Midweek round up

As per usual, I had to try and somehow keep up with two games while paying enough attention to both to write match reports. It sort of worked out ok for me, thankfully Liverpool were on the telly so I didn't have to worry about streams dying on me or any of that crap. Now, Spurs were the first team to beat Liverpool in the Prem this season (and so far the only team) so the boys in red had revenge on their minds. Gerrard and Keane were given a rest, while Torres played from the start in a bid to regain match fitness following his injury. Other than that, it was mostly the reserves playing for Liverpool, as their priorities for the season lie with the Premier League title and the Champions League. Tottenham made no such changes to the team, the majority of the starters tonight are first team regulars.

The game started brightly, with both teams attacking but there were no clear opportunities on goal to speak of. Agger made a brilliant block to deny Spurs a shooting chance. Things weren't going to stay that way for long though. Pavluchenko scored the first, Campbell getting the next 2 to put Spurs 3-0 up at half time. They were fighting to make every ball theirs, Liverpool looked a shadow of the team that had gone so many games unbeaten at the start of the season. Torres was unusually quiet. It was a trainwreck in the worst sense. And to really rub salt into the wound, the referee was Mike fricking Riley, Man U fan extroadinaire.

After half time, Liverpool got a goal back and for a few minutes, it looked like they might possibly live up to their reputation as the comeback kings. Sadly, Spurs restored their 3 goal lead not long after, and it looked like it was going to be one of those nights for Liverpool. This was a game of goals, and just past the hour mark, Sami Hyypia got a goal to reduce the defecit to 2 goals again. Gomes was stretchered off after what looked like a nasty kick to the head but the good news was that he was ok, and did not require a hospital visit. Unfortunately, Liverpool could not capitalise on this to score any more goals, the final score 4-2. At least they can now focus on the more important competitions.

The Valencia game was also a chance for the reserves to play and try to prove to Unai Emery that they deserve a place in the regular team. They did a much better job than Liverpool, and went in at half time a goal up thanks to an Angulo goal. I didn't get to watch the game because there were no good live stream, so I'm relying on my limited Spanish knowledge to get info from the Valencia site.

The second half was basically wrapping up the game completely. They'd been expected to win comfortably even without their stars and that's exactly that they did. Michel got the second goal, Pablo the third and Vicente also missed several good opportunities to score. Valencia were doing themselves proud with this performance and they certainly gave Emery something to think about for the coming games. The game finished 3-0 so I suppose I can be proud of the fact that at least one of my teams won tonight.