Reds look good without main men



My view of the game as Maxi celebrates Liverpool's third goal against Villa.

 Liverpool went into the game against Aston Villa on Monday night knowing that they would be without their captain and vice captain as Gerrard and Carragher where both still out due to injuries. The news got worse for Liverpool fans just before kick off as news filtered through that Torres would also not be playing. This absence was due to his wife going into labour with what will be his second child. While it's great news for Torres, the Liverpool fans were left wondering how a makeshift strike force of Babel and Ngog would fare against an experienced Villa back line of Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Young. They didn't have to wait long however as after just 14 minutes as hard work by Dirk Kuyt won a corner that Raul Meireles took and it was excellently headed back across goal by Martin Skrtel for Ngog to make a diving header from close range. As a Liverpool fan you could be forgiven for still not being the most optimistic after the goal following recent displays in which Hodgson has pulled everyone back behind the ball when Liverpool have scored the first goal. This time however was different and 3 minutes later a good ball from Lucas played in Ryan Babel who allowed the ball to run across him as he turned before hitting an excellent shot past Friedel in the Villa goal. The defensive tactics then came back to the Liverpool team for the remainder of the half in what was a rather uneventful 25 minutes typical of Hodgson.
The second half started better for Villa who had a good chance when Agbonlahor slid in only to be foiled by Liverpool stand in captain Pepe Reina who was desperate to keep his clean sheet. The Liverpool keeper kept his 100th clean sheet for the club in record time by taking fewer games to reach this landmark than any other Liverpool goalkeeper. In what was extremely cold weather, Houllier received a warm welcome from Liverpool's supporters on his managerial comeback to the club he left 6 years ago even tho it was a performance to forget from his Villa team and it got worse for him as the reds then extended their lead when Maxi played the ball out to Ngog who returned the ball to the Argentinian winger who put a nice first time shot into the top right hand corner of the the Kop end goal. The goal was well appreciated by the Liverpool fans who had to endure temperatures of -4°C on what was the coldest I've ever been at Anfield. On a warmer note I cant let all of the work done by Lucas go unnoticed as he was awesome again winning every tackle in the middle of the field and disrupting the Villa play all night which prevented Villa from creating anything and ultimately made it look easy for Liverpool and I would give him the man of the match. The reds had chances to increase their lead firstly through a great attempt when Glen Johnson cut inside then hit a powerful shot after beating 2 Villa defenders and then it was Johnson who set up Ngog with a clever back heel but the Frenchman's first touch let him down again. Kyrgiakos also saw a good header from a corner cleared off the line by Hogg so Liverpool had to settle for 3 goals and 3 vital points which sees them move up to 8th in the Premier League and have a positive goal difference which has been a rarity this season much like the positives in general for the reds.

Next up for Liverpool is away at manager-less Newcastle at 5.30 on Saturday.