Liverpool 4 Spurs 0 - Sterling sparkles as Liverpool return to the top

Blog by dedlfc

With the start of British summer time in the early hours of Sunday morning, Crystal Palace beating Chelsea and City only drawing with Arsenal, it was now a test of our title credentials, whether we would spring forward and Spurs fall back?

The Spurs side always defend with a high line and so it was imperative that Sterling got a run out as last time out he tortured Kyle Naughton.  Replacing Joe Allen - who performed well over the previous four league wins, but does not have the incisive cutting edge in his game like young Sterling.

The game was most certainly won in the second minute, when Younes Kaboul managed to turn a Glenn Johnson cross into his own net with Daniel Sturridge the intended recipient actually ahead of the ball.

We are a team on fire at present, having won our last seven league games and scored a hatful of goals in the process and the perfect fast start ensured Spurs looked like frightened rabbits, whilst we threatened to score with every move forward.

Danny Rose was suffering badly on the left flank, under attack from the clever movement and passing of both Sterling and Johnson, and probably not supported as well as might be hoped by Christian Eriksen, who was on the left of the Spurs midfield and had spoken negatively about Suarez prior to the game.

There had been a number of scares and perhaps Eriksen had got into a decent attacking position once for Spurs, but after 10 minutes, Coutinho picked out Suarez on the left side, and his intended cross just went over Sturridge’s head in front of goal. With Spurs's Bentaleb and Rose failing to prevent another Sterling advance, he passed to Suarez, this time on the right, feeding Coutinho for a volley that passed just wide of the post.

Eriksen cut in from the left with a decent run, and tried to feed the ball to Soldado, but the move was read well by the surprisingly strong Liverpool defence.

Vertonghen over-stretched at the back chasing back a ball which he felt he had to put out for a corner, and he never recovered from the injury.

Sigurdsson was penalised on the edge of the area for handball by Phil Dowd. There were several such dangerous free kicks given to us, Suarez took the free-kick and it went just over the target. 
Spurs only had 10 men on the pitch, because Vertonghen had gone down again, and had to be replaced by Michael Dawson.

Due to brilliant anticipation by Suarez who capitalised on poor play by Dawson who with almost the first touch played an over strengthened pass slightly behind Kaboul, allowing Suarez to pounce and carry the ball into the clear and goalward with only Lloris to beat. The Uruguayan sourceror did not fail, scoring with a shot across the keeper taking him to 29 league goals beating the 19 year Premiership record of 28 league goals by Robbie Fowler.

Suarez wheels away after putting Liverpool two up

Eriksen actually had a shot on goal after 26 minutes, which was expertly blocked by Skrtel, before Sigurdsson hit a shot, which was deflected and picked up by Mignolet.

Kaboul was booked for a foul on Sturridge on the edge of the box. It was Sturridge’s turn to take the kick, but he too fired the ball over.

Bentaleb had a shot for Spurs, and our keeper Mignolet had to stretch to his right to save. Eriksen was the player most likely to create something for Spurs, but was thwarted at every turn.

Mignolet had to make a very good save from a Soldado shot, diving to his left and punching clear.
Kaboul failed to deal with Raheem Sterling, who crossed to the back post, where Suarez headed powerfully goalward. Lloris got enough of a touch to force the ball onto the underside of the bar, but somehow the ball stayed out of goal, bouncing out before being cleared.

Just before the break, Naughton was penalised on the edge of the box, and this time Suarez took a turn at a free kick, which went over the far post.

Henderson blazed over the target in front of The Kop from a wonderful lay off by Sterling following a brilliant one-two with Sturridge, before we scored our third goal which epitimised all the philosophy that Rodgers has been trying so hard to drum into our players with the ball starting at the back and eventually finding its way out to left back Flanagan.  The youngster dummied and cut inside picking out Coutinho with a good ball. Coutinho was sharp and accurate with his shooting for a change beating Lloris low to his right with a right footed drive from 20 yards.

More defensive frailty by Tottenham gave Sturridge a chance, but his audacious back-heel attempt was save instinctively by Lloris. The agony, at least as far as the scoreline was concerned was complete, when Jordan Henderson hit a free kick through a crowd of legs in the Spurs area, which made it all the way into the net to make up for his earlier miss.

Dare to Dream...

Spurs had actually managed their first corner around this time, after a Chadli shot was blocked, and from the corner Dawson hit a shot over the bar. Spurs finished the game with 10 men as Soldado was carried off, having gone down twice with injuries.

Our fans again starting singing the wonderful songs "We're gonna win the league" and "Poetry in Motion" ecstatic at going top of the Premier League and in control of our own destiny with Chelsea and Man City among our remaining visitors.

The roar from the Anfield faithful at the end of the game showed again that our fans are beginning to believe the ultimate dream may be possible.

Positives
Four more goals, a clean sheet and returning to the top of the table with just six games to go. The result was not a surprise, even the scoreline would not have surprised many. 
Some would say the game was lost by Spurs before the teams left the tunnel because of their laid-back nature, perhaps even with a team selection that included no defensive midfielder for Spurs with Sandro staying on the bench throughout proceedings but we did the job in a professional and clinical manner and deserve all the credit for the win.

Negatives
I do not see any negatives to going top of the table and winning at this point.

Man of the match: Sterling - he has been unlucky to miss out on starting in the recent games but has not complained and just worked hard for the team and today showed all the intelligence and movement of an outstanding young talent at the top of his game and will only get better.

