On a poor day for the Premiership’s big four, Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool were held to a goalless draw at Anfield by Fulham, who, prior to this game, had picked up just one point from their trips away from Craven Cottage this season. But because Chelsea and Manchester United had similar results against Newcastle and Aston Villa respectively, Liverpool are still on the same number of points as the Blues.
Fernando Torres started for Liverpool, and was easily their best attacking player of the afternoon. Robbie Keane looked short on confidence, and neither Dirk Kuyt nor Albert Riera were at their best as Liverpool desperately looked for a way to break Fulham down. With skipper Steven Gerrard out of the squad with an injury, Liverpool were unable to deliver the killing blow to Roy Hodgson’s side, for whom a stalemate was as good as a win.
With Gerrard unavailable Benitez surprised one and all by starting with Lucas Leiva, and relegating in form Xabi Alonso to the bench. The Reds started off fairly well, although there were plenty of misplaced passes floating around. The best chance of the first half fell to Robbie Keane after Fabio Aurelio’s ball had taken deflections off both Torres and Jimmy Bullard, but Australian keeper Mark Schwarzer did well to get his face in the way. In his Spurs days, you would have probably seen Keane loft it over the keeper rather than smash it into this face.
Jimmy Bullard had a good day in midfield, and the former Wigan medio forced a great save from Reina after Bobby Zamora had done some excellent work down the right on the counter.
Liverpool looked more likely to score in the second half, but both Torres and Dirk Kuyt were denied by Schwarzer, as Fulham held their own in front of a partisan crowd.
Liverpool: Reina, Arbeloa, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio, Kuyt (El Zhar 81), Leiva Lucas, Mascherano (Alonso 64), Riera (Babel 78), Keane, Torres. Subs Not Used: Cavalieri, Dossena, Hyypia, Benayoun.
Fulham: Schwarzer, Pantsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Dempsey (Gera 84), Bullard (Baird 90), Murphy, Davies, Johnson Zamora. Subs Not Used: Zuberbuhler, Nevland, Gray, Stoor, Kallio.