Result: Liverpool 2 - 1 West Ham

It looked like a disaster start to the game when Bobby Zamora scored a freak goal (with some extra style thrown in) but Liverpool fought hard today to beat West Ham 2-1 at Anfield to secure their first win of the new league campaign and remain unbeaten at Anfield since last October.

Missing Jamie Carragher, John Arne Riise and Momo Sissoko to name but a few was going to make things difficult for Liverpool, something compounded by Bobby Zamora’s strike within the first twelve minutes. Zamora, set free on the right wing made it to the edge of the box, looking up for the cross to Marlon Harewood only to mis-cue his shot and rifle into the back of the net, Pepe Reina parrying the ball to Zamora’s advantage.

The goal was certainly enough to rattle Liverpool’s cage at the early stages of the game and it could have been 2-0 only moments later when Harewood’s shot just nicked past the outside of the post to save Liverpool’s blushes.

Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia worked tirelessly in midfield through the first half, along with Jermaine Pennant but it was Danny Agger who stole the golden moment of the first half, lifting a sublime shot into the top left corner of the goal from all of 30 yards to level the scores 1-1 on 42 minutes. From the moment the ball left his foot, even to see him in that space you could tell something special was about to happen and it certainly did.

Agger’s goal was enough to drive Liverpool towards a second before the break, a goal which they deservedly got through some excellent buildup work by Luis Garcia, skipping his way through the box to lay off a nice reverse pass for Peter Crouch, Crouch taking a deft touch to the right of Roy Carroll and firing low under Anton Ferdinand’s legs and into the back of the net.

The second half saw a much inspired Liverpool with some fierce pace to the opening 15 minutes of the half which also saw the introduction of Kuyt. Only 30 seconds on the pitch and he was already in firing mode, getting his first shot off wide right before coming close with a header across the goal mouth only moments later.

Kuyt too set up Craig Bellamy for a goal only to have the chance ruled offside, something which was quite frequent in the second half as West Ham pushed forward looking for more chances on goal.

West Ham too came close in the final ten minutes with Lee Bowyer missing a golden opportunity to level the scores while Pepe Reina saw much more positive action in the final minutes of the game pulling off some good stops.

Great to see the win and the goals, solid performance by Kuyt for his Premier League debut and I must saw I was quite impressed by Jermaine Pennant and Luis Garcia alike. No big injury worries thank God and a healthy three points in the bag. Roll on the next game.

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