Liverpool 4, West Ham 0 - post match analysis

Mar 6 2008 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

AT least they can complete one takeover at Anfield successfully. Liverpool last night grasped the initiative manager Rafael Benitez urged them to ahead of the visit of West Ham, using their game in hand to oust Everton from the fourth spot that has now become the focus of their league campaign.

And with Fernando Torres – whose superb hat-trick took his tally to 24 for the season – in this kind of form, their chances of holding on to it seem far more likely to produce a satisfactory outcome than any battles for supremacy in the boardroom.

Especially when you consider that the Spaniard was suffering from a bug 24 hours earlier. Proving nothing can keep him down, least of all an overworked West Ham defence that meekly surrendered to their second 4-0 collapse in a week.

Steven Gerrard completed it with a superb individual goal but Torres’s second successive Anfield hat-trick ensured he stole the show once again and continued a success story so out of keeping with much of what has surrounded the outstanding contribution of his debut season.

Of all the promises Tom Hicks and George Gillett have failed to deliver, even the loudest dissenting voice inside Anfield last night has to admit that they did at least deliver Torres.

And what he delivers is a devastating penalty area prowess, which came to the fore in the eighth minute when he flashed in a spectacular opening goal that left Robert Green motionless – as he was when the 23-year-old looped in the clinching second.

Then came a moment that has already become a Torres trademark, surging into the area nine minutes from time before casually side-footing in his 18th Premier League goal in just 25 games – all from open play.

Gerrard’s individual brilliance two minutes after that confirmed a continuation of the type of Anfield form Liverpool should have been showing long before this stage of the season.

Since losing to Mark Noble’s last-minute penalty at Upton Park at the end of January, it’s five Premier League games without defeat, last night’s execution of revenge the third straight home victory of that sequence.

If Liverpool can continue this more characteristic ruthless streak in front of their own fans it can only enhance their attempts to fend off Everton, particularly when the derby rolls round in 24 days’ time.

One of the keys to winning the Merseyside shoot-out will surely be keeping the side as settled as possible to enable players who have hit their stride so emphatically in recent weeks – this was Liverpool’s third league haul of three goals or more in succession – to follow in those same footsteps.

Something which Benitez recognised last night, making only two changes from the win at Bolton , neither at the expense of his attacking six.

They combined to produce a formation that dovetailed to such dangerous effect. Kuyt, who created Torres’s first two, and Ryan Babel drifted wide, while behind them the duo of Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso allowed Steven Gerrard the freedom to roam in a central area.

It caused the Hammers no end of chaos and it was from one of Kuyt’s forays to the flanks that the opening goal arrived.

Torres could have scored his 22nd of the campaign when he headed wide from the Dutchman’s knock-down in the seventh minute but he made amends a minute later with a stunning strike to give his side the lead.

Kuyt took Mascherano’s pass wide on the right before sending in a low cross which Torres lashed first time past a static and stunned Green.

But it also stunned West Ham into action. Luis Boa Morte was denied by Alvaro Arbeloa’s block after he had collected Noble’s fine through ball and rounded Pepe Reina, while Martin Skrtel had to be alert to race across and block Carlton Cole’s effort.

But that was the extent of their threat as the visitors – looking rather toothless with Cole stranded on his own up front – never looked like getting anywhere near an equaliser.

And as the travelling supporters gave up by chanting ‘boring, boring West Ham’ when Curbishley responded to going two down by bringing on a defender, the players seemed to do likewise as Liverpool cruised it.

Which is why Torres’s second had that air of inevitability about it as he left Green rooted to the spot once again by planting in Kuyt’s cross just past the hour-mark.

Torres was denied his third by the post but he soon sealed it by collecting a loose ball, shrugging off Spector and slipping it past Green.

With West Ham well and truly wilting, Gerrard took full advantage by skipping through before hitting the top corner of Green’s net from 20 yards.

So mission for the night accomplished. But for the season? Well, both on and off the field it’s case of expectations and ambitions diminishing the more desperate you get.

Potential new owners, who were considered a lucky escape when their advances were rejected last year, are now being welcomed in as the saviours who will dig the club out of the undignified depths it has slumped to this season.

The craving for change means, if a deal gets done, DIC will be cautiously accepted in the absence of a better option.

A bit like fourth place.

It might be good enough to overtake Everton, albeit only on goal difference. And it might be good enough for the vital Champions League qualification, without which any potential investor would be tempted to pack up his wallet.

But it’s not good enough for Liverpool Football Club.

It represents a regression. Liverpool finished third in the past two seasons and the idea was to climb the ladder not slide down the rungs.

Rafael Benitez insisted his squad was getting close to the title challengers – but they’re closer to Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Blackburn than they are to Manchester United and Arsenal.

And if you need to know exactly how much, it’s time to get the calculators out.

There are many reasons why this scenario has come about, and all have been debated and explored in all their grisly detail during this often harrowing campaign.

But the fact is the only reason finishing fourth has any merit at all is simply because UEFA have deemed it so, a manufactured target that’s suddenly supposed to get everyone excited.

Which works in as much as without it Liverpool would have to rely on winning the European Cup for a sixth time to keep the dying embers of their season burning.

And with no title to play for, at least there is an incentive to these league games, as there probably will be for the 10 remaining.

Admittedly, Liverpool didn’t always play like there was anything to prove against a team that beat them only 34 days ago but the three points they needed to haul themselves above their rivals once again was scarcely in doubt. And if the harmony they displayed can start to filter through the rest of the club, maybe the repair work needed to eradicate on an often depressing reliance on finishing fourth can finally start.