AS Liverpool prepare to play Fulham at Craven Cottage this Sunday afternoon I thought I would look through the archives and bring back some happy memories of a classic match between the two sides.
The game was LFC’s 4000th in the league and the win was Rafa‘s first on the road in his debut season.
Cast your minds back to 2004 when Bentiez’s men were 2-0 down at half-time nobody thought the team would salvage a draw, never mind win 4-2 come the final whistle – especially when Josemi was sent-off for two bookable offences.
Rafa selected the likes of Chris Kirkland, Salif Diao, Djbril Cisse, Milan Baros and Djimi Traore. Former Everton players Brian McBride and Tomasz Radzinski were part of Chris Coleman’s Fulham side.
The Reds started brightly but Luis Boa Morte (he always had a knack of scoring against us) put Fulham in command by scoring two goals, firstly sliding in McBride’s cross and then running clear to slot in the second from the American’s pass.
At half-time Rafa took off Diao and Alonso entered the fray. Within three minutes of the restart the Reds pulled one back. Baros had a shot which looked like it was going wide until it struck defender Zat Knight and the ball looped over the stranded Edwin Van Der Sar. The goal gave the team the impetus and they were hungry for more. Cisse was unlucky not to draw the Reds level on 66 minutes when he met Baros’ corner but couldn’t get his volley on target.
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Alonso was the catalyst in the Reds revival and his wonderful ball from the left hand side found Garcia’s head; Van Der Sar reacted with a one handed stop but could not do anything when Baros slammed the ball in to the back of the net from close range.
A team that lacked confidence in the first-half had it in abundance in the second-half.
Steve Bennett awarded a free-kick approximately 25 yards from goal; the genius that was Xabi Alonso stepped up and found the top corner with the assistance of ‘The Wardrobe’ Papa Bouba Diop. Van Der Sar had no chance and just looked in despair as the ball went past him.
Now everyone should remember Igor Biscan? He replaced Milan Baros in the dying moments of the game and not satisfied with being used as a tool to waste time he decided to have the last laugh. He scored Liverpool’s fourth goal with a wonderful shot from outside the box after a one-two with Stephen Warnock. That goal took Igor to the fans hearts, especially with him being labelled as the clown due to his calamities while wearing the Red shirt.
That was the final action of the game the Reds had pulled off Mission Impossible.
Another winning performance on Sunday for Brendan and his team will do very nicely.
Follow me on Twitter @MRSSG
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Liverpool will beat fulham on sunday
Suso, ibe , coady shud be given some minutes
There wa’n’t much wrong with Biscan,he was wrongly much maligned when covering up for Sami ! yes Sami was great but he was caught out often and Biscan was blamed for that.