Like last year, it's a fairly big video; just under eight minutes. I recommend hitting play, pausing, and letting it load for a minute or two before trying to watch in full.
10) Masch 1-1 Unirea: He may not score a lot of them, but he certainly smacked that one. With two goals in about a buck-fifty's worth of games, you might snipe that even a broken clock's right twice a day. My response is, well yeah, but it was really right this time.
9) Babel 2-1 Unirea: Babel's control there, pulling a ball that high down to easily stab home from six yards, all in one movement, is flat-out awesome. Such flashes of potential...
8) Torres 2-2 Bolton: Liverpool regroup after a cleared corner, Gerrard lofts it into the box, Kuyt deftly chests on the turn to Torres, whose touch kills the ball so he can fire over the keeper despite being encircled by defenders. Fantastic.
7) Torres 1-0 West Ham: There's at least one of these a year with Torres in the team. He's one-on-one with some poor schmuck and flat-out bamboozles and flies by them. Getting old now really...
6) Gerrard 3-2 Bolton: A thigh-high volley from 17 yards is an awfully hard trick to get right, but it looks so simple there.
5) Agger 1-0 Benfica: Set play theatrics culminating with a backheel from a center-back. Yes please. You cheeky bastard.
4) Insua 1-1 Arsenal: Not a bad first for the club. Chest down, half volley on the run, couldn't have been better hit.
3) Kuyt 3-0 Stoke: 12 passes in Stoke's half in exactly 30 seconds, seven players involved, and a phenomenal ankle-breaking one-touch turn towards goal from Gerrard to put it on a plate for Kuyt. Pass. And. Move. Pity Liverpool can't penetrate a packed defense like that more often.
2) Aquilani 3-0 Pompey: One of those rare moments this season when I went, "Whoa, this might actually work." Build-up down the flank leads to an impudent backheel from Torres, smart dummy from Gerrard, and Aquilani's first goal for the club. Perfect clever attacking play. Maybe, just maybe, there'll be more of that come August.
1) Torres 1-0 Sunderland: He is magic.
Honorable mention: Benayoun 1-0 Burnley (h), Gerrard 2-0 Burnley (a), Torres 1-0 United (h), Johnson 2-0 Stoke, Maxi 3-0 Burnley (a)
Random notes noticed after the fact:
• Only one of the Top 10 was scored by Gerrard this year, compared to four last year and three the year before. He did, however, provide the assist for four of the 10.
• Only counting domestic opponents, and including my five honorable mentions, Liverpool scored 10 of 12 goals against clubs in the bottom half of the table. United, Arsenal, Benfica, and Unirea are the exceptions. Three against Burnley, two against Stoke, two against Bolton and two against Unirea – not quite a murderer's row. I did not do that on purpose.
• Three of the Top 10 were scored from set plays.
• The Top 10 and Honorable Mentions all came during two six-week stretches: five from mid-August through October and five from late February through April. I'm sure you remember how awful the winter months were. Coincidentally, those stretches were when Torres was fittest. Funny, that.
5 comments :
Another random note. Voronin was a Red once this season. Forgot about that until seeing the Insua clip.
Nice compilation. I could watch #1 again and again forever.
Awesome goals!
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Babel vs Lyon deserves a mention surely? And Torres v West Ham was better than Aquilani's IMO. Still a good list though! Almost makes the season look half-decent.
I have defenses for both, Jim.
1) I'm prejudiced against picking goals from games that Liverpool drew or lost. Only one was Insua's, which really was a beast. Almost put Babel's goal in for Masch's – both long distance blasts – but Liverpool beat Unirea.
But not putting that goal in the honorable mention is fairly inexcusable.
2) And yeah, the Torres goal v West Ham was sexy as hell, but as I wrote, he's done it so often I'm tempted to undervalue it to make a point. If that makes sense.
2)
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