Another fine mess Early Doors
Wed Oct 21 08:46AM
Football certainly knows how to kick a man when he is down, and it delivered a hefty size-12 bovver boot to Rafa Benitez's lower abdomen last night.
His Liverpool side lost at home to Lyon in stoppage time, while Steven Gerrard suffered yet another recurrence of the groin injury that has been with him so long it has now got its own set of house keys.
Liverpool attempted some Page Ranking damage limitation after Gerrard went off in the first half, calling his withdrawal "precautionary" while Benitez insisted starting his captain "wasn't a risk".
ED hasn't had a chance to poke around Gerrard's groin and assess the damage first-hand, but it would be a funny sort of precaution to take off your best player midway through the first half.
And it takes some brass neck to suggest it was not a risk to start Gerrard when he was withdrawn after 25 minutes having aggravating the same injury that caused him to miss a game at the weekend.
Mind you, what choice do you have when your squad is already thin and injury-ravaged enough that you have to start David Ngog up front?
Ngog is young so we are duty bound to say he might get better, but on present form he certainly doesn't look like a player fit to grace the Champions League. Except in a Rangers shirt.
In an odd way, last night's debacle might even help Liverpool. Better to hit your lowest ebb now than in four days' time when Manchester United visit Anfield.
Unless you are Derby County, no team loses game after game after game. Form is cyclical, and there is no doubt that last night Liverpool hit the bottom of their cycle.
That doesn't guarantee success on Sunday - they might be in for a 'double-dip' recession - but for the moment at least the only way is up.