14th January 2012, Premier League
Liverpool 0 Stoke City 0
It was my first visit to anfield for almost 3 years, I flew out of Belfast the night before and stayed in the Devonshire hotel following a bit of grub in Jamie Carraghers bar. It was a quiet night back in the hotel as the lads I was with didnt really drink much at all, there was 3 of us split with 2 rooms, i got one on my own, the room was big but it was like an oven, eventually after fiddling with radiator nozzles I got it to cool down. The shower had some hot water which was always nice.
Unfortunately the following morning the shower was bitterly cold, maybe I had knocked the heat and hot water off, it eventually transpired the boiler in the hotel was knackered so it was either dont shower or tough it out in the cold water, the latter I chose. We were off early to Anfield several hours before kick off as the lads wanted to go on a stadium tour, I had only been on one a few months earlier but didnt want to spoil their fun. After a bacon and egg breakfast and a trip to the HJC shop across the road we had a look around the club shop and headed on the tour, the tour was however heavily restricted for a match day, the changing rooms were perhaps understandably out of bounds while tv crews like SKY and the BBC worked hard to get their man up and running for todays game.
We sat in the KOP and the benches for the usual photos as I noticed it was a bitterly cold 0 degrees. As we were flying back that night to pick up my car and drive 40 miles from Belfast international airport the pubs were out of bounds for us, the lads didnt really drink and I didnt think it would be fair to them to have to drive my car. We had several hours to kill before kick off, as we walked around the ground we got up to the gates at the back of the centenary stand. Sebastien Coates and Daniel Agger arrived and we saw them briefly albeit nowhere near them to talk.
We headed back into town still atleast 3-4 hours short of kick off and headed for Lloyds in the centre next to the central club shop in Williamson square for a big breakfast and had a quick look around, we decided to get back to Anfield early, it wasnt about getting in the last pint just about making sure we got in on time. I was using a mates fan card and as it wasnt our names on it we wanted to be sure about getting sorted, our initial plan was that we would use the names on the fancards to the stewards and ask where to go but sure surely if they were ours and if they sussed it was used that season somehow they knew we'd be up to something.
I tried an honesty approach, I admitted the cards werent ours but it was organised through a friend of mine in work who went to about 9 games a season, he'd let us borrow the cards and I paid for them myself online anyway, the stewards kindly directed us to where we needed to go that morning and just advised us it would be a good move to get there an hour or so early in case we needed to be moved to another part of the ground if we got lost, this saved a lot of hassle and we were in the ground about 50-60 minutes to go. Our seats werent half bad, almost by the corner flag in the Annie Road next to the Centenary.
Maxi Rodriguez was just walking away all suited up at that point for some reason and we gave him a big shout, nets were put up around the stand as players warmed up and we watched the Stoke Keepers Asmir Begovic and Thomas Sorensen being put through their paces as we warmed ourselves up with tea and Bovril, it was nice to see the players warm up rather than rush to the game half needing a piss after a few bevvies, few beers would have been nice but by this stage it didn’t really matter. Liverpool's team had a few surprised with Kenny Dalglish going for 5 at the back, Jamie Carragher and Sebastian Coates started with Daniel Agger picking up a knock and not featuring (Even though we saw him earlier that day). It was a surprise move by Kenny considering Stoke were always going to line up defensively for an away day but it was a tactic he sometimes adopted years back for big physical teams such as Wimbledon, Stoke were Wimbledon mk2 if ever I saw it. Martin Skrtel was the 3rd centre back with Glen Johnson right back, Jose Enrique left back and of course Reina in goal. Our midfield was lead by skipper Steven Gerrard with Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson there too, along with Stewart Downing and striker Dirk Kuyt. It was a wrench for us not to see Luis Suarez in action due to his suspension whilst 35m man Andy Carroll was on the bench.
