Spooky goings on at Craven Cottage

31st October - Fulham Vs Liverpool (Premiership)

Let’s get one thing straight. This was not a hopeless performance from Liverpool. After 60 minutes we were competing with Fulham, a team revolutionised under the stewardship of Roy Hodgson.

The list of absentees receiving treatment at Melwood is a further thorn in Rafa's side, while poor referring decisions, coupled with misfortune (Kuyt keeping the ball in, Benayoun hitting the bar), did nothing to help on the day.

Looking for positives, Liverpool’s right-back gave an astute display attacking throughout, continuing where he left off on Wednesday. He was lively in support of Kuyt, until Mr Mason deemed his foul, a red card, when surely a yellow would have been more fitting.

It was Degan’s cross headed on by Voronin for Torres to power home, while a delivery from the Belgian’s was controlled exquisitely by Benayoun, whose resulting shot rebounded off Schwarzer’s woodwork.

If Yossi had scored, prior to Fulham’s opener when were in the ascendancy with the lion's share of possession, it may well have been a different story. However, it’s small details like this that are so so important in football.

Look at Kuyt, busting a gut to keep a ball in play, only for possession to be given to the opposition and the Reina picking the ball out of his net 10 seconds later, so so annoying.

This is not to say this was a wonderful display of the beautiful game in West London. Insua’s unawareness and defensive lapses can be sighted as the contributing factor for Fulham's first two goals, while being inferior by 2 men, with heads dropping the third was inevitable.

Kyrgiakos doesn’t appear to be in the same class as the three other centre-halves at Anfield, but its not Rafa’s fault he only had £1.5m to spend on a back up defender, and he's only been at the club for a matter of months, so it's still early days.

To address another sub-plot from the weekend; Benitez can not be criticised for removing Torres after 63 minutes. Who is anyone in the media to question Rafa's understanding of his players?

Torres has been injured and is recovering from an injury, and he brings too much to the team to risk losing him long-term.

People in the pub where I watched Saturday's game were jumping up and down, cursing Rafa for bringing Torres off. People who display such ignorance need to stop and think for a moment as to why the manager is doing what he is doing. Rafa works with his players’ everyday, he knows how fit they are, even if they try and pull the wool over his eyes.

It’s what he does for a living. As for the substitutions of Kuyt and Benayoun, they are needed for Wednesday, and they need to be fresh.

The game was over by the time they left the turf at Craven Cottage, and if we are to progress from Group E they are important players, when you consider that Gerrard, Johnson, Skrtel and Aurelio are unavailable, with question marks surrounding several other key, first team players.

Away defeats in the league at Chelsea and Tottenham are hardly shameful, while The Stadium of Light and Craven Cottage are developing into tricky away days.
I’m obviously disappointed that these results didn’t go our way, but for a squad that is smaller and less expensive than its’ rivals (Man Utd, Spurs, Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham, Arsenal) suffering from multiple injuries, with unrest mounting between owners and fans and owners and management, it’s meant that season has not developed as expected.

Rafa can only organise, inform and prepare the players available to him. He’s had his back to wall on previous occasions; let’s hope this November can be another fighting time for the Reds.