Hearts 0-1 Liverpool

Chris Martin

Liverpool travelled to Edinburgh to take on Hearts looking to take a lead back to Anfield and qualify for the group stages of this year’s Europa League.

Overview

With half an eye on Sunday’s game against Manchester City, boss Brendan Rodgers tinkered somewhat with his starting 11, although he was quick to highlight that this was not correlated to any lack of respect for the SPL outfit.

The new style Liverpool were clearly instructed to stick to their possession based style of play – something that was quite visibly a new process for some of the players as many started with fairly slow and deliberate passing – often leading the team into trouble.

Hearts provided a much welcome tonic for Scottish football with their performance, a year on from Tottenham’s demolition of them on the same ground the Edinburgh based club battled bravely and showed great determination as they looked to use their impressive work rate as a leveller. Whilst not creating many clear cut chances, they did cause a few Liverpool fans to slightly perspire with several decent shots at goal.

Team News

Brendan Rodgers handed a first start to 17 year old Raheem Sterling, much to many fans delight. He was just one of a host of changes to the Red’s starting line-up as the manager looked to rotate things and keep players fresh for the visit of Manchester City this weekend.

Hearts

MacDonald; Grainger, McGowan, Barr, Webster; Zaliukas, Paterson, Templeton, Taouil; Sutton, Novikovas

Liverpool

Reina; Kelly, Carragher, Agger, Robinson; Spearing, Adam, Henderson; Shelvey, Borini, Sterling

The Match

The match started at a fairly high tempo for a Europa League tie, with the home team spurred on by a loud and passionate crowd determined to play their part. It therefore came as no surprise that Hearts settled the quicker in the opening stages as their pressing disrupted Liverpool’s ability to pick out their passes, often resulting in wayward attempts leading to turnover of possession in dangerous areas.

As the home team sought to capitalise on their early dominance youngster David Templeton twice looked lively with his pace managing to cause the Red’s defence problems, twice firing over with decent efforts sandwiched between a looping attempt from Arvydas Novikovas which caused keeper Pepe Reina to scramble.

Mid-way through the first half Liverpool slowly began to find young Raheem Sterling in space on that left and the winger made good use of the ball on several occasions, proving that he was equally capable of causing the fullback headaches by both cutting inside or getting to the by-line. Indeed it was the youngster that was the architect in the best chance of the half which fell to new signing Fabio Borini. With Hearts looking to switch the play Sterling anticipation a cross-field pass well and with a great first touch found himself sprinting through on goal, he unselfishly squared to Borini however the forward could only slam his effort against the post when perhaps he should have done better.

The second half became more of a settled affair with the home side beginning to pay the price for their early pressing as the slowly tired allowing Liverpool more time to get their passing game going. On several occasions Jordan Henderson and Jonjo Shelvey looked to have released Borini clear through on goal, only for the linesman to perhaps unjustly rule the striker to be offside.

With the pressure starting to build and momentum gently swinging towards the Red’s, Martin Kelly produced an excellent cross aiming for Borini that was eventually turned into his own net by the unfortunate Webster to provide Liverpool with the win and an away goal to take back to Anfield.

Quotes

“It was still a bit tight and the medics’ advice was it was too much of a risk for him to play.” – Rodgers dispels the Carroll conspiracy theories

“He’s only a 17-year-old and it looks like he’s got a big future at the club.” – Carragher predicts big things for starlet

“If you are going to have good possession you’ve got to have good positioning on the pitch and I don’t think they had that in the first half.” – Rodgers explains where improvements are needed.

Conclusion

Whilst this was far from the stella performance many would have been hoping for, the game did provide important further competitive action for several members of the squad. As Liverpool look to familiarise themselves with a completely new system the chance for several members of the squad currently on the fringes of the team to gain some minutes will prove important for when they are called upon in upcoming league fixtures. Similarly, a first start for Sterling offered fans a glimpse of what could be still to come. Although it was very obvious that the young winger is still very raw, it is also clear that there is a lot of potential there for Rodgers and his staff to work with.

With attention now turning to Sunday and and visit of reigning champions Manchester City the result will have served as a welcome tonic for players and fans alike as they look to put the setback of West Brom behind them and retain the positivity spoken of in pre-season.