Nick Barmby missing for the past month cannot step in
Posted in General on 14. Oct, 2010
Nick Barmby, missing for the past month, cannot step in.A poor defensive performance by Michael Duberry and Jonathan Woodgate cried out for the return of Dominic Matteo and Lucas Radebe, but the former is hors de combat until February and Radebe broke down again on Friday morning Olivier Dacourt, Seth Johnson, Stephen McPhail… the flurry of injury blows is one factor that not even Venables has experienced before.There is another: the hostility of a section of the home crowd. Barcelona’s supporters, with their white handkerchiefs, have never believed in sparing a coach’s sensibilities, but before things turned sour there, “Mister” Venables had delivered the Spanish championship – his best riposte to those insisting “put your cups on the table”. The Nou Camp had never heard of the young coach recommended by Bobby Robson in 1984 and therefore had their pessimistically low expectations exceeded; Leeds, the doldrum years forgotten, had been encouraged to think big again as O’Leary led them to a Champions’ League semi-final and then, for much of last autumn, the top of the Premiership.”We are a club that panics very quickly,” the Irishman warned in an interview with The Independent last March, reading the runes correctly as a run of defeats set in amid the fallout from the Woodgate-Bowyer trial. Seven wins in the last 10 matches could not save him from that panic, an air of frustrated impatience pervading the directors’ box and the terraces.
It was (presumably) from a section of the latter area, rather than the former, that a chorus of “Terry, Terry, time to go” was heard as Malaga took surprisingly complete control towards the end of Thursday’s tie.”I’ve not had it [crowd abuse] that much before,” Venables said “You get used to it You don’t want it and it’s not comfortable. At the end of the game they were disappointed and that’s natural I try not to pay too much attention to the crowd I just want the players to hold up. Considering the circumstances, I think they’ve held up pretty well.”And the manager? “I would prefer the world to be on my side, but they’re not I’ve not doubted whether I should have taken the job It’s an experience, a tough experience. Whether it’s my toughest, I don’t know, I won’t know that until I’ve finished I’m only in the middle of this one. So I’m just doing my job and that’s what I intend doing, unless anything happens that makes me feel different As yet, I’m carrying on with what I’m doing.”. G?rd Houllier has always favoured team graft over individual genius.
That is why the Frenchman has been asking his players to rediscover their self-belief as a collective unit in recent weeks. Beggars, though, cannot be choosers, so Michael Owen’s return to goalscoring habits will have to do for now. This was yet another bitty performance, where the Reds continued to play as if they had the blues. The greatest concern is lack of variety in the team’s approach. No one was expecting Houllier’s strugglers to knock the ball around with effortless ease or score a glut of goals, but the repetitive use of the long ball down the middle produced only two clear chances all evening.Ian Rush – now he did know where the net was – admits that he was surprised Liverpool were not able to hit the target more often on Thursday.