Liverpool’s lack of goals is becoming an old story, writes Daniel Taylor.
A few weeks ago, at Liverpool’s annual general meeting, the first proposal from the floor was that the club should ”retire” the No 12 shirt in honour of the Kop and its reputation as ”the team’s 12th man”.
It was a fanciful and, dare one say it, rather cheesy idea, but they are entitled to their sentimentality.
Liverpool’s fans are proud of the noise that Anfield generates on these European nights, and rightly so, judging by the racket they kicked up trying to inspire a comeback on Wednesday against Benfica.
Sometimes, however, there is nothing quite so deafening as the sound of silence.
When Simao Sabrosa picked up the ball 36 minutes into a pulsating evening, the decibel levels inside Anfield were lowered by a hush of trepidation. Simao has the ability to turn the volume up and down wherever he plays, and as his shot soared into the top corner it was as if the sound had gone dead.
Most of the time it is footballers’ left feet that are described as ”educated”. Here was a player whose right boot presumably has a master’s degree.
In that moment most of the Liverpool fans probably knew the game was up.
They could remind themselves of the comeback against Olympiakos last season and how they scored three second-half goals against Milan in the final. One fact they could not get away from, though, was the overwhelming flaw in Rafael BenÃÂtez’s team: scoring goals.
BenÃÂtez has placed such emphasis on constructing a watertight defence the suspicion has grown that Liverpool’s attack has stagnated as a result. And as chance after chance went begging, the residents of the Kop must have been overcome by an uneasy sense of déjà-vu. The lack of goals is becoming an old story, and when the dust settles on a chastening conclusion to Liverpool’s defence of the old trophy, it will be the focus for their inquest.
Legitimate questions will be asked about whether their strikers are equipped to trouble Europe’s most-accomplished defences and the answer, undeniably, will be no.
When the Kop serenades Fernando Morientes these days it feels like a chord of sympathy. The former Real Madrid striker took to the field on Wednesday night knowing another unproductive evening would take him beyond 1 000-minutes without a goal. Alongside him, Peter Crouch’s solitary effort since New Year’s Eve meant that BenÃÂtez had selected two players with one goal between them in 29 hours of football.
Crouch, in fairness, is still contributing heavily to Liverpool’s methodical build-up, his confidence bolstered by his goal for England last week, but Morientes crossed the boundary into personal crisis several weeks ago. The peripheral, hesitant player who shuffled through long spells of this match was barely recognisable as the exhilarating centre-forward whose demotion at Madrid led to a wave of mutiny from fans at the Bernabéu.
Every so often Morientes would supply a deft little touch here and there to remind us of the player he once was. Yet there were other times when he would go AWOL just as Liverpool were working up a head of steam.
What they desperately needed was a striker who could add an incisive edge to all their attacks. Sadly for them, Michael Owen was watching on television. Instead, we had the enduring image of Crouch, clean through on goal, failing to get any lift on his shot as he advanced towards the hopelessly exposed Benfica goalkeeper.
Uefa’s number crunchers later handed out statistics showing Liverpool had managed 10 shots inside the opening 25 minutes. They pressed to the end, never giving up, but when the Kop saluted the next goal it was a standing ovation for Fabrizio Miccoli’s overhead kick. Another followed for Benfica after the final whistle. Ultimately, Liverpool’s 12th man was in better form than any of the front players. — Â