Match ticket (Anfield Upper): £45
Programme: £3
Train ticket (Sheff-Liverpool): £22-60
Tea at the Walker Gallery: £1-60
Bus to Anfield: £4
Total: £76-20
In Liverpool’s twice-yearly bulk sale, we had only managed to get two matches this year, so I tried for this one in late availability sales. This was a 5.30 kick off, and we had to book train tickets late, but looking at the breakdown here, we didn’t do too badly with costs. I was actually looking forward to this today, as Liverpool had done reasonably well away at City, and had flattened Tottenham again at White Hart Lane. For all the changes, and the muted win against Southampton, they were looking reasonable bets to continue their good form from last year. How wrong I was!
We were sat in the Anfield Road upper (right above the away fans), where we had watched Crystal Palace last year, which was also when I’d had a water bottle confiscated. Aston Villa scored an early goal (circa 11 minutes) via Agbonlahor and the game was pretty much set up from there. Like a growing number of teams, Villa seemed perfectly capable of grabbing a goal at Anfield, sitting on the lead, and frustrating the home team.
Despite tons of possession, Liverpool lacked purpose, bite and creativity (exactly what Suarez gave them last year). Adam Lallana looked seriously out-of-sorts, Balotelli didn’t look match fit, and Gerrard looked tired. Sideways pass to sideways pass ensued, and even a substitute appearance from Sterling couldn’t bring any joy to Liverpool. Villa are now something of a bogey team in recent years at Anfield, and this continued when they wrapped up a neat 1-0 victory here. This has frankly been a bad start to the season for Liverpool, and while I’m sure it will pick up, they’ll need to improve form soon if they want to keep pace with the big guns.
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