Both Plymouth Argyle and Liverpool had their respective games decided by a penalty kick, an away victory for the Pilgrims and a home loss for the Reds. Plymouth came from 2 – 0 down away at the Globe Arena to win the game 2 – 3 with three goals in 15 minutes of second half play. Liverpool despite being the better side, lost 1 – 2 to Manchester United from the spot on the 81st minute. It feels like being in the midsts of Lockbusters Escape Game Orlando.
I’ll start with Plymouth Argyle and their miraculous escape; coming from two down to win the game 2 – 3 against The Shrimpers. I was following the game via Twitter and the BBC live feed and when the second Morecambe goal went in on the 51st minute, I stopped following as I thought it was going to be a massacre. I checked my Twitter feed 25 minutes later and it was suddenly 2 – 2, On loan Watford midfielder pulling one back in the 72nd minute before Warren Feeney equalised from the penalty spot on 80 minutes, suddenly it was game on with ten minutes remaining of the match!
Lady luck was definitely shining on Argyle on Saturday, Andrew Parrish unfairly challenged Paris Cowan-Hall and Feeney made no mistake in converting the resulting penalty with three minutes, plus six minutes of added time remaining on the clock. It was a nail-biting nine minutes, every Argyle fan praying that three points are not thrown away at the last moment, like we’ve seen before, thankfully our prayers were answered. I’m not religious but I will become so if it means Argyle win.
Argyle manager Carl Fletcher is still under fire from the fans as the first half performance was pretty damn poor; As I said last time, Fletcher was never my first or even fiftieth choice for manager, but I am not the man who pays the wage bill. We’ll see what the coming months bring; all I can say is it’d suck to end up losing our football league status the year after avoiding oblivion.
Liverpool, however were the better team on the day based upon the reports I have read but still lost the fixture, even Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said that his team’s performance was poor! Which makes it even worse, when the rival team’s manager claims his team were poor, it just adds salt to the wound and even more so when it’s in front of their home crowd.
Steven Gerrard opened the scoring shortly after half time despite being a man down after Jonjo Shelvey was sent off for a professional foul six minutes before half time. But that lead was short-lived, Rafael Da Silva equalising five minute later. Then disaster struck in the 81st minute, Glen Johnson conceded a penalty, Robin van Persie putting it into the back of the net from the spot!
Former manager Kenny Dalglish was fired because of poor results, now Liverpool have Brendan Rogers as manager and he has led Liverpool to two points from fifteen, which means that the Reds currently sit in the bottom three of the Premier League. If this run continues, Rogers will be gone before the January transfer window, based upon John W Henry’s expectations; I don’t believe he is upto the job, managing Swansea and managing Liverpool are two very different kettle of fish!