Finaly Reds Show Some Fight



I moved forward a few rows during the celebration so managed to
capture the players celebrating the winning goal.

 After the disappointment of the last game it was clear that something had to change for Liverpool. With the current calls from the majority of reds fans for Roy Hodgson to be sacked, and with another poor result he surly would have been, he decided to do what the fans had been saying all season and he dropped Paul Konchesky in favour of Fabio Aurelio. Agger also returned from injury in place of Kyrgiakos at the back and Maxi returned to the starting line up. The biggest shock however was that captain Steven Gerrard was left on the bench and Reina had the armband. Of all the changes to the team the most important of them was defiantly that Hodgson had picked players in the right positions for once and this resulted in a more comfortable looking and balanced team. Gerrard had to come on for Miereles after just 20 minutes but this was a like for like swap so the balance was maintained.
The game started much more lively than against Wolves and Maxi Rodriguez was at the centre of most of it seeing one shot cleared off the line by Matthew Taylor and a header hit the bar. Lucas also missed one of the easiest chances of the game when he managed to get it wide from 5 yards out. Despite these good chances there was still a large amount of poor play by Liverpool which resulted in them giving the ball away an awful lot. There was then a number of really poor decisions from the referee, all of which seemed to go against Liverpool, and it left me thinking we had returned to the Liverpool of a few years ago who managed to look good in short bursts without actually scoring and who had little or no luck with all decisions.

Liverpool prepare to attack from a corner in the 2nd half.

Things soon got worse for Liverpool and Hodgson as Kevin Davies scored Bolton's first goal at Anfield since 2003. There was not much surprise that Liverpool where going into the break behind as it has seemed such a regular occurrence this season and the 10,000 empty seats reflected that this mood had been acted on by many Liverpool fans.

Things changed for Liverpool in the second half and after 49 minutes Gerrard put a great ball in to Torres who finished emphatically steering a great volley perfectly into the goal. It was Torres' first goal since November the 10th which dramatically changed his fortunes around and injected some new life into his game. This was clearly apparent for all to see and the same effect then seemed to spread throughout the team.
In the second minute of added time Gerrard’s deep cross picked out Maxi who made a great run in at the back post, his shot then beat the keeper and was heading in before Joe Cole snatched the goal by poking it home on the line from what I think was an offside position to grab his first goal in the league for Liverpool but more importantly it gave the reds all 3 points. The win lifts Liverpool up to 9th in the table and it proves that a little bit of determination can get you a long way. It's not only the result that impressed today but the performance was also one of the best this season and I, and many others, will be hoping for lots more performances like it. Maxi was my man of the match for being at the heart of all the best things we created today as well as working tirelessly but Gerrard also came close as he played an influential part in both goals.
It's all well and good saying that Liverpool have turned the corner but the only way this can be proved is if they can string a set of results together in 2011, starting away at Blackburn on Wednesday.
But for now at least Liverpool have a 100% record this year!