April 23, 2011 - Liverpool vs Birmingham: 5:0 - Maxi's hat-trick led to bigget league win since September 2009 as 5th place hope stays alive.

LFC Player of the Game: Maxi Rodriguez - the 3 goals he scored may all look easy goals, but Maxi is an expert in running into open space from deep. The "scoring midfield" is back to his very best form under King Kenny. Of course, Maxi could have never revive without a star dribbler like Suarez. Maxi had proved that he deserved to stay in the team to provide scoring ability from the bench.

Game Summary:

Since King was in charge, Liverpool had beaten Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City and earned a draw vs Arsenal away. However, they had not shown their ability to beat middle to low ranked teams. Finally, Liverpool had shown that they are ready to show their ability to beat teams outside of top 5 in this game vs Birmingham in convincing fashion. Liverpool totally dominated from start to finish. Due to yet another disappointing injury to Carroll, King was forced to switch his line-up by pushing Kuyt to play up-front with Suarez and gave Maxi another starting chance after his disappointing performance in the Europa League elimination tie against Barga. This time, Maxi would not let the starting opportnity vanished by scoring his first hat-trick in Red jersey. The three goals Maxi scored may not be great goals, but they had all been vital. Maxi opened the account in the 7th minute bascially set the tone for LFC. Although LFC aimed to develop the great potential big and small striker partnership between Carroll and Suarez, Kuyt had proved to be a more ideal partnership with Suarez so far. Kuyt had never been in greater form in his LFC career than now as Suarez had developed great understanding with Kuyt. They are both very hard working and make themselves available for passes by running into open space. There is certainly great chemistry developing between themselves with both always made good one-two pass with each other. With Suarez's dribbling and flair trouble opposing defenders, Kuyt was able to run into open space for a bounced shots. In fact, since the arrival of Suarez, players like Maxi, Kuyt and Meireles had all have great scoring runs. Suarez had made everyone playing around him better. Tribute had to be paid to King Kenny for developing great one-touch-passing/pass-and-move in the diamond of Meireles-Kuyt-Maxi-Suarez. The movement without the ball cannot be under-estimated. In the present LFC offensive play, always we can see Meireles,Kuyt,Maxi,Suarez made great run into the box, with all 4 offensive players kept moving around to different positions without staying in one particular area to wait for the pass. It makes the offensive plays unpredictable and opposing teams had nightmare in man-marking LFC attacking players. Of course, the current LFC offense cannot be executed without a magical dribbler Suarez. In the long-run, Liverpool really needs to sign another Suarez's type of player with dribbling ability and flair. Suarez cannot be depended upon like Torres in the past. We need a reliable substitute for Suarez.

Starting line-up: (4-4-2)

Reina
Flanagan Carragher Skrtel Robinson
Meireles Spearing Lucas Maxi
Kuyt Suarez

Goals: Maxi '7, '66, '73, Kuyt '23, J.Cole '86

April 16, 2011 - Arsenal vs Liverpool: 1:1 - Madness in the 11-minute added time as LFC youngsters came through big challenge.

LFC Player of the Game: Lucas Levia - No one played well in attack while everyone played hard to keep the Gunners from scoring in the defensive end. Yet, Lucas' earning two key fouls in the 11th added minute in the 2nd half was the turn-around of the game for LFC. In reality, we all LFC fans know Lucas was faking for the foul. Lucas had become a very smart player and even his faking skills has improved!

Game Summary:

