Liverpool Suffer Fourth Straight Defeat Against Classy Lyon
;)
;)
Reds not helping to disprove media consensus that they are a two man team.
Liverpool reached a new low on Tuesday night as they were beaten 2-1 at Anfield by Lyon in the Champions League group stages, picking up an unwanted statistic of the club’s worst losing streak since 1987 with four straight losses.
The Reds were on a run of three defeats going into the Lyon match. And the beach ball goal at Sunderland sums up Liverpool’s predicament of being a so called big four club being the laughing stock of England right now.
Fernando Torres, Albert Riera, Alberto Aquilani and Glen Johnson were ruled out with injuries. Steven Gerrard returned but lasted only 25 minutes before coming off with a groin strain.
Benitez’s squad was stretched. Nineteen year old Martin Kelly made his debut for Liverpool. The first goal came for the home side as Fabio Aurelio fizzed a shot into the box from the left, young Kelly inadvertently created space by taking a wild swing at the ball and missing it, which left the cool head of Yossi Benayoun to fire Liverpool ahead on 41 minutes.
The home side nearly made it 2-0 on the stroke of half time as Kelly crossed a great ball into the box and Aurelio met it with pace with a header, but Lyon goalkeeper Hugo Lloris made a great save.
In the second half Lyon began to control the game and got the equaliser thanks to a set play. Pepe Reina met a corner with a weak punch but recovered to make two important saves before the ball dropped to Maxime Gonalons to head in close range.
The game drifted into 3 minutes of injury time when Lyon built an attack down the right, Sidney Govou cut out Reina with a precision cross into the box and substitute Cesar Delgado tapped into an open goal to win the match for Lyon with seconds to go.
Rafa Benitez is now under massive pressure and desperately needs a league win at home to Man Utd on Sunday to give Anfield a lift.
Let’s hope they can keep it up until 31 October. Last time that Liverpool met Fulham, despite playing well, they only managed to sneak one in during the 93rd minute!