Watch Liverpool

Posts Tagged ‘paris’

• Ngog has done a good job, says Javier Mascherano
• Forward has eased pressure on Rafael Benítez

Javier Mascherano has paid tribute to David Ngog for shouldering the “impossible job” of replacing Fernando Torres in the Liverpool attack and easing the pressure on the manager, Rafael Benítez.

A lack of quality cover for Liverpool’s record signing has been a frequent criticism of Benítez this season, with the problem exacerbated by the hernia that has restricted Torres to only one first team start in the past six weeks. Ngog, however, has improved noticeably during the Spaniard’s absence and scored his sixth goal in 15 appearances this term in the 2-1 victory over Wigan Athletic on Wednesday, before Torres stepped from the bench to guarantee three vital points and the headlines late on. Mascherano is adamant the 20-year-old French forward’s contribution during a trying spell for the club should not be overlooked.

“He has taken his chances and it is very important for him,” said the Argentina captain. “As a footballer it is not easy to play all the time if people are expecting David to do the same job that Fernando does. That is not possible. He is under pressure all the time. But quietly he is doing a good job. When he has had to play, he has scored goals. He is trying to do the right thing and he is doing well for the manager.”

Ngog, a £1.5m signing from Paris Saint Germain, is undoubtedly ahead of his anticipated development at Liverpool and his promise has led to a possible conflict at international level, with Cameroon offering the striker a chance to play alongside Samuel Eto’o at next summer’s World Cup. The France under-21 international admitted: “My father is from Cameroon. They have qualified for South Africa and have a very strong team. I like playing for France and have enjoyed every game with the under-21s. I have played for France from a very young level and feel a strong allegiance towards them. But like a lot of French players, I have parents from Africa and I cannot forget that one half of my family is from Cameroon.”

Mascherano, meanwhile, believes the pressure of overcoming a bleak situation with Argentina to help Diego Maradona’s team qualify for the World Cup has provided the mental strength to cope with Liverpool’s struggle to retain a top-four finish in the Premier League.

The midfielder said: “I have spoken a lot about that situation with the manager [Benítez]. The pressure with Argentina to put them in the World Cup was worse; not because it is my country and Liverpool is my club. Here you have a little bit more time to do the right things. We know that we have to keep winning if we want to be in the top four but we have a game every week. In Argentina, I would go for two games then have three or four months to wait for the next one to put it right. It has been good to have that experience.”

LiverpoolRafael BenítezFernando TorresPremier LeagueAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

The Liverpool manager has still to be repaid by young signings but they could come of age in the chase for a top-four finish

The remainder of the season must have been viewed with glazed eyes by Liverpool supporters on Tuesday night even if they did put on a show of boisterousness for 15 minutes. It came while they were held in the Puskas Stadion following the 1-0 win over Debrecen that did not avert elimination from the Champions League.

That was a show of defiance while the cameras and microphones were switched on in Budapest. There is no rebellion but it would still have been dismaying for fans to think of the dullness to come now that the side’s interest in the Champions League is at an end. The remainder of the campaign, however, will be absorbing for Rafael Benítez.

The Liverpool managing director, Christian Purslow, claimed after the match with Debrecen that the financial harm need not be severe. He will, all the same, be speaking in wholly different terms if the club does not make up the present five-point gap to clinch its usual top-four finish in the Premier League. There is work ahead for Benítez and it had better be effective.

He himself has a security of sorts. The Spaniard is in the early days of a five-year contract that would make his dismissal breathtakingly expensive. The owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, will feel all the more attached to him when they think of the sums a new manager of the customary high profile would demand as he insisted on reshaping the squad.

The usual verdict on Benítez is that he buys well when spending heavily but flounders when hunting for bargains. Beware the footballer whose fee in millions was not in double figures. At this stage in the accusation it is obligatory to mention the £7m Andrea Dossena, where the argument may have substance.

On the other hand Daniel Agger, for instance, was a bargain at £5.8m and all that is wrong with him is an injury record for which Benítez is not to blame. If fans have not yet taken the £5m Lucas to their bosom, the reasons for taking exception to him are diminishing. Of late, David Ngog, bought for £1.5m from Paris St-Germain, has begun to assume some significance.

His claims were, of course, enhanced when he added the second goal in a 2-0 win over Manchester United this month but there is also a general improvement. In Budapest Ngog showed more confidence and caught the eye with persistent contributions.

He is no prodigy but there are merits. Ngog, 20, regularly turns down interview requests from the French media with the disarming comment that he will speak when he has done something worth talking about. Should the progress of a fairly strong and quick attacker continue, he may soon face the microphones.

Note has been taken of the young striker and Paul Le Guen, once the manager of PSG, has begun to argue that an under-used Ngog should have been more patient when at the club. Comments like that will make Benítez feel satisfied with his scouting system.

Ngog may not be on the rampage in the Premier League but he epitomises the sort of option Liverpool crave. Their squad, as it is, lacks the depth of those at Manchester United, Chelsea and conceivably Arsenal. Injuries have trained a harsh light on that fact.

Still, a slow process of evolution at Liverpool might have been applauded if players had not been hurt. Benítez shies away from suggestions that he has been trying to add adventure to the ranks but it is hard to interpret the arrival of, say, Glen Johnson in any other way.

