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The feline invader who delayed the game at Anfield on Monday night is not the first animal interlocutor to cause havoc on the pitch

There’s a cat on the pitch. Does he think it’s all over? It is meow! It says much for the insipid nature of the football at Anfield on Monday night that one of the highlights of the evening was the feline pitch invasion that briefly delayed the game after 12 minutes.

The intrepid tabby is far from the first animal interlocutor to have stopped a game in full flow. An Old Firm game in November 1996 was halted by a fox in the box, who made quick his or her escape. “We were very impressed with the pace of the fox,” said Celtic public relations manager Peter McLean. “It still hasn’t been caught. We don’t know how it got in and how it escaped. We have even been given the brush-off by its agent.”

Real Madrid’s game against Betis at the Bernabéu in 1996-97 was delayed by a rabbit presumably thrown into the fray from the terraces. Real’s Carlos Secretatio was quick enough to catch it. “Secretario may or may be not a good player,” said TV commentator Arsénio Iglesias at the time, “but he is indeed a great hunter.”

But the animal kingdom and football are not always comfortable bed fellows. In November 1970 the Brentford goalkeeper Chic Brodie had his career ended after a dog on the pitch ran into him, shattering his kneecap. “The dog might have been a small one, but it just happened to be a solid one,” Brodie later reflected.

And as Torquay United, trailing to 2-1 to Crewe, stared down the barrel of relegation on the final day of the 1986-87 season a police dog named Bryn, who had been patrolling the touchline with his handler, bit Torquay’s Jim McNichol on the upper thigh. It took four minutes for play to restart after the injury and in the fourth minute of stoppage time United scored the goal that kept them in the Football League.

These and many more stories are recounted in our Knowledge archive – here and here.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueJohn Ashdown
guardian.co.uk

Uruguayan had to wait while his manager focuses on rehabilitating the £35m striker

The masks were ready, the T-Shirts were on sale again outside Anfield and Liverpool prepared to make up for lost time with Luis Suárez on his first appearance since commencing a nine-match Football Association ban last year for improper conduct and racially abusing Patrice Evra. Then the team-sheets landed and changed the script from the rehabilitation of the Uruguay international to that of Andy Carroll. It is a process the former Newcastle United man, at least, has seized

Suárez being Suárez, he found a central role in the only controversy of an incident-lacking draw against Tottenham Hotspur with a kick into the chest of Scott Parker, a foul more clumsy that malicious and which earned a yellow card from referee Michael Oliver four minutes after he had taken to the field. He also squandered a glorious chance to win the game late on when he planted a free header from a Steven Gerrard free-kick straight into the grateful arms of Brad Friedel.

There were similar frustrations for Carroll as he wasted a clear opening from Martin Kelly’s cross and headed just over in the closing stages. But given the starting point in his Liverpool career when Suárez last started a game on Boxing Day, and his all-round contribution against Spurs, another encouraging display from Carroll augured well for Kenny Dalglish as Liverpool challenge on three fronts.

There is no disputing Suárez’s pre-eminent position among Liverpool strikers this season but Dalglish was justified in not granting special dispensation to the Uruguayan after he had spent exactly six weeks stewing on the sidelines. Like any other player, Suárez had to earn the right to win back his place and not one among Carroll, Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy deserved to make way for Liverpool’s headline-maker-in-chief, the focus of the television cameramen as soon as he entered the pitch for the substitutes’ warm-up.

A little over two weeks ago, when a 3-1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers prompted a withering condemnation from their manager, it appeared the loss of Suárez had hurt Liverpool as gravely as they feared when his eight-match suspension began and that a return to the starting line-up would be automatic. Only Bellamy had shown form worthy of a side with aspirations of qualifying for the Champions League but, belatedly, Carroll and Kuyt made crucial contributions to a response that ended Manchester’s interest in domestic cup competition for the season, revived Liverpool’s campaign and maintained that form in the comfortable win at Wolverhampton Wanderers last Tuesday when all three featured on the score-sheet.

