Torres Completes Comeback!

Portsmouth 2 Liverpool 3
Nugent 61, Hreidarsson 77 - Aurelio 69, Kuyt 84, Torres 90

Once again, Rafa Benitez has proved that he can be one of the boldest manager in the league, seeing his line-up against Portsmouth last night. With 6 defenders in the line-up, putting young French Ngog as the lone striker upfront, I really was wondering how on earth can he win the game with this first 11.

Surprisingly, we started pretty well with passing and plenty share of possession. However, Ryan Babel and David Ngog doesn't seemed to be able to penetrate into the Tony Adams' defence and hence, we failed to score in the opening 45 minutes.

Rafa was spot on in his substitutions, bringing in Dirk Kuyt for the ineffective Ngog. You could see his inexperience in the game. Kuyt was fresh and the spark of our comeback in the game.



Fabio Aurelio's indirect freekick was very well-executed which got us the equalising goal. A left footed drive after David James handled the ball from a Peter Crouch back pass causing the indirect freekick. We made a mistake and conceded the lead to the home side.

Alonso came in, so was Torres. These players came in and made an impact in the game. Portsmouth was tiring while the likes of Benayoun, Kuyt, Mascherano were all fighting for every ball on the pitch. Kuyt scored late on with an almost impossible shot passed David James. I simply do not know how he managed to squeeze the ball in.



In the 90th minute, who else? Fernando Torres headed in the winner which gave us the massive 3 points. With time ticking off, good play by Benayoun and Mascherano on the left, Torres finished it off with his 1st chance at goal. A comeback again!

Credit to the team, they kept believing and fought throughout. They shown character and you could see that every game is so important for this long title race. I do not care how Rafa changes, or who he plays, as long as we have the 3 points, the rest we can talk later.

You'll Never Walk Alone..

Reds Romped Past Pompey

Liverpool 4 Portsmouth 1
Benayoun 13, Distin og 16, Torres 67, 85 - Benjani 57

A much needed win for the home side as Liverpool has lost the last 3 games recently. 2 losses in the league against Reading and Manchester United and the midweek Carling Cup defeat against Chelsea. A home game against Portsmouth, who is not far away from us on the table, proved to be very crucial for the morale of the team. Many would have predicted a tough game for the Reds, however, Rafa's men proved to Harry Redknapp's team that coming to Anfield is never easy.

Somehow, the telecast in Singapore had some problems. I managed to watch the first minute of the first half and the screen went blank since. I was pissed by the disability of showing the match. Nevertheless, I surfed soccernet to know the latest scores of the match.



Yossi Benayoun was first to break the deadlock. A pretty cross from the left by Harry Kewell was volleyed into the goal. The Israeli scored his 6th goal for Liverpool and most importantly, he gave Liverpool the lead.

3 minutes later, Torres was working towards goal with Sol Campbell on his back. Campbell was having a hard time containing him and his tackle was unluckily deflected off fellow defender Sylvain Distin's legs and into the goal. Tough luck on Portsmouth but from a Liverpool fan's point of view, we wouldn't mind that. :)



2-0 at half time and at that moment, the telecast was not back yet. I do not know what went wrong with the satellite?

The match was back on television in the second half. I do not know why again, once the telecast is back, Liverpool do not seems to be the team having a 2 goal lead. Portsmouth, with the introduction of ex Arsenal striker, Kanu, was controlling the pace of the game and they did got one back. Kanu's great ball from the left to the right picks out Benjani who didn't blink an eye shooting past Pepe Reina.

Credit to Liverpool, they didn't panicked even the Pompeys got one goal back. We managed to get control of the game and soon after, we were able to get the third. A nice through ball from Mascherano to Ryan Babel, whose pace caused havoc in the penalty area. The ball were rebounded off David James for Fernando Torres to score into the empty goal. He made it look so simple.



He added another in the 85th minute to make it impossible for Portsmouth to get any points from the game. A Gerrard's assist header was volleyed into the Kop-End and Fernando increased his goal tally.

A 4-1 win is considered a big margin and against a side which is considered the dark horse of the league, is not a bad result after all. Having said that, we have to look forward to the next match and work harder in bridging the gap from the top. It's still a long long way to go.

COME ON!

You'll Never Walk Alone..