ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Portsmouth 2 Liverpool 3"YOU CAN see he is a very good player, he has quality, he has talent and if the players around him play well, he will play well too." This is how Rafael Benitez described one of his strikers immediately after Liverpool's victory at Portsmouth and, for anyone who had witnessed the proceeding drama unfold, the assumption would be that he was referring to Fernando Torres, the scorer of another late, decisive goal.
But alas no, for this tribute was instead paid to David Ngog, the French teenager whose 56 minutes on the Fratton Park pitch were so ineffective his eventual substitution felt like an act of mercy. Welcome, as Robbie Keane might say, to the “baffling” world of Rafa.
Ngog was one of the players the Liverpool manager name-checked as an alternative source of goals following Keane’s departure to Tottenham last week, but his performance here did nothing to justify that claim. Instead, it highlighted the alarming deficiencies that exist at the sharp-end of the Merseysiders’ squad.
Ngog, in fairness, deserves some slack. He arrived from Paris Saint-Germain in July with the intention of developing gradually, but following Keane’s exit and the concerns regarding Torres’ fitness, the 19-year-old from Gennevilliers, who has scored just once in four starts for Liverpool, is now expected to adapt to regular first-team football right away. That, as he showed on Saturday, may prove impossible.
There can be less sympathy, however, for Ryan Babel who, like Ngog, was one of six changes Benitez made to his side following the extra-time defeat to Everton in midweek. Dirk Kuyt, Xabi Alonso, Albert Riera and Torres were all on the bench, while Steven Gerrard was absent through injury.
Now in his second season at Anfield, Babel seems to be going backwards in his development and his glaring, 58th-minute miss – the 22-year-old failed to connect with Kuyt’s cross as an empty net waited – adds to the sense Liverpool are stranded without Torres.
The Spain striker has now joined his national squad ahead of their friendly against England on Wednesday and, having eulogised Ngog and Babel, Benitez did admit he desperately hopes that Torres returns from Seville in one piece.
“I have spoken with the manager of Spain and he knows the situation (with Torres),” he said. “If he don’t play too much that will be better for us.”
That it has come to this does not reflect well on Benitez. Since arriving at Liverpool in 2004, the Spaniard has allowed a number of experienced strikers to leave with the befuddled Keane representing the latest. There was little he could have done to prevent Michael Owen moving to Real Madrid but, on reflection, the departures of Milan Baros, Craig Bellamy, Peter Crouch and even Djibril Cisse can justifiably be deemed mistakes.
Benitez would, of course, dispute this and, with this team now the only real challengers to Manchester United for the title, he is perhaps right to stand resolutely by his decisions, including that of leaving four first-team players on the bench against Portsmouth.
That choice appeared a grave one after the visitors fell behind to David Nugent’s 62nd-minute strike, but, as is typical under Benitez, Liverpool came back, not once but twice.
Fabio Aurelio first scored with a free-kick following Crouch’s back-pass to David James, before Kuyt, who came on for Ngog, cancelled out Hermann Hreidarsson’s header with a powerful drive after a careless clearance by Sylvain Distin.
Aware victory would move them to the top of the table, Liverpool then pressed for a winner and got it after Torres, on for Babel, expertly headed in Yossi Benayoun’s cross to claim his third goal in as many games.
Cue bedlam among the Liverpool ranks, but with it a tangible sense of relief.
“It’s a massive result because our next game, against Manchester City, is two weeks away. If we’d got a bad result here, it would have been hanging over us for some time,” said the defender Jamie Carragher. “It can only be positive scoring goals late on, and we’re back in it (the title race) now.”
For Portsmouth, the concerns are completely different. It is now two wins in 16 matches since Tony Adams took over, and, while this performance was encouraging, the mistakes that allowed two leads to slip away suggests an ingrained loss of confidence.
The club’s executive chairman, Peter Storrie, insists Adams’s job is safe, but should Portsmouth slide into the relegation zone – they are one point clear in 16th – it is conceivable he will be sacked.
For the time being, though, Adams remains defiant. “We’re not making the results at the moment but if we keep focusing on the performance we’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ve got faith in these guys and in myself.”
GuardianService
