Liverpool 1-2 Blackpool: Daily Mirror match report

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The incredulous boos that echoed around Anfield at the end of both halves will reverberate long after the final whistle of a game stunning in every sense of the word.

Even before the Kop sang “Dalglish” as Liverpool limped towards inevitable defeat, it was already clear a large section of the home crowd have no faith in their new manager and what, if anything, he is trying to achieve with his woefully under-performing team.

The Reds sit firmly anchored in the bottom three of the Premier League, a position so unfamiliar that you have to go back to 1984 to find even the briefest tenure there.Considering the talent available, that is criminal, no matter what the excuses.

Given that the Merseyside derby is next up, it is not unduly unfair to suggest that Roy Hodgson’s position will become uncomfortable if not almost untenable should he lose that match against Everton, such has been the lamentable, embarrassing form of his side.

Take nothing away from Blackpool, they produced a magnificent performance to dominate for all but a handful of second half minutes when Liverpool staged a half-hearted fightback.

Yet even they must have been stunned by the lack of fight, the lack of character and the total absence of any semblance of unity amongst this shambles of a Reds side. Clearly, the Kop was.

After the game, several thousand fans stayed behind to register another powerful protest against the American owners who have brought this proud club to its knees, and you have to accept that the lack of financial backing and poisonous politics he has endured at Anfield has hardly helped Hodgson.

But he knows none of that can excuse this display, and Liverpool’s position. He fielded 11 vastly experienced internationals yesterday, a collection of multi-millionaires who cost something like 30 times more than their Blackpool opponents. You couldn’t tell.

What will hurt Liverpool fans most is that even after clawing their way back into the game through Sotirios Kyrgiakos’ header just after the interval to halve the deficit, the home team rarely looked like drawing level, never mind winning a game they dare not lose.

Blackpool outfought them, and at times outplayed them too, the skill and enthusiasm of Luke Varney, Charlie Adam and David Vaughan an antidote to the careless passing, and clueless thinking of the home team.

They deserved the two goal lead they took into the break, and they deserved to hold out when forced to defend for long periods of the second half. What was shocking was they managed it so comfortably.

Kyrgiakos reduced the lead given to Blackpool by Adam and Varney with a towering header from skipper Steven Gerrard’s free kick on 53 minutes, but in the considerable time remaining, Liverpool managed barely two more clear cut chances, despite all their possession.

The first was the best on the hour mark when Joe Cole was presented with a simple opportunity from Jamie Carragher’s pass, but the expensively paid forward shot wide criminally from close range.

That moment seemed to knock the stuffing out of Liverpool, with their increasingly hapless efforts summed up by the performance of substitute Milan Jovanovic, whose erratic use of possession was appalling under the circumstances. If a wrong option could be taken, then invariably it was.

With the exception of Gerrard and occasionally Raul Meireles, no one in the home side looked likely to create anything much at all, and only in the dying seconds when Kyrgiakos had another powerful header brilliantly saved did the Reds truly look like scoring.

Of course, the fact that Fernando Torres limped out of the game after just nine minutes and 21 fruitless seconds had a huge bearing on that, because in their manager’s own admission, Liverpool are under-resourced up front, and rely too heavily on the Spaniard.

He seemed to tweak a groin while playing a simple pass in the early minutes, and his replacement David Ngog did little bar miss a stretching header in front of goal just after the break.

By then, Blackpool were two ahead, the first through a Charlie Adam penalty that was awarded after Glen Johnson’s ridiculous challenge on the impressive Varney, which exposed the defender’s lack of defensive skills.

Varney scored a second on the stroke of half time when Johnson loitered behind Liverpool’s line to play the striker onside as Gary Taylor-Fletcher’s ball reached him on the edge of the box, and the former Crewe man converted with some relish.

At the end, boos rang around Anfield with some venom, fans clearly unimpressed with this sub-standard offering from their side, and if this performance is repeated at Goodison in a fortnight, then you fear for Hodgson’s future.