Sparta Prague 0 Liverpool 0:ONLY ANOTHER Istanbul could have made a 9,394-day wait for Kenny Dalglish's first European game as Liverpool manager worthwhile but this non-event against Sparta Prague failed to meet the lowest expectation. Satisfaction lay only in the form of the clean sheet that Liverpool's manager so evidently desired.
Dalglish won three European Cups as a Liverpool player and on the back of many away performances when preservation was the priority and no excuses were offered for nullifying an opponent on his home territory. This falls into that category. Liverpool finished the night with four central defenders and will view this as mission accomplished as they seek a date with either Lech Poznan or Braga in the last 16 next month.
Liverpool were in cautious European defensive mode from the start and any attempts to stretch the defence were undermined by careless distribution. There was no place in history for Raheem Sterling, the 16-year-old schoolboy who would have become the youngest player to appear for Liverpool had he appeared, as Dalglish found room only for 17-year-old Conor Coady on the bench from the quartet he had brought from the youth team.
David Ngog was recalled as a lone striker and Glen Johnson reverted to right-back where he was given a testing time. What little adventure and quality was on display came from Sparta in a dire first half. They had not played a competitive game since December 15th and, though unbeaten in nine fixtures before the winter break, they lost their leading goalscorer, Wilfried Bony, to Vitesse Arnhem during the recess.
A defence marshalled by the 37-year-old former West Ham United man, Tomas Repka, should also have been a matter of concern for Sparta given they conceded more goals than any other team that qualified from the group stage. However, Liverpool took 29 minutes to produce their first shot on target, a tame effort that bobbled wide from Fabio Aurelio, and only threatened once before the interval when Dirk Kuyt failed to connect with Ngog’s header from a Raul Meireles corner.
Jose Reina almost presented Manuel Pamic with the breakthrough when he punched a cross from Ondrej Kusnir straight to the Croatian left-back, who sliced over. Pamic did force Reina into a low save from the angle but the best chance of the half fell to the former Reading midfielder Marek Matejovsky, whose goalbound drive was kept out by the chest of Sotirios Kyrgiakos.
Joe Cole was given a first appearance under Dalglish as a replacement for Aurelio and the decision to drop Meireles alongside Lucas Leiva in central midfield, while deploying Cole off Ngog, improved the Liverpool performance without troubling Sparta too much. It was from a rare foray forward from Johnson that the visitors almost took the lead with 20 minutes remaining.
Lucas was the architect of the opportunity with a delightful ball with the outside of his right foot that released the England international into acres of space. Johnson cut inside two challenges in the area and, with the outside of his right boot, flicked a shot just wide of Jaromir Blazek’s far post.
Sparta’s Cameroon centre-forward, Leony Kweuke, forced a low save from Reina when he spun on a corner and Matejovsky plus Vacek went close from distance but otherwise the contest continued its aimless drift out of the memory banks.
The German referee called a halt to proceedings when a flare thrown from behind Reina’s goal flooded the pitch with smoke. It would have been kinder to all concerned to let play continue behind the cloud.
Guardian Service
SPARTA PRAGUE:Blazek, Kusnir, Repka, Brabec, Pamic, Keric (Sionko 73), Vacek, Kadlec (Zeman 89), Matejovsky (Pekhart 90), Abena, Kweuke. Subs not used: Zitka, Podany, Bondoa, Husek. Booked: Repka.
LIVERPOOL: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Kyrgiakos, Wilson, Kuyt, Lucas, Maxi, Aurelio (Cole 38), Ngog (Skrtel 84), Meireles. Subs not used: Gulacsi, Pacheco, Jovanovic, Kelly, Coady. Booked: Ngog, Cole.
Referee: Florian Meyer(Germany).
