Liverpool Brush Poor PSV Aside

Now I’m going to admit here that I perhaps don’t know as much about Dutch football and the Dutch Eredivisie [League] as I probably should. So perhaps someone could confirm this for me? Did Liverpool actually play the PSV Reserve Team by mistake last night?

Well ok, obviously they didn’t but if you saw the game you could have been mistaken for thinking that they did. This must rank as one of the most one-sided European ties I have witnessed, never mind a Champions League Quarter Final! It looked like men against boys for the vast majority of the game, particularly after Steven Gerrard scored the first goal, and I sat there wondering how the hell did Arsenal not beat PSV in the last round? I would imagine that there was a lot of head shaking and gnashing of teeth in North London, particularly in the Wenger household.

I remember Arsene Wenger stating before that tie that he craved an away goal in the first leg at PSV. He didn’t get one and it cost Arsenal the tie. Well, I have to say, scoring an away goal at PSV looked a pretty simple task last night, Liverpool scored three of them and to be honest, could have scored more. At 3 - 0 to Liverpool after the away leg with Anfield to follow, you feel as though PSV might as well send their Reserve Team to Anfield, I don’t think it’s going to make too much difference to the ultimate outcome of this tie. If PSV were to turn this around, it would be more surprising than Liverpool’s come-back and victory in Istanbul against AC Milan and that’s probably recognised, quite rightly, as perhaps the best and most unlikely come-back in football history.

Even Ronald Koeman accepts that PSV have basically no chance of progressing, he stated, “If I told my squad to believe they can still advance, then I don’t belong on this planet. This result hurts and gives us no opportunity to do anything next week in Liverpool.

“It was clear that Liverpool were too strong for us. It is not realistic to think that we can win the tie now.

“We played with the same tactics against Arsenal to beat them in the last round.

“But we have injuries now, we are missing a few important players, and you could see that we did not have the quality to match Liverpool.

“We have had a great season reaching the Champions League quarter-finals but the absence of some quality players on our side made the difference too big - and we were not good enough.”

Anyway, having swept Arsenal aside with almost contempt last Saturday and now this demolition of PSV, you wonder whether Liverpool are just starting to peak at the right time. The Champions League is their only chance of silverware this season and you get the feeling that they mean to retain the Trophy for their new owners, who must be loving the ride at the moment. Ok, PSV was a good draw for Liverpool, but as is so often said, you can only play and beat what’s in front of you. Well, they certainly did that and the rest of the remaining teams will have taken note of last night’s result and performance, particularly Valencia and Chelsea, Liverpool’s potential Semi-Final opponents.

The only downside for Liverpool last night was a freak injury to their defender Fabio Aurelio who suffered a suspected rupture of an Achilles tendon whilst simply trying to control the ball with not another player within 5 yards of him. He will have a scan to determine the extent of the damage. But Liverpool’s manager, Rafael Benítez, fears Aurelio faces a lengthy lay-off. Benítez said,

“It was a terrible injury. We believe it is very serious, although we will not be sure until his scan.”

One other incident of slight note was the booking late on of Dirk Kuyt. He got himself booked for not retreating 10 yards from a free kick. He blatantly stood in front of the ball almost waiting to be booked and I sat there thinking,

“Hold on a minute! The tie is effectively over, Kuyt is already on a booking from a previous game and therefore only one away from a suspension. He’s just got himself booked so he doesn’t potentially pick up a booking in the second leg and miss the first leg of the semi-final!”

I mean which game would you rather play in? I don’t know, perhaps I read too many conspiracy theories but it was a very strange booking and moments later he was laughing and joking with Gerrard. Hardly too distraught about the booking and suspension then!

What do you think?

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Many thanks
Rik