Anfields First European Night in the 2009-2010 Season

It was at this point that it suddenly struck me that Anfield was strangely quiet. It did not seem like the European nights that I have attended. Was it the lack of effort from team, at that point I did not know. Certainly a lot of the players did not seem to have their heart in the game. Making a cup of tea I settled down and hoped that the second half would be better. How wrong I was.

Liverpool were linking as they did in the first half but there did not seem to be any enthusiasm and they were soon doing a lot of back passing. Although Stevie was playing through the middle and trying his best to urge the team on, nothing seemed to be happening, even Torres appeared to be have a very lack lusted day - his body language gave the impression that he really did not want to be there.
I watched as the half continued in this way with Debreceni doing everything they could to try and score. There were a couple of periods, where I thought that they would get the long for goal, but thankfully it did not happen. It had come to the magic 60 minute mark and I wonder was Rafa was going to do. Nothing happened at that point and the team continued to play until finally Kuyt had another shot at the goal but he unfortunately missed. By now Liverpool had total control of the game and Glen Johnson tried a long shot at the goal but failed.

The substitutions started with Babel replacing Riera. Would he, I wonder do the super sub bit and make a difference. Watching him, I can see why Rafa is losing faith in his performances, there was no effort and again the look on his face told another story. Masherano by now had come on for Benayoun and got into the mix immediately, having quite a few touches of the ball, but still the second goal seemed as far away as possible. The game was in its closing minutes when the fourth official put up the board saying three minutes. This seemed to be another signal for Rafa who replaced Kuyt with Aurello to give him a run out. The team played out the final minutes which quickly turned into just under four minutes but could not get one of their trademark late goals.
The camera then turned towards the bench and I noticed young Jay Spearing looked extremely unhappy. Here we have a young local lad who gives his all and brims with enthusiasm every time he is on the pitch, and yet for the second match running was ignored by Rafa.

Why I ask myself is this happening? I honestly think watching last night's performance he could have played a lot better than some of the lads. I hope that he has not been included in the squad just to make up the number of English players per team. I honestly felt so sorry for him, that I wanted to him a cuddle.

That aside the match was now over and my mind went into overdrive. Something was definitely not right at Anfield last night. The atmosphere was awful, where was the 12th man. There certainly was no singing and yelling at the team. Is that people are unsure of Rafa's selections at the moment or is that the team appeared to be disinterested in what they were trying to do. Most of the major players in the team just gave the impression that they wanted the evening to hurry up and finish. That simply is not good enough, we are in these competitions to win trophies and to get the premiership title - everyone must put in 100 per cent or it just will not happen.