Villa settled in to Anfield and made it home. Yes, for 90 minutes plus injury time, Liverpool controlled the entire game from 30 to 30 yds, but inside those 30 yds Paul Lambert’s young lions gave Paul Rodgers a lesson in clinical finishing and defending they’ll not soon forget.
Pool pranced around the Villa area looking so dangerous, but as soon as they got into the area they carried the threat of a 2 year old. Until the 67th minute every shot was either well wide or straight at Guzan. Even the 87th minute goal was going to be taken comfortably by Guzan until Gerrard popped up and flicked a head onto the shot.
While Herd, Clarke and Baker marshaled the forwards with relative ease, the Liverpool defenders had no such luck with Villa’s forwards. Villa’s only real chance had been a decent free kick from Bannan that Benteke headed and Reiner gathered without problem, but in the 29th minute Villa struck the first blow.
BENTEKE received the ball after a series of nice passes around him with the Reds defenders standing off them. The Belgian international controlled, looked up and struck a sweet shot that caught the inside of the post and bounced in.
Liverpool predictably came at Villa with guns blazing, the shot had stung them. The goodwill generated from the home fans for their generous enthusiastic applause for Stilliyan in the 19th minute was gone and they booed the ref the Villa players for every innocuous incident. Finally the noisy travelling Villa fans chanted ‘Where’s your famous Anfield wit?’
In the 40th minute Villa doubled down with a truly superb goal. Bannan showed quick feet getting control of the ball with lovely touches, before finding the industrious WEIMANN , who held the ball outside the area looking for Benteke’s run, the young striker didn’t disappoint and took the ball in his stride, but away from being able to shoot, instead he hit a back heel with such precise back spin that the Austrian striker could do nothing but score with his low strike.
In between the two goals a terrible error in the Liverpool back four let Weimann in, but his shot went just over the bar.
Liverpool came after Villa in the second half, but again the defence stood up to it, just as the Scousers had found their voice, the Villans shut them up again. Holman dispossessed a defender, Benteke was sent on his way, as he ambled into the box the poor defence stood off the striker as the book says he was supposed to feed the overlapping Holman on the left. However, BENTEKE doesn’t go by the book as defenders are learning to their peril and he brushed off their soft late challenges and stroked the ball home like it was nothing.
I have to feel for Brendan Rodgers, but I wonder how much pressure has he brought on to himself. While Lambert came in with new players nobody has heard of, dropping the bigger names from the team and changing the style of play, with the exception of Joe Allen this looks like the same bunch of players that got Dalglish fired and there is nothing Swansea like about this lot. In the series about Liverpool that aired earlier this season called Being Liverpool, a lot was made about the side’s lack of firepower; that was certainly in evidence today.
Meanwhile, if Suarez ever needs a career away from playing, he makes an extraordinarily good ballboy. I was just waiting for Guzan to pat him on his head and give him his autograph.
For Villa that’s 7 goals in one week and both away. Going into the game Villa had the worst goal total away from home in all four divisions. Not out of the woods by any means, but we were facing a 3 game run without a single point and we already have 3.