LIVERPOOL will enter the New Year with a five point lead at the top of the English FA Premiership and as the 13 to 8 favourites to win the title. But they achieved all this with a performance at The Dell yesterday which can only galvanise their rivals with fresh hope.
They won this match through a lurid goalkeeping error which will probably find its way into one of those video blooper compilations in time for next year's Christmas stocking.
For the first time this season, they wore an all cream away strip, but this Liverpool was semi skimmed at best and for most of the match they struggled to contain a Southampton side whose position now looks desperate after seven defeats in eight games.
It was a late, soft goal which gave Liverpool victory over Southampton at Anfield in September, but nothing quite so bizarre as yesterday's 77th minute goal by John Barnes, who was making his 300th league appearance for the club.
Dave Beasant, the Southampton goalkeeper, raced beyond the right edge of his area, rushed his clearance and sent the ball to Barnes, just inside the Southampton half. He was 43 yards out, according to the Sky computer, when his shot, not cleanly struck, sent the ball bobbling narrowly inside the right post as the forlorn, scrambling Beasant lunged back across his own goal line. The few neutrals present tittered with the sheer embarrassment of it all.
The goal was a fluke, Barnes happily admitted afterwards, but he was one of the few players on the pitch with the composure to capitalise on the unusual opportunity.
"We were atrocious in the first half," he conceded cheerfully. "We couldn't string two passes together. We were lucky today. But we are battling and not giving goals away. We are fighting and making wins out of draws and that is what winning championships is all about."
Liverpool had been outplayed for most of the first half, with Barnes and Michael Thomas strangely deep and subdued and Steve McManaman, as is the current fashion, man marked into obscurity by the diligent Ulrich Van Gobbel.
In the second half, they matched Southampton, but the home side brought on Le Tissier in the 58th minute and the arrival of the maverick idol could have easily won the game for them.
Graeme Souness, the Southampton manager, said last night: "That goal just about sums up our season. You have to feel for the keeper. There is not a player, around who doesn't make mistakes, but you didn't hear me saying that on the final whistle.
"The trouble is we keep gifting teams goals and if we carry on doing that, we will go down. We have gifted Liverpool six points this season.
"We keep shooting ourselves in the foot by giving daft goals away. Teams don't have to do anything clever against us. The foundation of any team is its defence and we're not looking particularly solid in that area.
"Today we were better than Liverpool in the first half and although they lifted themselves after the break, we continued to play at least as well as them," Souness said yesterday.
. Southampton's manager, Graeme Souness believes his side are heading for relegation unless, they "stop shooting themselves in the foot."
They are still one off the bottom in the Premiership following their, 1-0 defeat.
Souness admitted: "We were the better side in the first half, matched them in the second half, but to lose the way we did really sums our season up.
"We lost to them at Anfield in the 89th minute via a very soft goal, maybe worse than today's one, and we gifted Liverpool the win again.
"We are constantly guilty of making defensive errors which are costing us dearly. We did it again today and we lost the game. If we keep doing it we will lose our place in the Premiership.
"The supporters must be sick of me saying that we are playing well and if we keep believing, it will come right. I can't really offer anything else. We are playing the game the right way, we do try and pass the ball around.
"But ultimately if you keep shooting yourself in the foot you are going to lose games. So far this season we have not looked solid at the back."
