It was a valiant effort from the redmen in our attempt to overturn a two goal deficit against Zenit St Petersburg in the Europa League last Thursday evening. A mistake early on by club legend, Jamie Carragher, gave us a mountain to climb and with them scoring that all important away goal, we then required four goals to get through, which was always going to prove tough to achieve. But I was proud of the spirit shown by the players and we deservedly came from behind to win the game 3-1, but sadly it just wasn’t enough to get through to the next round of the competition. The slight disappointment was that we did actually give ourselves half an hour to get the winner, which failed to materialise.
Luis Suarez reaffirmed just how brilliant he is, with two superb free kick goals on the night. The lad is a special talent and I really hope we can keep hold of him for next season however unlikely that looks after each performance draws to a close. Being knocked out of Europe means that we are in for a trophyless season and I have to admit that I was slightly jealous of those Swansea City and Bradford City supporters who visited Wembley on Sunday for the League Cup Final. We can’t dwell on things though, all we can do is look ahead to our eleven remaining Premier League games, pick up as many points as possible and see where we finish the campaign. 4th place is highly unlikely now, but it would still be nice to finish as high up as possible and above our neighbours from across Stanley Park, as city rivalry is still at stake from a pride point of view.
Looking ahead to our fixtures, we have six away games and five at Anfield. I mainly want to see the likes of Suarez, Gerrard, Sturridge and Coutinho striking up an understanding and carrying on from where they left off against Swansea, when we routed them 5-0 recently, that display was tremendous and in truth it could have been double figures, even their manager, Michael Laudrup, admitted that after the game.
We play Wigan Athletic next at the DW Stadium on Saturday at 5:30pm. They are a side who have caused us problems in the past and we don’t tend to do well at their ground. However, we did beat them 3-0 earlier in the season at Anfield and I see no reason why we won’t beat them again. Like usual, they are fighting for their Premier League status, they are just above the relegation zone and I am expecting a tight encounter. They are very combative in midfield with the likes of James McCarthy and James McArthur, I also think striker Arouna Kone is decent aswell. But, in honesty, they aren’t the best defensively and I’m sure that we should have too much for them in the forward areas with Suarez and Sturridge.
I’m going to predict a 3-1 Liverpool win, with goals from Sturridge (2) and Suarez.