It was clear early on Stoke were not going to bother attacking, apart from one 35 yard shot from Matthew Etherington that did little to trouble Pepe Reina. Liverpool did all the pressing but found it tough to break down a resolute Stoke defence despite umpteen corners albeit some very poor deliveries from the likes of Downing and Adam. The seats we had we were quite close to the players and I did my best to encourage, the downside to the seats was that Liverpool would be attacking the KOP in the second half and with Stoke being resolute we were going to see next to nothing at our end. That’s exactly what happened, it was frustrating to see the persistence with a back 5 considering Stoke just lumped it up all game to Peter Crouch who had nothing to go on, but our numerical disadvantage at the other end was telling with Stoke Bruisers Ryan Shawcross and Robert Huth easily outmuscling Dirk Kuyt. The 5 at the back remained although it reverted to more of a 352 with Johnson and Enrique pushing on, this after Andy Carroll replaced Stewart Downing. Liverpool were lining up a corner immediately as Carroll came on and it was then I began to get a little irate. Referee Howard Webb had done us for years and having just walked on the pitch in time for the corner I was furious when despite being a good 100 yards away I could clearly see Robert Huth headlock Andy Carroll to the deck, no penalty.
A few minutes later it was similar, despite already being on a yellow and having had a warning to stop wrestling Carroll, Shawcross decided to shove him over anyway, again no penalty, a mere 5-10 seconds after Stoke cleared their lines a cross was flung in towards Kuyt who appeared to have been shoved by Jonathan Woodgate, again no penalty, I am annoyed just typing this. I was losing it, my mates had never seen me like this, can remember roaring "will you give us a fucking penno you fucking baldy cunnt manc fucking wanker". Even though Webb resided in Sheffield I was in no doubt that he spent most of his day sending his love to Alex Ferguson, I was in absolutely no doubt that had the incidents occurred in Old Trafford he wouldn’t have got his whistle blown quick enough to award them. I saw one more noticeable error in his game, Steven Gerrard launched himself into a tackle with the ball clearly bouncing off a Stoke player out for a throw near the Kop, Webb gave the throw to Stoke, how he couldn’t see it from a tenth of the distance I had I will never know.
It was clear we were going to be frustrated, even the electric Craig Bellamy couldn’t force a winner after replacing the ineffective Jordan Henderson, the system of 5 defenders or 352 hadnt really worked, it may have if Daniel Agger played had he not been injured to link defence and attack, no disrespect to Sebastien Coates but he just didn’t serve any purpose, maybe he didn’t need to although one run he did go on in the first half was about as close as we got all day. There was one last charge as there usually is, a back post diving header from Dirk Kuyt flew agonisingly wide when it seemed he should have scored. A number of things grabbed my attention that day, its always nice to see players in the flesh rather than tv, Glen Johnson was impressive, covering every blade of grass (first time id seen him live), Jose Enrique (first time with him too) was another who impressed with some good defending and ball work, Martin Skrtel looked good on the ball, while Steven Gerrard was just all action all over the pitch taking over everything, Huth and Shawcross came across as nothing other than glorified bullies while I can say hand on heart that Rory Delap was the worst player I have ever seen in the flesh, usually just selected for throw ins, he wasn’t even taking them so he served absolutely no purpose at all. Stoke showed just how negative they were when they won a throw near their own fans at the end, there was no time for Liverpool to launch a counter so it was worth their while to try steal what would be an undeserved win but Delap just threw it short and they played it into the corner, although Liverpool won it back the time was up and a poor game ended 0-0.
It was nice to be back all the same, I hadn’t been able to get over for a game for a long long time due to a big mortgage that now swallowed up my money, but it was nice to be back even if the game and result was poor, the fact that Howard Webb reffed it tainted things, I even had a bet for a red card, a penalty to be awarded and gerrard first goal, the foul by Shawcross on Carroll that Webb didn’t give scuppered all 3!
We headed back to our hotel to pick up things, walking away from the ground to make sure we could escape the traffic before hopping in a taxi, having paid our hotel already we just grabbed our bags and headed back to Liverpool airport for a quick bite to eat in Franky and Bennys, before a smooth trip back to Belfast with the excellent Easyjet, and off we drove for home, I apologized for my earlier language with Webb to the lads, but they knew I had good reason. It wasn’t the best of games or results but it’s a trip im glad I made. I hadn’t realized how much I missed that wonderful city and stadium until I went back. It didn’t hurt that I finally got to see a Liverpool side in the flesh managed by the one and only Kenny Dalglish, there I just made a bad time good, I think!