Even so, it would have come as a relief to Carroll to retain the faith of his manager and it was an important call from Dalglish to persist with the £35m striker despite the availability of Suárez. Being a young, strapping centre-forward, and one criticised for having an alleged laissez-faire approach to the game, does not make Carroll immune from a damaging loss of confidence, as his performances had showed prior to the influential display in the FA

The visitors were a man down at Anfield before they started and they showed reduced attacking verve against Liverpool

Tottenham Hotspur were a man down before they even started. Perhaps that assertion just underlines the fact that we put such weight on everything a manager says and does. In practice, though, it was difficult to tell if the visitors would have been more vibrant under the watchful eye of Harry Redknapp.

We have been taking managers very seriously for a long time. It is not enough that they pick the team and lay down the tactics. Their presence on the touchline or in the stand is somehow thought essential. Given that the cult of the manager is so marked, the lack of Redknapp made the scene a little odd. Perhaps, too, it accounted for diminished verve in his Tottenham team.

Regardless of the court case in London and his inability to get to Merseyside because of a technical problem with the plane, it was still hard to forget him. Kevin Bond, the assistant manager, and Joe Jordan, the first-team coach, would have been in no doubt as to what was required and the plan for the night had been laid down already.

All the same the true issue was whether footballers somehow need their leader in view to give of their best. It seems preposterous such an attitude could be allowed in a professional sport where players are paid so lavishly on the basis that they themselves shape the outcome of a match. Even so, this was the type of fixture that did call for managerial expertise and the lack of Rafael van der Vaart because of a calf strain was another factor to be addressed by those in the technical area..

Liverpool held some advantages. They were at home and, just as significantly, far closer to full strength than their opponents. Tottenham mostly had to resist in the first half but they still hinted at the ability that makes a Champions League campaign very likely next season.

That under-strength line-up did at least have Ledley King in its midst. That, in its own way, was a means of compensating for Redknapp’s unavailability. Given the severity of the knee trouble that has bedevilled his career, it said much that the defender was starting a match for the second time in seven days. There is hope that playing the game regularly might again become normal to the centre-half.

If Redknapp, glowering at his television, had a complaint, it would have related to the lack of confidence on the ball that hindered Tottenham’s efforts to take the game to the opposition. It was Liverpool who dominated possession before the interval but Tottenham had an intensity of their own even if they had neither sight nor sound of their manager.

Any small misgiving lay then in the conservatism. The best moment for them in the first half probably lay in Michael Dawson’s impeccable tackle on Andy Carroll after five minutes when a penalty could so easily have been conceded. Even so that stringency would not have sufficed for Redknapp. His emphasis on attacking style has, after all, seen the team notch 20 goals in 11 away fixtures in the league before they got to Anfield.

That incisiveness was out of reach in the opening 45 minutes. The interpretation of that fact is awkward to assess. It is, after all, supposed to be a taxing night when any side takes on Liverpool here. All the same we have come to expect more from Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and others in the line-up.

It was easy to think how exasperated Redknapp would have been at that stage. The bid for the title itself has faded but the manager is still entitled to call for confidence and ambition when his side is on the ball.

Tottenham, too, had beaten Liverpool in all three of their most recent encounters, including a 4-0 spree at White Hart Lane in September.

Given the context, it was natural to ask that Tottenham do more than demonstrate efficiency while containing Kenny Dalglish’s side. They did better in the second half and looked more interested in attacking but still the verve and penetration were in short supply.

The single heartening factor would have been the discipline in Tottenham ranks when Liverpool commanded so much territory.

That focus had to be even more intense when Luis Suárez made his return from suspension and came on before an adoring Anfield in the 66th minute. Everything depended then on Tottenham’s capacity to maintain order even without Redknapp’s presence.

Premier League 2011-12LiverpoolTottenham HotspurPremier LeagueKevin McCarra
guardian.co.uk