despite his shot taking a heavy deflection off a beach ball to go past Pepe Reina. Under law five of the game the stray inflatable, hurled on to the pitch by a Liverpool supporter, should have been considered an outside agent and play restarted with a drop ball.
"We won't be asking for them to play it again," confirmed a Premier League spokesman yesterday, ignoring a rare precedent by Fifa for such a dramatic rerun in the case of an official's clear error. Four years ago they ordered a replay of a World Cup play-off between Uzbekistan and Bahrain after ruling the referee made a mistake in the first leg.
