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Bent and Young heap more misery on jaded Liverpool

Last updated : 09 February 2006 By The Guardian
That is how many matches they have played - an entire season for some clubs - and this jaded performance confirmed as much. A juggernaut, which in a sense is what Liverpool are, would have been banned from the road after mileage like that.

Being defeated by Manchester United and Chelsea as they have been recently, either side of their draw with Birmingham, is one thing, however. Coming away second best against a side who were 10 places and 15 points inferior at the start of the match is quite another.

So they have blown one of the two matches they had in hand against second- placed United and they have taken one point from a possible 12, hardly the form of a team allegedly establishing a new order of things near the top of the table; indeed it is legitimate to question their ability to sustain a top-three place.

Even the fact that they dominated long passages of the first half and conceded a controversial penalty did not disguise the fact that they were outplayed and outfought for much of the match.

For Charlton, who had endured a bad run themselves, with one win in five, this was a splendid performance. At the start of the evening they were still 10 points away from the 40 that is said to represent Premiership safety and it looked a long way off, especially after their inept performance at Spurs at the weekend.

Alan Curbishley said: "We needed something after Sunday. I said a lot of things to the lads after that game and one was that we didn't have the right defensive attitude in that game. But we had it here. They defended for their lives."

Goals have been Liverpool's headache this season and the pain did not go away last night. But here their vaunted defence looked equally shaky, particularly in the second half.

Benítez called it "one-way traffic" for his side in the opening 40 minutes. And even Curbishley admitted that Charlton had been lucky with the penalty. But there was no denying the justice of the scoreline.

Charlton had seemed to commence their traditional late-season fade a little early this year. But now the cushion that separates them from those suffocating at the bottom of the table has been freshly upholstered.

Liverpool were without their leading scorer Steven Gerrard, whose 18 goals this season are as many as the most successful strikers, Djibril Cissé (12) and Peter Crouch (six) have managed between them. They were able to welcome back the keeper Jerzy Dudek for his first full game since his wobbly-kneed brilliance in the Champions League final in Istanbul in May. But his diffidence was at the heart of an unusually hesitant defence.

Dudek replaced the suspended José Reina, dismissed for his infamous brush with Chelsea's Arjen Robben on Sunday. The pace and power of the Bents, Marcus and Darren, concentrated the attention of Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher and Marcus should have done better than direct his free header straight at Dudek rather than Darren in the opening phase of the match
Crouch disappointed at the other end when Djimi Traoré crossed from the right. Instead of going for the necessary header he chested the ball down and lost control of it.

It was still Liverpool's half but Charlton took the lead in the 43rd minute when Radostin Kishishev crossed from the right and Darren Bent got behind the Liverpool defence only to be fouled by Dudek, though some camera angles suggested there had been no contact. The fouled forward converted the resultant penalty low to the the keeper's right.

Before Liverpool had recovered from this they were two down. Once again their normally assured back four were infiltrated when Alexei Smertin got behind Hyypia and made room for the captain Luke Young to drive in his first goal for 17 months.

Charlton's goal was besieged early in the second half but the home side took the pressure off themselves by launching a counter-attack in which Darren Bent crossed from the right and the ball flew inches over the head of the leaping Marcus Bent. And on the hour Darren streaked past Hyypia to send a rasping drive against the bar.

That was immediately after a forlorn looking Crouch, whose numerous falls in the area had enraged the Charlton players, had made way for Robbie Fowler, to the delight of the travelling supporters. But this was not the Fowler of old - even the old Liverpool.

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