Liverpool's Week That Was: Last-Minute Joy, Then an Absolute Nightmare

Liverpool's match on Saturday was another this season that wasn't good for one's health. A few lads I know called us jammy and all that malarkey, but you couldn't say that we didn't deserve it in terms of our performance.

We controlled the majority of the match and created several very good chances. Yes there was a bit of fortune in the way the ball fell to Benny for his goal, and Fulham will count themselves unlucky that they couldn't hang on for another couple of minutes, but jammy on our part? No way.

I unfortunately didn't go to the game on Saturday, however, it sounded from the telly that our lads in the crowd were having a right good time of it at the end and rightly so.

We're top of the league and now waiting to see if Villa could do us a favour. What a kick in the teeth that ended up being!

Villa were the better team in the first half and a large chunk of the second also. They were causing United all ends of trouble down that left-hand side especially early on with Young, Carew, and Gabby getting a lot of joy out of Neville and O'Shea.

However, Villa found themselves 1-0 down when James Milner carelessly gifted United an indirect free-kick 10 yards out.

However, it was short lived and Villa deservedly found themselves level when Barry put in a beaut of a ball for John Carew to head home in acres of space.

I went absolutely barmy, even more so when Gabby made it 2-1 in the second half. I lost my bleedin' voice as a result!

My delight ended with five or so minutes to go, when Ronaldo, who had been anonymous all game bar from his first goal, popped up with an excellent strike 20 yards out.

Don't get me wrong; I would have still been very happy with United only drawing, but I knew, I just knew, especially when I saw five minutes come up on that board, that United would win, and that is exactly what happened.

Going into Wednesday's game I think we all felt very confident of getting a positive result.

A clean sheet was vital, if we could contain them and hopefully nab a goal lead and a clean sheet, I would have been pretty confident of going to Stamford Bridge and getting the required result.

However, last night turned out to be a nightmare.

One thing that really annoyed me, apart from the loss itself, was that we seemed to go down without a fight.

Don't get me wrong, Chelsea played very well and thoroughly deserved the win. They looked a better side than they did when they came up here in February, that's for sure.

However, we made it far too easy for them. Our passing game was totally off.  We gave possession away far too carelessly and defensively, looked lost at times.

How many of our lads actually showed up last night? Lucas was used as a scapegoat yet again after the match. There was several others who put in worse performances than him yesterday, but, yet again, it's the young man who gets it in the back.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the lad is good enough.  I personally feel he is not suited to the English game, however, that's another story.

It just really annoys me when I hear some people ripping players to shreds, whilst totally ignoring the fact that there was far worse performances on that pitch. It's just easy for them to blame him.

Gerrard was anonymous, although the excellent Essien did a good job on him. Reira did nothing.  Aurelio had a shocker after having an excellent last month, and Skrtel and Carra got bullied by Drogba.

We missed Mascherano a lot last night, but Lucas wasn't as bad a replacement as some were making him out to be.

Realistically we all know this tie is near dead. It is going to take a near miracle to go down to the Bridge and overhaul this deficit, however, let's try and keep our chins up for the lads, ay?

This chant was rattling around inside my head walking out of the match yesterday, which raised my spirits somewhat: "3-0! We're going to win 3-0! We're going to win 3-0!"

Tongue firmly in cheek, of course. 

Come on, you Redmen!

Matt