This was an incredible challenge for LFC playing at Highbury vs Gunners who was still in league title race. Liverpool tried to use Carroll height to attack Arsenal's weakness in defending headers. However, Arsenal's was in control of possession with their flair and skills on the ball. Liverpool did not have the wingers to supply crosses to Carroll and had been forced to defend deep. Still, teenagers full-backs Flanagan and Robinson showed their posie in the game and had played in a key role to stop Gunners from scoring. Near middle of 2nd half, a scary scene seen Carragher got a head crashed and went unconscious. He was substituted out of the game and it was a tribute for the young Liverpool to be able to keep Gunners from scoring in the regulation time until Spearing made a mistake by fouling in the penalty box and gifted a penalty to Van Perise in the 94 minute. Due to Carragher's injury, referee supposed to give around 8-11 minutes added time. Just as all LFC fans including myself thought the 94th minute Gunners' penalty bascially left us too little time to make any kind of comeback, we got a miracle! Lucas Levia got fouled in the edge of the penalty box and awarded LFC a free-kick. After Suarez's free-kick was blocked, the ball went straight back to Lucas in the penalty box. The silly Arsenal RB Eboue made an unnecessary push on Lucas and earned LFC a big chance to tie the game. Great PK taker Kuyt made the PK and I was overjoyed by the 1-1 result. This was a key result for Liverpool, giving LFC big confidence boost and belief to keep their great winning run going to chase for the 5th Europa League spot. The mistake for Gunners in the closing minute yet again showed that Gunners still lacked the poise and experience to win the big game in crunch moment to challenge for title.

Starting line-up: (4-4-2)

Reina
Flanagan Carragher Skrtel Robinson
Kuyt Spearing Lucas Merieles
Carroll Suarez

Goals: Kuyt '101 (PK)

April 11, 2011 - Liverpool vs Man.City: 3:0 - 35M striker opened his account as LFC crashed the sorry City!!!

LFC Player of the Game: Andy Carroll- 35M striker completely out-performed Manchster City's high-priced strikers Balotelli and Dzeko.

Game Summary:
Liverpool was in complete chaos when they made their visit to Manchester City in early months of the season under Hodgson when they were easily hammered by 3 goals. Although Liverpool had been able to beat top teams such as Manchester United and Chelsea since King Kenny was in charge, many LFC faithful expected this game to be a tough encounter even playing in Anfield. On paper, Manchster City may seemed to have an edge with their multi million players such as Tevez and Dzeko. Good news for LFC was Manchster City would have to face Manchester United in FA Cup semi-final 5 days later, so Manchster City had not shown total focus in this game.

Since full-backs Glen Johnson and Martin Kelly suffered from long-term injury, King Kenny had forced to play CB Carragher and Wilson on the full-backs position without success due to their lack of speed to defend opposing quick wingers. To solve the full-backs problem, King Kenny took a gutty move by starting 17 year old RB John Flanagan in this massive encounter. As the injury-proned Aurelio injured again in the early 1st half, another 17 year old LB Jack Robinson was also given chance to shine. Both young full-backs exceeded all expectation by shutting down Manchester City England international wingers Adam Johnson and James Milner.

However, the man making the headline was 35M big striker Carroll. Finally getting back into form, Carroll scord two great goals that led to important victory for LFC. The two goals Carroll scored was in fact Carroll's trademark. The first goal was a powerful left-footed long-range rocket, with the 2nd goal being an accurate and powerful header. Hopefully Carroll will be able to maintain his fitness and score more goals for LFC.

Starting line-up: (4-4-2)

Reina

Flanagan Carragher Skrtel Aurelio

Kuyt Spearing Lucas Merieles

Carroll Suarez

Goals: Carroll '13, Kuyt '34, Carroll '35

April 4, 2011 - West Brom vs Liverpool.: 2:1 - Another struggle after international week as Hodgson got the last laugh...

LFC Player of the Game: Luiz Suarez, if any...

Game Summary:

Let's face it, Liverpool is still in rebuilding stage. Since King Kenny took over, Liverpool has been able to beat top sides such as Manchester United and Chelsea. However, they still have failed to beat lower teams like West Brom, West Ham and Blackpool. Liverpool has to rely on hard work to beat the top teams and they tend to be out-worked by lower teams. There is simply no other alternatives for Liverpool other than out-working their opponents in order to gain any victory in the ever demanding league. Since the team is lacking of strength in depth at the moment, fatigue caused from tight schedule such as European games or international game week can basically kill any chance of Liverpool's chance to perform.


Starting line-up: (4-3-3)

Reina

Carragher Skrtel Kyrgiakos Wilson

Merieles Lucas Spearing

Kuyt Carroll Suarez

Goals: Skrtel