Liverpool’s manager Rafael Benitez was not dissatisfied with Crouch and philosophical about the missed penalty, which, after all, simply led to Bolo Zenden heading Liverpool’s opening goal from the rebound.
As for future penalties, Benitez responded, dryly: “the next game, I hope to see another penalty when it’s 2-0!” This was a Portsmouth team parsimonious in attack. The Pompey manager, Alain Perrin, his job hanging on a slender thread, decided to play his Congo international, Lomana Lua Lua, alone up front. It was not a day in which we were ever likely to see Lua Lua’s spectacular hand springs after scoring a goal and it was somewhat puzzling that Perrin should tell us that he did not want to keep the player on the field beyond the 70 minutes because he had recently been ill.
Keeping him on alone for all that time hardly seemed the ideal form of convalescence.
So Liverpool were handed the initiative and duly grasped it, frequently defied by the resilient Portsmouth goalkeeper, Jamie Ashdown. Sadly, ironic and typical of the goalkeeper’s lot, was that Ashdown, for all his catalogue of saves, should give away so farcical a second goal.
Crouch was on target as early as the 15th minute when he met Steve Gerrard’s right-wing corner with a header that Ashdown pushed away. Six minutes later, when Zenden, the Dutch winger, went past the Portsmouth right-back Andy Griffin, from the left, Griffin fouled him inside the box.
Portsmouth and their manager felt a penalty was extreme. Perhaps the referee could have given obstruction. As it was, Crouch shot right footed, Ashdown played a gallant diving save but Zenden had only to nod the ball into the inviting goal.
On 38 minutes, Djibril Cisse, who had been pushed out of the middle to the right flank to make way for the ebullient substitute, Fernando Morientes, floated a high ball in from his wing. Was it intended to be a cross? Possibly Ashdown thought so, for the ball flew over his head to land in the far, top corner.
From that moment, thoughts of winning disappeared for Portsmouth who might, it seemed, at least have pushed Laurent Robert, with his formidable left foot, up beside Lua Lua. On 54 minutes, a shrewd piece of refereeing allowed play to continue and Crouch to run on when there had been an obvious foul. Crouch was clear, he hit the ball hard, but Ashdown once again parried the ball.
Eleven minutes more, and a quick, movement between Morientes, Zenden and Dietmar Hamann ended with a drive by the German international, but Ashdown, by no means demoralised by his first-half error, saved that one, too.
Two minutes later, Portsmouth at long last did threaten the goal. From a corner, Brian Priske, who had stolen up from defence, prodded the ball at goal, but Steve Finnan blocked it on the line.
When Lua Lua was eventually substituted, it was to a chorus from the Portsmouth fans of: “You don’t know what you’re doing”, the measure of their frustration. There was a third Liverpool goal to come, in the 79th minute. Gerrard crossed from the right, Crouch headed the ball back, Sami Hyypia ever adventurous, couldn’t make full contact but Morientes emphatically could. It crowned what, for him, had been a most satisfactory afternoon.
That old Spanish form seems to be coming back at last.