Oh dear what a depressing weekend that was, I missed the game through DIY commitments with my Wife insisting I finish the laminate flooring in the front room before I go and watch Albion lose to Liverpool, she comes from a family of Liverpool fans, need I say more?
Now laminate flooring is frustrating at the best of times but watching Birmingham earn a point against Chelsea followed by Portsmouth racing to a 3-1 victory at Fulham made it even more frustrating and there were pieces flying across my living room floor.
So by the time our game arrived we were level on points with Pompey and only two ahead of Blues with both teams having a game in hand on us. We needed to take at least a point from the game with Liverpool and considering our players were aware of the results they seemed to be effected by it first-half.
I continued with my flooring and put the game on feeling that a shock result could be on the cards. Impressed with the recent performances against some of the top sides in the league I was confident that we would give Liverpool a game.
On our first-half showing my confidence disappeared thanks to a woeful half of football. There is no doubting that Liverpool have been in form and have turned over teams who are better than us in recent weeks but we let them take control of the game.
Mistake after mistake in the first-half led to two Liverpool goals before half-time. Our defending was inadequate, simple passes from one player to another was nowhere to be seen and we were lucky to go in at half-time only two goals down.
Liverpool were running rings around us and knocked the ball around with pace and precision as we all sat in awe. Xabi Alonso was in fantastic form and involved in both Liverpool goals.
The first goal arriving in the seventh minute thanks to Robbie Fowler. Alonso fed Djibril Cisse down the Liverpool right with an inch perfect pass that Paul Robinson made a complete hash of intercepting, leaving Cisse a clear run towards the area where he squared the ball to Robbie Fowler who had the simplest task dispatching the ball past Tomasz Kuszczak in the Albion goal.
I was thinking the worst at this stage, the last two home games against Liverpool have seen us being handed a football lesson with the Reds running out with 6-0 and 5-0 victories.
We had too much respect for Liverpool and allowed them to play. Cisse has been poor all season but we allowed him to look like Thierry Henry against us. He had too much space to operate and hurt us with his direct running, Robbo had an absolute nightmare up against him and suffered against the pace of the Frenchman.
Diomansy Kamara had an opportunity for Albion but sent his shot straight at Liverpool keeper Jose Reina. He didn?t have much else to do in the first-half and was more or less a spectator as Albion had little to offer up front.
The second goal arrived seven minutes before the break when Alonso yet again found Cisse with a fantastic 60-yard through ball. The French striker raced clear of the Albion defence and rounded Kuszczak before slotting the ball into an empty net.
Half-time arrived with Albion on for another hiding at the hands of the third placed Liverpool. Baggies boss Bryan Robson had seen enough and replaced the ineffective Kamara with Zoltan Gera.
The introduction of Gera seemed to bring Albion to life with the Hungarian going close almost immediately after coming on. He sent a blistering shot just wide of Reina?s post and then had another effort that the keeper looked relieved to gather at the second attempt.
Cisse almost grabbed a third for Liverpool but Kuszczak thwarted him when he raced from his line to gather the ball from the strikers shot. Zoltan Gera had another effort for Albion not long after but the ball flashed wide.
The game ended meaning Albion have now taken one point from the last twenty-one points available since their last victory against Blackburn. Relegation form and with Pompey winning three games on the bounce we are going to struggle to stay up unless we start picking up points.
We have a winnable game at Villa next week with our close neighbours struggling for form and coming off the back of a five-goal thumping at Arsenal. Three points there and we could be back in business. I don?t think a point will be enough next week we need to go for all three.
With Zoltan Gera and Nigel Quashie available we should be back to full-strength for our run in and three points at Villa Park would give us a major boost.
Baggies number two on the performance
‘The way that we performed in the first half was very disappointing.
‘We knew what we had to do before the game after the other results but we just didn’t turn up. That’s unacceptable and the players know that.
‘We find ourselves in a difficult position but we are still confident we have got enough here and the spirit in the camp to get out of it.’
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