While Liverpool’s strikers offered nothing, in goal this marked the return of a player who went from hero to zero in the space of a summer. It was Jerzy Dudek’s first start since that incomparable night in Istanbul last May when he distorted his body shape like a man in a fairground hall of mirrors and saved two penalties in the Champions League final.
This time the wobbling under pressure was done by his team-mates, though the 32-year-old gave away a very contentious spot kick and was nutmegged for the home side’s other goal as Charlton made up for defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in their previous match.
Liverpool were more of a threat than against Chelsea at the weekend, but their offensive intent came at a price: there were defensive lapses and the midfield, missing the injured Steven Gerrard, was unable to seize control once they fell behind.
Dudek’s only other appearance this season came in Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge, after José Manuel Reina was dismissed. Reina’s three-match ban commenced last night.
Djibril Cissé, Fernando Morientes and Peter Crouch all started. With 14 minutes gone, Xabi Alonso’s precise crossfield pass parted the Charlton defence to give Crouch an excellent chance. In his prime, Robbie Fowler, on the bench and hoping to make his second appearance since rejoining from Manchester City, would probably have steered a first-time effort into the corner of the net. Eight yards out, Crouch controlled the cross and tried to take a shot but kicked thin air as the ball was whipped away by a defender. It looked bad, but it was not so much a failure of technique as of instinct. Crouch does not pounce, he ponders.
In cricket the phrase “corridor of uncertainty” is used to describe the location on and just outside a batsman’s off stump. With Dudek’s goalkeeping, the area of doubt inspired by his travails is more like an aircraft hanger. In the first half he twice questionably punched the ball clear and even performed a Cruyff turn to evade Darren Bent, who was chasing down a back-pass.
Then, five minutes before the break, the same players challenged for Radostin Kishishev’s chip. Bent flicked the ball up in the air then fell. Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, was unwilling to be drawn into another “diving” controversy: Bent went to ground mainly because he lost his balance. Still Andre Marriner, the referee, awarded a penalty.
The Pole’s hands were stretched wide, as in Istanbul, this time in a posture of protest towards Marriner, who fudged the issue by merely booking him when it should have been a red card.
Darren Bent succeeded where AC Milan’s stars failed and drilled the penalty into the corner for his twelfth league goal of the season — more than Cissé, Morientes and Crouch combined. Liverpool were unnerved and Luke Young then lashed an angled drive through Dudek’s legs to double the lead.
“If you want to win trophies you need to control the situation,” Benítez said. “I learnt this expression: one-way traffic. After 40 minutes of one-way traffic we cannot lose a game like this in five minutes.”
It was more of a contraflow after the break. The home side might have scored more as Darren Bent then Marcus Bent hit crossbar and post respectively. Fowler replaced Crouch with half an hour to go but the points were lost in the first half.
“You need to change things but you can’t talk about the teamwork, they work really hard. The problem was the mistakes,” Benítez said. Perhaps, being Australian, Harry Kewell should teach his manager another piece of cricket jargon: “mental disintegration”.
