Source: Liverpool_Echo
Liverpool FC 1, Reading 2 (aet): Reds' nightmare season just gets worse
AFTER a weekend of high drama, football returned to the top of Liverpool's priority list last night.[LNB]With so much chatter nowadays about ownership and takeovers, debts and finances, the new stadium and internal politics, it is easy to forget a football club still exists at Anfield, one that used to be the pre-eminent force in Europe.[LNB]Those days, of course, have long since gone but one thing that will never change on the Red half of Merseyside is a desire to talk about events on the field; about passing and movement, goals, great players and ambitions.[LNB]It's a form of escapism or, more accurately, it used to be; Liverpudlians, you see, are caught in a terrifying nightmare, one where the farcical affairs in the boardroom are mirrored by the team's desperate lack of quality - it is heartbreaking to watch.[LNB]Just when you thought things could not get any worse, Anfield witnessed the most gutless performance of Rafa Benitez's five-and-a-half year reign, a display which deservedly sent them crashing out of another competition.[LNB]Disgrace is a word that does get used lightly even in this era of extreme hyperbole but, frankly, what else can you say about the situation now that Reading - 21st in the Championship, remember - have sent them tumbling out of the FA Cup?[LNB]Make no mistake, Liverpool, once a bastion of invincibility, is all but on its knees today; lacking leadership, devoid of direction, a calamity like the one 31,063 witnessed has been waiting to happen all season since the alarm bell ringing friendly in Espanyol.[LNB]There can be no excuses, no spin that the second half of the campaign will see them embark on the road to redemption; should this malaise continue, Liverpool will be lucky to finish in the top eight - the ramifications do not bare thinking about.[LNB]Having received rightful criticism for their poor second half display at the Madejski Stadium, it was not wrong to expect a positive response here from Liverpool but, incredibly, their start screamed lethargy.[LNB]Unable to string a sequence of meaningful passes together and failing to make the most of their superior talent, a sign of things to come arrived in the first minute when Fernando Torres was flattened by a crude challenge that effectively ended his night.
