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| West Ham United 2 - 2 Liverpool | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hammers
hold Reds Liverpool, even when they aren't quite the real Liverpool, never give up the ghost. Though they traditionally do well at Upton Park, you wouldn't otherwise have given much for their chances at half-time. Subsequently when they did equalise, and take a hold on the game, they gave away a second, silly goal to McAvennie and looked down and out again. Not a bit of it. Orr sufficiently annoyed Rush with a foul to bring the hitherto dormant Welsh international vigorously to life; and Rush it was who engineered a late equalising goal for Liverpool. It was Liverpool which lacked Wark, Walsh, and the new player-manager Dalglish; a Liverpool in which Grobbelaar had one of his most wildly erratic days; and in which Molby looked corpulent enough to be playing darts for Denmark. Lying, for the most part, deep in midfield, Molby never broke out of a gentle trot, let alone broke sweat. But his use of the crossfield ball was sometimes excellent, and, late in the second half, he found enough energy to appear on the edge of the West Ham penalty area, to conjure his way cleverly into the space for a left footed shot which Parkes turned at full stretch round the post. But let us speak of Grobbelaar, and the two strange goals that were scored against him. Both of them went to the blond McAvennie, a young Scottish striker who, like the deep right flanker Ward, has joined West Ham this season. McAvennie has lot of pace and makes nonsense of the old belief that Scottish players need time to adjust to the faster rhythm of English football. Twice, indeed, he was much too quick for the Liverpool defense. The first occasion, after 22 minutes, saw the equally vivacious Cottee play a long pass through the middle of the Liverpool rearguard. Hansen moved to clear it - there was nothing, after all, very special about it - but he reckoned without Grobbelaar and one of his periodic aberrations. The big goalkeeper came belting impetuously and superfluously off his line, so confusing Hansen that McAvennie was able to stick the ball in the net. The second lapse, 17 minutes from the end, came at a moment when West Ham's heads were well down, and a goal for them looked the unlikeliest of things. But when Ward struck a diagonal ball from the right, Grobbelaar, who usually plunges on such things like a suicide pilot, allowed McAvennie to beat him to it and score again. Liverpool had, in fact, equalised seven minutes into the second half, an inspired pass down the right by Neal releasing Nicol, whose cross to the far post was headed firmly into the right-hand corner by Johnston. A West Ham team which had played skillfully in midfield, swiftly and incisively, lost much of its confidence then, and the Liverpool midfield steadily took control. The irony of the second West Ham goal which ensued was that, a minute before half-time, Grobbelaar had dealt quickly and bravely with what looked a much more dangerous occasion, when Devonshire nicely put McAvennie through. But with six minutes left, Rush, knocked down in the box, leaped to his feet like one of those toy clowns with a heavy base, and pushed the ball to the ever-active Johnston, over came the cross to that same, vulnerable left-hand post, and this time it was Whelan who headed into the right-hand corner. Liverpool at full strength will doubtless do better that this, while for West Ham, after so uneasy a start, their first half-display at least held the lively promise of better things to come. By Brian Glanville of "The Sunday Times". Copyright - Sunday Times |
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Price: 60 pence