Sissoko return is top of our list

Dec 28 2006 Red Watch by Andy Proudfoot, Liverpool Daily Post

THE searing, burning sensation travelling up my chest as we neared full-time on Boxing Day may well have been due to the effects of the Steak-and-Thwaites pie conducting an extreme chemical reaction with the third helping of brandy butter consumed the day before, but felt at the time like adifferent, more emotional kind of gut reaction.

The romps at Wigan and Charlton had encouraged us to believe that our abominable away form earlier in the season had been a freak of the fixture list, a cruel joke played by the Premiership fixture computer (do they really have a whole computer dedicated just to this?) against a side seeking to accommodate new signings alongside established players well below form following an arduous World Cup.

Unable to hit our stride, we were practically surrendering after conceding the first goal, seemingly lacking the will or the inspiration to fight our way back into games. But all that was supposed to be behind us.

True, we'd laboured to kill off a pathetic Charlton side but finally achieved a realistic scoreline, and seven goals without reply in two away games is pretty convincing stuff.

So Blackburn away should not have held any terrors for us. A short journey, an opponent struggling for results, our confidence high after a strong run had taken us to third place.

Yet we lost. Loads of possession, lots of chances, palpably the better side. Yet we lost.

The defence concedes for the first time since Noah felt a few spots of rain, and that's enough to send us to a sixth away defeat in 10 games. Not against Man United, Chelsea or Arsenal mind - to Blackburn.

Indigestible to any supporter. Reasonably enough, the strikers took much of the blame for this one, in particular Peter Crouch.

Three times in the first half he had presentable opportunities, only to prove that, where as most great headers of the ball have neck muscles the size of a sprinter's thighs, those of a ballerina do not do the same job.

Yet perversely his misses do not weaken the case for rotation amongst the strikers, they strengthen it.