The Revenge of The Invisible Beach Ball

From that moment onwards, Liverpool Football Club was in command of the game. Their passing was much better than it had been for many months and everyone seemed to want to be there. Sunderland unfortunately looked totally lost, as the tide of red shirts marched forever forward, taking shots at the goalmouth many of which were going over the bar. We also seemed to be getting quite a few free kicks, I guess due to Sunderland panicking and trying to regain the ball. But our onslaught on the goal continued and finally paid off with Glen Johnson picking up the ball and shooting. The afternoon was now looking really good; we were 2-0 up. Phil Dowd who had allowed the game to flow, spoke to Turner about an incident but it certainly did not go any further. The half finished with everyone in a great mood and the Kop in full voice singing about Torres.

Would the second half be the same - would we be able to hold on to our lead? Were questions that were going through my mind as the teams came back out onto the pitch? I need not have worried though - they started slowly, but you could see that they were determined to win the game.

Sunderland must have been ripped apart during the half time break as they came out in a more attacking frame of mind and tried hard to keep hold of the ball, but Stevie G and the lads had other ideas. These began to come to fruition when Stevie G had a wonderful run with the ball, cutting through the Sunderland defense which appeared to be devoid of players. Ryan Babel who was having yet another of his rare starts, was playing extremely well and hit a shot over the bar.

Then a very stony faced Steve Bruce decided to bring on Kenwyn Jones for Steve Malbranque. This would hopefully provide Sunderland with a more attacking force but to be honest it was a total waste of time. This was Liverpool Football Club's afternoon and there were still a few surprises in the hat. The first free kick of the second half was awarded when Stevie G was pulled. He took the kick but it unfortunately hit the wall. Reina, who had a pretty quiet game had a rare save to make and did it in the way only Reina, knows how to. Ryan Babel then picked up the ball again and passed it through to Johnson, who in turn passed it to Torres . The lad is back 3-0.

There was no stopping the team now, Liverpool, sensing that perhaps more goals were waiting in the wings, reapplied the pressure and began to surge forward yet again. There was very little let up in this and apart from Richardson causing Reina to make another save, there was very little that Sunderland could do but wait patiently for the final whistle. Also for once Rafa Benitez it appeared had decided to wait before he made his substitutions and it was a good 70 minutes before Dirk Kuyt was replaced with Aquilani. Darren Bent shortly before this got the only yellow card of the game for bringing down Agger. Play continued for several more minutes before Rafa substituted Torres with Ngog and El Zhar for Stevie G. I will admit to saying a prayer at this point - both our top players had been taken off and I hoped that the team would not fold because of this.

The game though finished with Liverpool winning 3-0 after an absolutely fantastic performance. That was the Liverpool team of old and I hope that they can keep up the momentum until the end of the season.

We also play Benfica on Thursday and although Maxi cannot play, I hope the other 10 players are the same, because continuity is the one thing that the team needs. I also hope that finally Rafa has learnt his lesson, Stevie G in the midfield of an attack minded team works wonders and leaves the manager, the players, the club and us the supporter's extremely happy people.

The moral of the story is - we don't need beach balls to score for us, we have the best striker in the world and when he is on fire, the team is also.