Birmingham vs Liverpool Match Review

Liverpool returned to league action after the international break with a tough away trip to St. Andrews to face Birmingham City.New signing Meireles started on the bench, with Roy Hodgson opting for Lucas and Poulsen in the middle of the park. However, Paul Konchesky did get his first competitive start alongside Skrtel, Carragher and Johnson in defense. Maxi Rodriguez came in for the injured Kuyt with Gerrard playing just behind Torres in attack.

The Reds must have anticipated the difficulty of task in hand with St. Andrews being nothing less than a fortress for more than an year. And they weren’t surprised, with the home side working hard, constantly pressing and forcing sloppy passing from the opposition. The first real chance came when Birmingham quickly took a free kick after McFadden had been fouled, and caught out the Liverpool back line, only for Reina to deny Jerome with an absolute blinder of a save. And soon again, he thwarted both Jerome and Gardner with fine reflex saves and was probably the man of the half as far as Liverpool were concerned. The Merseysiders were pretty poor in their passing and seriously lacked creativity to trouble the opposition and would have been happy to go level at half time. But they had reason to be aggrieved as well, when referee Mike Hulsey waved off a penalty shout after Torres had been fouled by Roger Johnson, and in my opinion, it was a very poor decision.

The Reds , though did attack with a bit more purpose in the second period, with Gerrard and Torres testing Foster. Gardner made up for the numbers with a couple of wayward shots off target for Brum. The game was quick without any clear cut chances. The 75th minute saw Meireles and Agger replace Lucas and Konchesky, and the Reds might have snatched it right at the end with Meireles getting at the end of an Agger cross on the far post.

The game , overall was pretty average with shoddy performances from Lucas and Johnson, and on the balance of the play, Liverpool were probably lucky to get a point from the game..The only positives were half decent debuts for Meireles and Konchesky and an excellent display by Reina who kept Liverpool in it for long periods of the game..