Teams:
Liverpool (4-3-3):- Mignolet; Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Flanagan; Henderson, Gerrard (Capt.) (sub Lucas, 70), Coutinho (sub Allen, 64); Sterling (sub Moses, 83), Sturridge, Suarez

Subs not used: Jones; Iago Aspas, Sakho, Cissokho

No bookings
Spurs (4-2-3-1): Lloris’ Naughton, Kaboul (Capt.), Vertonghen (sub Dawson, 24), Rose; Sigurdsson, Bentaleb (sub Dembele, 60); Lennon (sub Townsend, 60), Chadli, Eriksen; Soldado

Subs not used: Friedel; Sandro, Winks; Kane

Booked: Kaboul (foul on Sturridge), Sigurdsson (foul on Coutinho)

Attendance: 44,762

Referee: Phil Dowd

Liverpool 2 Sunderland 1 - Vital nervy win vs Black Cats

Blog by dedlfc

With the home fans turning up in their droves to Anfield for our first home game since Swansea over a month ago, on the surface, Sunderland, who had not won at Anfield since October 1983, seemed a very straightforward home win. 

And yet they having taken more points from teams in the top half of the table than the bottom half and earned more points away than at home, we could not afford to take this game lightly.

We took the attack to Sunderland from the opening kick-off, but the 3-5-2 formation that the Black Cats employed against the Reds did its job in the opening half an hour.

Forced into multiple shots from distance we looked confident in possession, without penetration, as Sunderland fought hard to try and avoid allowing us an early goal that typically would have sent us on our way to a high explosive offensive frenzy.

However, being forced to wait till the 39th minute for our captain marvel Steven Gerrard to net the opener from a stunning free kick after a rehearsed move finally gave the home crowd and the LFC fans watching from the many pubs and homes around the country a goal to cheer.

Gerrard and Suarez horse around after the captain's opener

We were in the driver's seat as we headed into the second half and picked up right where we left off when we began our attack of the Kop end at the start of the second-half.

Daniel Sturridge scored another impressive goal for his 20th of the campaign to see the Reds become only the third team in Premier League history to have two players score 20 or more goals in a season and first time in 50 years that two Liverpool players had managed the feat.

Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho both pressed to get on the score sheet, but despite both of them having great nights in terms of work rate and creativity, their final touches seemed to be off all night with Suarez in particular being overly profligate.

With a two goal mountain to climb, Sunderland manager Gus Poyet knew he had to change the system and subbed in Adam Johnson, who surprisingly did not start and Swansea loan signing Ki Sung-Yueng.

Almost immediately having moved to a flat back four the Black Cats started to impose themselves on the game and both Johnson and Ki are to thank for the rousing lift they instilled into the relegation threatened side's form.

Only a few minutes after his entrance, the highly impressive Ki was almost through on goal, a warner which we failed to learn from and as the game progressed into the last 15 minutes Sunderland were starting to make themselves appear a threat and breakthrough they finally did.

Daniel Sturridge celebrates his 20th League goal of the season

Lee Cattermole blasted a shot onto the bar in clear defiance of the belief that Liverpool would be easy winners and shortly after Sunderland heightened nerves all around Anfield.

A swinging corner from the right hand side from Adam Johnson, was woefully defended by Skrtel and Agger which caught our young Liverpool stand-in left back Jon Flanagan ball watching and allowed Ki to have a free header at the far post to bring the visitors back into a game we should have been home and hosed in.

The next five minutes saw Sunderland throwing everything they had against the home side and into the last ten minutes they earned a free kick on the edge of the box thanks to a clumsy tackle by Glen Johnson. 

Again a free header was on the table, but ex-Man United stalwart John O'Shea failed to connect cleanly and Sunderland's chances of potentially stealing a late point were dashed.

Suarez continued to battle and fight for a chance to score his goal on the night since both Gerrard and Sturridge had theirs, but while his dazzling footwork was on continued display he failed to work his usual magic in front of goal in his well-publicised knitted boots.

We resorted to holding the ball near the corner flag tactic, for the last three minutes of stoppage time and managed to close the night off with a tough result.  It was a result none the less as we moved to within a point of Chelsea on 68 points after 31 matches played.

We now look to Tottenham coming to Anfield at the weekend and we will need to have a more impressive performance on Sunday if we are to claim an eighth win in eight games.

Man of the match - Steven Gerrard - Our captain again led by example and his personal drive to finally bring the title home is amazing at the moment and it was also very impressive that the discipline of our captain in this game meant that he went the whole game without a yellow card.

Positives: The result was only thing that mattered to maintain the pressure and momentum after six wins in a row - making it seven was seventh heaven!!!

Coutinho's silky skills shone at parts throughout the second half but he continues to not get any goals to support his excellent artistry.

Despite conceding a goal with fifteen minutes left we showed the determination to fight to stay in the title race by hanging on for the victory.

Negatives: Conceding, yet another sloppy goal meant we had to endure a nervy last fifteen minutes of the game when we should have made an additional move by bringing on a further midfielder to control the rest of the game.

Suarez again showing his wasteful side by not playing in other team members who are in a better position - it didn't cost us anything but we need to work even more as a team and not just for individual personal gain.

Liverpool: Mignolet, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Flanagan, Gerrard, Henderson, Allen, Coutinho, Sturridge (Sterling 77), Suarez.

Subs not used: Brad Jones, Aspas, Moses, Sakho, Cissokho, Lucas.

Goals: Gerrard 39, Sturridge 48.

Sunderland: Mannone, Brown, O'Shea, Vergini, Bardsley, Cattermole, Bridcutt, Dossena (Colback 83), Giaccherini (Johnson 61), Altidore, Wickham (Ki 61,).

Subs not used: Larsson, Roberge, Scocco, Ustari.

Goals: Ki 76

Booked: Vergini, Bardsley.

Attendance: 44, 524.

Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire)