Both my football teams won their games tonight, Plymouth Argyle beating Southampton 0 – 2 at St Mary’s in the Championship and Liverpool beating Inter Milan 2 – 0 at Anfield in the Champions League. Let’s start with Argyle’s visit to St Mary’s; Plymouth started brighter than the home team dominating much of the early play creating chances and looking threatening to which the Saints had no answer to. Plymouth eventually made the breakthrough in the 31st minute; Peter Halmosi picking up Lilian Nalis’ slick pass into the penalty area to clip the ball into the top of the net! Two minutes later Argyle found themselves 2 – 0 up with Jim Paterson picking up on a loose ball outside of the penalty area and unleashed a curling shot that had the beating of keeper Kelvin Davis. It was very much one way traffic for the remainder of the half but Argyle couldn’t extend their lead further. In the second half, Southampton came out with more fight and determination and started to peg back the Pilgrims restricting Argyle’s opportunities to push forward. The Saints had their chances to reduce the deficit but didn’t take them firing wide and high from close range. A good away win for Argyle moving the Pilgrims upto 7th in the table just two points off the play-off spot. Now it’s time to look forward to Saturday’s match at Home Park against Burnley. The Clarets have had indifferent form of late only winning one of their past three games while Argyle are riding high on a wave of confidence winning their last three games.
Rafa Benitez will be pleased to see Liverpool win against Inter Milan at Anfield after the weekends home FA cup defeat to second tier Barnsley. Liverpool had a big break in the 30th minute of the game when Marco Materazzi saw red for a second bookable offence. But the Reds found it hard to break down 10-man Inter; being frustrated by the Italians as they adopted a very defensive posture while Liverpool adopted a very attacking posture almost playing a 4-2-4 formation! Liverpool piled on the pressure and got their reward in the 85th minute; Dirk Kuyt controlling Jermaine Pennant’s long cross to fire off a angled shot that took a wicked deflection to deceive Julio Cesar to give Liverpool a 1 – 0 lead with five minutes left to play. Then suddenly out of almost nothing Steven Gerrard unleashed a low drive that crept just inside the post to make it 2 – 0 one minute into injury time. Liverpool never seem to make it easy on themselves, how many times have Liverpool left it to the last moment in Europe to make it happen? So the Reds take a two goal advantage to the San Siro and more importantly kept a clean sheet, so the deck to most definitely stacked in Liverpool’s favour as they inflicted Inter’s first defeat in all competitions for five months!
