Result: Maccabi Haifa 1 - 1 Liverpool

To be fair, I expected an awful lot more from Liverpool last night. Sure enought, there’s the Champions League qualification in the bag, a possible £10m in prize money and other revenue but again we’re left counting the cost of the encounter - this time looking at the loss of Momo Sissoko for a few weeks (possibly missing the Everton and Chelsea league games) along with Stephen Warnock.

After last night’s performance I think Liverpool can be highly thankful of Mark Gonzalez’ game winner at Anfield two weeks ago, his goal proving the vital difference after the draw last night. Even in a tense game, and having gone through a similar tense buildup over the past few days I have to admit that I thought Liverpool would have delivered with a bang last night, and they didn’t really do it.

Following a goalless first half, Peter Crouch put the side ahead with some good team work between himself and Jermaine Pennant. Pennant managed to flit past Magralishvili before picking out Crouch with a pinpoint cross on the near post to give Liverpool a 3-1 aggregate lead on 54 minutes, Crouch nearly boring a hole in the net with the header. Great strength in the buildup from Pennant though and nice to see the English connection starting to click.

It took only ten minutes though for Haifa to find an equaliser, Reina unable to hold onto Andersons’s allowed Colautti to tidy the ball into the back of the net. The goal gave Haifa the incentive to pick up their attacking game though neither they or Liverpool could find another goal in the game.

Steven Gerrard made an appearance during the second half, coming on to replace Momo Sissoko who had fallen quite awkwardly and is now looking at a few weeks out with a knee injury. Fabio Aurélio too made an appearance, coming on for the injured Stephen Warnock who is also looking at time out with an ankle injury, joining Jamie Carragher and John Arne Riise on the sidelines with the same.

The bonus side of things of course is that we’re in the draw on Thursday morning, we’ll see Dirk Kuyt in the Group Stage and we’ve got a European campaign to start building on.

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