If this was billed as a contest to decide which is the fourth best team in England — something that Middlesbrough, let alone Everton, would strongly dispute — it was one that ended in little short of humiliation for Souness’s Newcastle. For all of three minutes in the first half, they led, but an own goal from Titus Bramble, followed by goals for Neil Mellor and Milan Baros, subjected them to a defeat that was embarrassing enough even before the dismissal of Lee Bowyer for what Souness called a “reckless, wild” second bookable offence with 13 minutes remaining.
Yesterday there were mitigating circumstances. Souness was without seven players, including an entire back four, because of illness and injury, but it could often be said of Newcastle, regardless of personnel, that they lack an entire back four. It may require more than a big-money signing such as Jean-Alain Boumsong in January to instil even the most basic defensive values into a team that is either unwilling or unable to grasp whatever ideas Souness and his staff should be drumming into them on the training field.
The contrast with yesterday’s opponents is stark. Liverpool’s progress under Rafael Benítez might be proving a little too painstaking for some, Steven Gerrard among them, but they already look like a team, aware of their duties and obeying orders, in a way that is clearly alien to the brat pack at Newcastle.
When Newcastle took a 32nd-minute lead through Patrick Kluivert, Liverpool did not panic. They might have disputed the goal, even if Kluivert was merely exploiting the ludicrous regulations by lurking in an offside position before sweeping home Bowyer’s cross, but that is not the way of Liverpool or their Spanish manager. They regrouped and scored twice in the next six minutes, first when Bramble headed Gerrard’s corner into his own net and then when Mellor side-footed the ball home after Baros had turned Robbie Elliott inside-out.
It was this period of play, in the build-up to half-time, that most impressed Benítez. “When you concede a goal and then you respond by scoring two goals and looking for a third, that shows that your mentality is good,” he said. “We showed character and we controlled the game throughout. That was important for us, for our confidence and for the future, because it was a good team performance.”
As such, this will be added to the list of performances that Benitez is compiling as evidence that his Liverpool is starting to take shape. Maybe this was one of the most satisfying to date for the simple reason that they did not rely entirely on their captain for inspiration. Gerrard played well, inevitably, but so did Baros, Xabi Alonso and, more surprisingly, Harry Kewell, who was even given a standing ovation after possibly his most productive afternoon of a largely disastrous 2004.
Benitez said afterwards that he has “a lot of confidence” in Kewell, but rarely in 18 months on Merseyside has the Australian produced moments such as that which led to Baros’s goal. A pirouette in the centre circle took him away from Jermaine Jenas before a beautifully weighted pass sent Baros clear of Bramble and Elliott. The Czech Republic forward took the ball around Shay Given and stroked it into the unguarded net for his eleventh goal of the season and one that his efforts fully deserved.
Souness did not quite see it that way. “They (Liverpool) will look at that as a really good goal, but I would say that you don’t see many goals in the Premier League where the ball goes straight between the two centre backs,” he said. Equally, he might have added that you do not see too many centre backs such as Bramble and Elliott playing in the Premiership.
Still, there were no excuses from Souness, who congratulated Benítez on a job well done at the final whistle. As they shook hands, the mind drifted to Sir Bobby Robson’s recollection yesterday of a similar exchange with Gérard Houllier after the final game of last season. “See you next season,” they said. But they did not. And barely seven months later, Robson’s successor might already be getting that sinking feeling.