Liverpool 0 - 0 Blackburn
Cards -
Gerrard booked first half
Flitcroft booked
Substitutions -
Smicer replaced by Riise at half time.
Ex-red Matteo on for Johanson (Blackburn) 60 minutes
Nunez on for Baros 69 minutes.
Jon Stead replaced by Gallagher (Blackburn) 75 minutes.
Biscan replaced Warnock - 80 minutes.
Liverpool team to face Blackburn Rovers this evening.
Dudek
Finnan, Carragher, Pellegrino, Warnock
Luis Garcia, Gerrard, Hamann, Smicer
Morientes, Baros
Subs: Hyypia, Riise, Nunez, Carson, Biscan
So Hyypia drops to the bench (due to injury), Riise also on the bench (has played most games for Liverpool this season).
Looking for a chance to make a bit of money tonight? Think you can predict the score? Name the first scorer? Just want to add a bit of excitement to the match, in case it’s a dull game? You can now bet "in-running" on football games, so if the game seems to start differently to what you’d expected you can bet for what you think will now happen!
Tonight’s game - at the time of writing (17:45 on Wednesday March 16th) you could get odds of 10 to 1 on Steven Gerrard being tonight’s first scorer on the Bet Fair site, or 13 to 2 on the William Hill site.
[Read more →]
The big game with the big names at Anfield in aid of the Tsunami Relief
fund is going to be televised by Sky Television. If you can’t get to
the game, why not buy a t-shirt to support the cause? Available from
the official LFC store, all proceeds go to the fund.
For the latest information on the match go to the official Tsunami Soccer Aid website.
Rafael Benitez spoke today of the importance of tonight’s game at
Anfield - but stopped short of saying it’s an all-or-nothing game.
Victory over Blackburn at Anfield would move Liverpool closer to
fourth-placed Everton prior to Sunday’s derby clash - but defeat
wouldn’t end Liverpool chances. Said Benitez: "If we win, we will
narrow the gap. If we don’t win, it will be difficult. But I always say
the same, we will keep on fighting to the end. I joked that Christmas
was supposed to be an important time for us, then the month after that.
But we know if we win these two games we will be very, very close to
Everton. We would have more possibilities and it would be easier for me
to motivate the players. The players know how important this week will
be, but I don’t want to talk too much about the two games because the
first thing is to win the first game."
Liverpool FC have announced that tickets for tonight’s game at home to
Blackburn will be available on the turnstiles for the Main Stand and
Anfield Road areas of the ground.
There are 3,000 tickets remaining for the match and these will be sold on a first come first served basis.
Liverpool’s season is hitting a decisive and important phase in the
next few days. After all the excitement of the victory in Europe
followed by the rest brought on at the weekend due to being out of the
FA Cup, Liverpool now have two league games that if won would see the
gap between themselves and Everton closed to just two points. And of
course on Friday the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals takes
place, where Liverpool wait to see who they will face - and that draw
also includes Chelsea.
Since being bought as an overgrown Subbuteo set by a Russian with more
money than ever seen before in English football, it seems Chelsea have
been trying to use whatever tactics they can - on and off the pitch -
to ensure the Russian owner gets what he wants. There has been
extremely vociferous and public criticism of referees - one of whom
retired from football earlier this week after receiving death threats
in the wake of criticism from Chelsea. Mourhinho was sent off in the
Carling Cup final for his gestures to Liverpool fans. Sorry, he said
afterwards that it was a gesture to the press, even though he was
facing and looking at the Liverpool fans whilst making this gesture.
Peter Kenyon moved from Old Trafford to Stamford Bridge and is now
reported as having made many illegal approaches for players. It’s well
documented that Steven Gerrard was supposed to be on the verge of a
move in the summer - and of course if Liverpool hadn’t accepted a bid
from Chelsea, how could Steven Gerrard be aware of any interest? More
and more comments have been made linking Gerrard to Chelsea - to the
point where Rick Parry forced a newspaper to remove a story or face
heavy legal action.
The latest twist is that in the case that accuses Chelsea of making
another illegal approach - this time to Arsenal’s Ashley Cole - Steven
Gerrard’s name has once again being brought into the headlines as being
on his way to Chelsea. This time the story goes that one of the things
allegedly said to Ashley Cole in a bid to entice him was that Steven
Gerrard was already signed up for next season.
This season has seen Liverpool players suffer injury after injury, the
most memorable being the serious fracture to Djbril Cisee’s leg earlier
in the season. Chris Kirkland has missed most of the season, Harry
Kewell has struggled, Steven Gerrard broke a bone in his foot - the
list is long.
Another player injured is Xabi Alonso. A tackle from Frank Lampard
caused a broken ankle for Alsonso in the match on New Years’ Day.
Lampard protested his innocence that day, disputing his yellow card,
despite the replays showing that he may have been lucky to get away
with the yellow card. Meanwhile Alonso tried to play on, eventually
having to concede the pain was too great.
Alsonso was making a name for himself at the time, a player that did a
lot to help Liverpool through their time without Gerrard, and a player
who seemed to have the right combination of skill, intelligence and
motivation. It was a big blow when he got the injury, and the prognosis
at the time was that was the end of his season.
This looks set to change though - Rafael Benitez says that the
23-year-old could actually be playing again in time for the second-leg
of the Champions League quarter-final. Says Benitez: "If everything
continues OK, I hope Xabi will be in full training by the last week of
March. He will be like a new, very important player for us. Maybe Xabi
will be available for the second game of the quarter-final which will
be on 12 or 13 April."
Alonso was signed from Real Sociedad in the summer for £10.5m, and
would give Liverpool a major boost in their push for a place in the
Champions Leagues semis and in trying to close the gap on Everton for
fourth place. Benitez is hopeful this will happen: "He is improving a
lot. If he’s back training with the rest of the squad by the end of the
month, like we hope, he has a good chance."
Liverpool have become experts at running hot and cold in recent years.
A look back at just about any season since the end of Kenny Dalglish’s
time as manager shows many highs and lows. Victory at Manchester
United, with some style, would warm the heart when watching the review
of a season. Then there’d be coverage of a defeat to Bradford City,
already relegated. Pick any top-four team from a season, pick any
bottom-four team from a season. Look at how they did against Liverpool
that season. More often than not it victory against the team that
should have been harder to beat. And defeat against a team that in
reality should have been hammered.
Harry Kewell needs to rest when injured and be brought back to playing
more gradually. His repeated injury problems are down to Liverpool
rushing him back too soon. So says Dutch Physio Andre van Alphen, who
numbers amongst his clients some of the world’s top athletes. van
Aplhen says Kewell is risking his career and needs three months off.
The physio sent a report to
Liverpool and also the Australian FA with recommendations for Kewell’s recovry.
van Alphen accompanied Kewell - at Kewell’s expense - on a visit to
Australia lastautumn in an attempt to help Kewell get fit for the match
against Solomon Islnads in the Confederation Nations Cup
play-offs. The physio believed that Kewell was only 90% fit after he
worked with him for a week, but the pressure of the Premier League in
England set him back again.
Recommending that Kewell ends his season now, van Alphen said: "My opinion is for a good conventional treatment period so the
body gets time to heal and recuperate. This will take about three months to full fitness. It is
impossible to recover while playing football."
Although Liverpool pay his wages, the Australian coach (Frank
Farina) thinks that Liverpool aren’t looking after their asset. He
says: "I saw his comeback game
after seven or eight weeks out and he did quite well but it wasn’t
the Harry of old.He is very frustrated that he can’t perform at his best. What
happens next is a decision for the club to make, the medical staff
and Harry himself."
No comment so far from Anfield.
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