MATCH No 37 OF A CAMPAIGN that began before the schools had broken up for the summer holidays: still the questions keep being asked of Liverpool’s stamina and resolve and still they keep coming up with the answers. This latest examination may have been passed with aching calves and burning lungs rather than flying colours, but it was As for effort all round.
Quite how far their capacity for punishment will take them is anybody’s guess, though with extended runs in the Champions League and FA Cup, in which replays could be an added burden, they might play as many as 70 times before the players head to the beaches — or the World Cup trenches. But while their next trip is among the shortest, their journey along the M62 on Sunday is perhaps the most significant.
Rafael Benítez will take his team to Old Trafford on the back of a remarkable run in which they have taken 34 points out of a possible 36. Another victory will see them displace Manchester United as the side in pole position should Chelsea suffer an improbable loss of form, and with two games in hand on United. Benítez has yet to concede the title, and why should he? After Istanbul and Kenilworth Road, the Liverpool manager will believe that anything is possible.
A season that began in mid-July in the footballing outposts of Llansantffraid and Lithuania seemed to have taken its toll at times on Saturday. There were fewer rampaging runs from Steven Gerrard or overlaps from Steve Finnan and John Arne Riise, three of the fixtures in a fixtures-driven side, but they dug in. In the comparatively fresh legs of Mohamed Sissoko they had the player to disrupt Tottenham’s fluid passing game and protect the back four, and with Robbie Keane squandering a simple chance to become the first visiting player to score at Anfield in more than 12 league hours, Liverpool needed one flash of brilliance to win the match. Harry Kewell delivered.
His 59th-minute far-post volley from Finnan’s perceptive cross, his first goal for 13 months, had just about everything: poise, technique, venom, purpose, class. All the elements, indeed, that Keane lacked when he scuffed Jermaine Jenas’s low cross wide 30 seconds into the second half. But most of all it screamed redemption for the one Liverpool player whose memories of Istanbul, where he lasted just 23 minutes before limping off in the Champions League final in May, are sour as well as sweet.
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“Harry really turned it on, but it’s not just this game where we’ve seen that. I’d say he has been our best player over the past four to six weeks,” Jamie Carragher said. “He just needed a goal to round things off and he could hardly have come up with a better one. It was the only thing that has been missing, because he has been creating so much for the strikers.
“I was really pleased for him when that hit the back of the net because he has been coming in for so much stick, a lot of it undeserved. He certainly shouldn’t have been criticised for what happened in Istanbul. No player comes off in a Champions League final unless he really has to.
“It’s like having a new signing in the team, the way he’s playing. It was good that his goal came in front of the Kop after the way the fans have stuck by him. Our supporters rarely criticise their own players and no matter what anyone thinks about what happened in Istanbul it’s clear he is getting them back on his side.”
Spurs’ disappointment, compounded by the late sending-off of Paul Stalteri for a professional foul on Kewell, should be tempered by the knowledge that Martin Jol is building a squad that could soon challenge the domestic best. “We all agreed in the dressing-room that they are one of the best teams we have faced here all season, and that includes Champions League games,” Carragher said.