There has been a desire to alter the characteristics of the squad, even if the wish has been thwarted for much of the time. He has been eager, for instance, to stick with the Argentinian Emiliano Insúa, even if the 20-year-old’s lack of positional sense led to Lyon’s equaliser at the beginning of this month.

The mistake ought to have been covered by Sotirios Kyrgiakos but the Greek centre-back looked exactly like one of those cheap squad players who turn out to be costly indeed. It is in having to resort to such stopgap recruits that Benítez’s predicament is apparent.

The easing of Liverpool’s load will be to his distaste, with the Europa League campaign unlikely to drain players as the Champions League would, but it could be a help on the domestic scene. Steven Gerrard should regain full match fitness, Fernando Torres will return and one day the £20m Alberto Aquilani could start a match.

LiverpoolChampions LeaguePremier LeagueRafael BenítezKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk

Liverpool’s acute shortage of firepower is becoming unnerving for a club famed for its predators

By rights a manager should not feel the breath of the mob on his neck five months after his team finished second in the Premier League with 86 points and two defeats but there was a sense at Anfield last night that Rafa Benítez’s reign is unravelling – not fast enough for him to go the way of Gérard Houllier yet but with sufficient speed to strain his bond with The Kop and encourage Manchester City, Spurs and Aston Villa that the Big Four are finally cracking up.

A fifth consecutive defeat, against Manchester United here on Sunday, would erase Anfield’s Premier League title hopes and move United closer to the day when they surpass the record of 18 league championships they currently share with the red half of Merseyside. Houllier was here to see the French club he once managed stretch Benítez’s credibility to its most frayed condition since the great Champions League final comeback of 2005 seemed to mark him out as an inspirational leader who wore some of Bill Shankly’s stardust.

The Liverpool script discourages apocalyptic readings of a run of bad results. The club’s intimate acquaintance with melodrama suggests United might be impaled at the weekend and Benítez will wear his smuggest mask. But consecutive losses to Fiorentina, Chelsea, Sunderland and now Lyon speak of a deepening vulnerability. There are plenty of bit-part players in this Liverpool squad. If a rump decide that Benítez’s power base is dissolving, then the small core of genuine match-winners and diehards will end up isolated. They cannot save Liverpool’s campaign without help from the army of also-rans Benítez has imported to play alongside Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, who are both struggling to be fit for the United game.

• In video: Benítez bemoans Liverpool injuries
• Liverpool stare into the abyss
• Kevin McCarra’s match report
• Paul Doyle’s minute-by-minute report

A shortage of firepower was last night’s banner message to those in charge. Torres is the exception to You’ll Never Walk Alone. The world’s best centre-forward is doing pretty much that in a Liverpool squad agonisingly short of elite strikers. In the absence of El Niño against Lyon, goalscoring responsibilities fell chiefly to the 20-year-old David Ngog, who can count his goals for the great Anfield institution on the digits of one hand.

For the home of Ian Rush, Roger Hunt, Kenny Dalglish, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen to be so short of marksmen suggests someone in authority needs to stay behind for extra maths. The blame game between owners and manager always renders it hard for The Kop to identify the culprit but Liverpool are stuck with a manpower shortfall in a part of the team famed for its predators. This imbalance has burdened Torres and Gerrard with the responsibility to net goals at the pace Lennon and McCartney used to churn out songs.

There was no Torres in this Champions League Group E match and soon no Gerrard either as the captain hobbled off after 25 minutes. Ngog, meanwhile, had made only 22 appearances since joining from Paris St Germain in July last year and has looked wispy and fragile in top-flight action. Nor is his control immediately redolent of the top French finishing schools. At this point in his development he is too easy to dispossess to be a credible deputy to Torres. His night ended ignominiously with a hamstring pull.

The forward shortage is explained by the club’s failure to replace Peter Crouch and Robbie Keane, the two big sales in that department post-Owen and Fowler. Behind Torres, who has scored eight times this season but is hindered by abdominal trouble, a merry cast of hopefuls have laboured to fill the menace-void. Those four consecutive defeats have cast an unforgiving light on the sharp end of Benítez’s squad.

Beyond Ngog the options are Andriy Voronin (six goals in 35 appearances and a loanee to Hertha Berlin last season), Nabil El Zhar (one in 25), who is really an impact winger, Kuyt and Ryan Babel, who can play through the centre but is lost in the tundra of Benítez’s displeasure. Frost forms on those Benítez considers to be inconsistent or unreliable.

For Liverpool to go into combat in 2009-2010 with only one top-grade centre-forward points to a bad tangle of politics, judgment and arithmetic. At least the £20m midfielder Alberto Aquilani is close to fitness and Javier Mascherano cannot be subdued forever. For The Kop, though, this was not meant to be another year of hole-plugging and Scouse defiance. It was supposed to be the campaign when a 20-year wait came to an end.

From last season’s strong core Xabi Alonso has left, part of Mascherano is elsewhere and Torres and Gerrard are beset by injury. Anfield’s best European roar was only briefly heard last night. Though Benítez is still popular, a faith-deficit has crept back in. The Kop know the value of finishers, of goal-getters. They ask where all the red ones went.

Champions LeagueLiverpoolLyonPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk