Kenny Sunderland and His Fledgeling Team

To do this, he has made several forays into the transfer market which have resulted in Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Jose Enrique joining the club.  Although none of them have had a full pre-season with Liverpool, it was decided that yesterday was the day they were going to make their premiership debut at Anfield and the expectation amongst the supporters was perhaps a lot higher than it should have been.

Sunderland as I have said appears to have be the one team that can jinx Liverpool but with the team made up of mainly new players, it was hoped that Liverpool could start the season with an easy home win.  Fate though has a strange way of ensuring that these are either not going to be easy or not happen and yesterday was no exception.

The first shock of the afternoon came when the Liverpool line-up with announced.  There was no Dirk Kuyt in the starting line-up or indeed Aquilani or Martin Kelly.  In the team though was the returning Luis Suarez and the newly signed Jose Enrique, who most people believed would be on the bench. They were part of a team that consisted of new boys Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Charlie Adam, and captained by Jamie Carragher.

The game itself was full of incident more or less from the moment Phil Dowd blew his whistle to the start of Liverpool's season.  Seven minutes after the start there was an incident in the goal mouth which should have resulted in Kieran Richardson sent off, but he was only given a yellow card, which if you read the rule book properly should have been a red.  Liverpool though was rewarded with a penalty which Luis Suarez duly took and wasted. The look of horror on his face was a picture for all too see and several moments later after picking up a wonderful free kick from stewart Downing, the ball hit the back of the net.

Liverpool were in the lead and quickly took total command of the first half.  A half where we saw the old pass and move style of football that Kenny loves come to the fore once more.  Out of the new players Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing seemed to be having the better game. Charlie appeared to be all over the place and Stewart hit a wonderful volley towards the goalmouth, which had it been a foot lower would have been classed as a wonder goal.  Jordan Henderson and Jose Enrique were rather quiet but sometimes that can work just as well.

The second half was a different matter and with Liverpool appearing to tire very quickly, Sunderland took the upper hand and Larsson quickly scored the equaliser.  This may well have added to the demoralisation of the Liverpool team but I suspect so did the amount of yellow cards that Phil Dowd began to dish out.  There seemed to be cards given for the silliest of offences and continuous interruption of any rhythm that either team got going.  What could have been a fantastic opener became nothing more than two teams wondering when the final whistle would be blown.

Both managers realised this and made several substitutions.  On the Liverpool side Suarez was taken off along with Jordan Henderson with Dirk Kuyt and Raul Meirles replacing them.  Although Dirk did what he could, the second goal was not forthcoming and our first game ended in a draw.

Now I am not inside Kenny's head so I have no idea why Dirk was on the bench with Suarez starting. To me it should have been the other way around and Suarez used to rescue the game if the need arose.  Enrique was on the pitch due to Aurelio being injured yet again in training and I suspect Kenny would have preferred him to have had a week's training beforehand.  Although we have not been told I am wondering if Martin Kelly felt a slight twinge in hamstring during training which led to Kenny using young Jon Flanagan ahead of him.  My main worry and I know I am going to be castigated for this, is Andy Carroll.  I know its early days but he should be reaching the balls and reading the game a lot better than he appears to be at the moment.

We also have to look at Liverpool's pre-season, which although showed the team the Far East did not prepare those who will remain part of Liverpool set well enough for the rigours of the season.  Kenny understandably mainly used the players that he was putting into the shop window, so the regular first teamers did not get the minutes they deserved.  All that will change though over the coming weeks I am sure in training as well as in the actual games.

So you see, there really is no need to panic, it is early days and we have several new players to bed into the squad with possibly still a couple more to be added. Kenny knows what he is doing and needs to be given the time to do it.  There really is no point in cursing him and the team ninety minutes into what is a season of nine months.