Standard Liege 0-0 Liverpool

Liverpool escaped with a draw after being dominated by Standard Liege in the first leg of their Champions League third qualifying round tie.
Liege's Marouane Fellaini had an early header that hit the inside of the post but was deemed not to have crossed the line before keeper Pepe Reina cleared.
Reina then saved a Dante Bonfim penalty as Liege spurned another chance.
The Reds were poor and Igor De Camargo put a free header wide as Liege were left to rue their profligacy.
In contrast, Liverpool will have breathed a collective sigh of relief after the game as they looked rusty and clearly struggled to make the step up from pre-season to a competitive game.
They lacked urgency and sharpness and a committed Liege - backed by a vociferous home crowd - quickly took advantage of their lacklustre rivals.
Liege may argue that Fellaini's early attempted header, which appeared to have come off his shoulder, went over the line but the call was too tight to be sure.
In truth, the midfielder should have done better as he rose unmarked to meet the set-piece before the home side had an even better chance to go in front.
The Belgians were awarded a penalty after Reds left-back Andrea Dossena was punished for blocking a cross with his arm, despite the offence appearing to be just outside the box.
Dante's spot-kick was too close to Reina and the keeper, who is renowned for being a specialist penalty stopper, saved with his body as he dived low to his right.
The visitors began to gradually find their feet as Liege took a breather after their energetic start and Liverpool struggled to half-time without another further mishaps.
But the break and any instructions from Reds boss Rafael Benitez did not help Liverpool's form as Liege continued to overpower the Premier League side.
De Camargo had a sight on goal for Liege when he latched on to a pull back from the byeline, only to strike his shot tamely and allow Liverpool to clear the danger.
The Liege striker had an even better chance shortly afterwards when he had a free header from Dante's cross but put his effort agonisingly just wide.
The Reds were missing skipper Steven Gerrard from their starting line-up because of a thigh injury but he was forced to come on to help their struggles.
He curled a free-kick narrowly over the crossbar as he immediately got involved and, even though Liverpool were second best, they go into the second leg on the week commencing 25 August still level.
Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez:"We were not playing well. The only positive thing you can take is that we didn't concede a goal.
"We know we have to win at Anfield and have confidence we can. We will have had more games and more players.
"There were a lot of things that we were not doing well and everyone is upset that it was a bad performance."
Standard Liege coach Laszlo Boloni:"Liverpool maybe came here asleep and not expecting this sort of game.
"Maybe, though, we have woken them up for the second leg, which will be much harder for us.
"We felt that if we did not lose this first leg, we would still be in with a chance. We know, though, that we still have to score and that could be the problem.
"But I want to praise my team. They attacked Liverpool from the start and when their goalkeeper pulled the ball back from behind the line, maybe the referee was asleep too."
Standard Liege: Aragon, Dante, Dalmat, Defour, Mbokani, De Camargo, Mikulic (Nicaise 90), Camozzato, Sarr, Fellaini, Witsel.Subs Not Used: Devriendt, Goreux, Toama, Benko, Ingrao, Dembele.
Booked: Camozzato, Mikulic.
Liverpool: Reina, Arbeloa, Dossena, Carragher, Agger, Alonso, Plessis, Benayoun, Kuyt (El Zhar 83), Keane (Gerrard 67), Torres.Subs Not Used: Cavalieri, Hyypia, Voronin, Pennant, Insua.
Booked: Alonso.
Att: 25,000
Ref: Tom Ovrebo (Norway).

Liverpool BEATS Rangers 4-0

Youngster David Ngog guided Liverpool to a 4-0 win over a Glasgow Rangers side at Ibrox on Saturday afternoon

The other goal scorers were Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso and Yossi Benayoun. After two boring pre-season matches, finally we got to see some thrilling action.
Keane and Torres partnered up top for just about 45 minutes, but both of them showed good technique and were also aware of each other to link up well on several occasions.
On 23 minutes, Liverpool took the lead as Damien Plessis’ long-distance hit was spilled by ‘Gers keeper Allan McGregor with Torres on there to tap home his first strike of pre-season.
Diego Cavalieri was also impressive at the other end would two good stops. However, he was outdone by Nacho Novo, who went round him, only for left back Andrea Dossena to clear of the line.
Liverpool made five changes at the break with Carragher, Torres, Skrtel, Arbeloa and Plessis coming off and Hyypia, Ngog, Alonso, Darby and Agger entering.
Just when Rangers were about to score, Ngog scored a cracker. The French youngster took made it 2-0 on 56 minutes, turning his man one way and the other to score a brilliant goal.
With that, the Reds made some more changes with Insua, Nemeth, Spearing replacing Gerrard, Kuyt and Keane.
On 58 minutes, Insua burst down the left, finding Nemeth whose shot was blocked, and Benayoun was there at the back post to score.
Then it became 4-0 after Alonso converted a penalty on the 70th, when Nemeth was brough down by Christian Dailly.

Liverpool boss delighted to see Torres score

Fernando Torres has broken his duck for Liverpool in their penultimate pre-season friendly against Shanghai Shenhau.
The £20m striker picked up a Yossi Benayoun pass and chipped it home as Liverpool recorded a 2-0 win in the Rotterdam tournament.
Captain Steve Gerrard sent a curling 20-yard shot home for the second.
"Getting off the mark will give Torres confidence heading into the new season," said Reds boss Rafael Benitez.
"I was very pleased with Fernando, it was very important for him to score his first goal for Liverpool.
"When Peter Crouch first joined us, everyone was asking when he was going to score. Torres has now got that and that takes the pressure off.
"Both goals were really good and I was very pleased with the performance of my players."
Liverpool will aim to round off their pre-season programme with a good performance against hosts Feyenoord on Sunday.

Penalty defeat for Reds in Asia

Liverpool took on South Coast Premier League opposition Portsmouth in the humid heat in Hong Kong on Friday infront of a feisty and loud sell-out crowd.
The big debate that lasted until literally seconds before kick off was if Liverpool’s new record signing Fernado Torres would play any part, and thanks to some last minute work from the Premier League’s chief executive and the thumbs off approval of Pompey boss Harry Redknapp ensured he would.
Portsmouth kicked off the game, and straight away Liverpool were on top, having most of the posession but not doing much with it. The first real chance of the game fell to Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt, who was starting alongside fellow Dutchman Ryan Babel upfront. Aussie Harry Kewell crossed from the left flank for Dirk, who really had time to control the ball but decided to flick the ball in mid air without taking a touch, to see the ball fly over ex-Liverpool goalkeeper David James’ bar.
Kuyt had most of Liverpool’s best chances during the first half, including a fine save from James from a Jermanie Pennant cross, which he did really well to get in as he was under pressure and pushed to the byline by the Pompey defence only to have Kuyt’s well timed header saved by the long legs of James.
Liverpool’s Malian workhorse Momo Sissoko was excellent throughout the match and showed a lot of attacking intent with Pompey letting him roam. He nearly took advantage of this several times throughout the match. The first time he seemed like a man out of his comfort zone as he charged through the Pompey backline only to be pushed off the ball by Sol Campbell.
New signing Ryan Babel disappointingly didn’t see a lot of the ball and only got one real chance when a mistake from David James where he took a horrible first touch and a slip to the ground, unfortunately Babel couldn’t capatalise quick enough to get the ball round James.
Pompey’s best chance of the first half fell to Gary O’Neil, when a brilliant defense splitting past set him one on one with Pepe Reina who stood up tall to save well with his feet.
Half time: 0-0
Liverpool again like in the semi-final made no half-time substitutions and were hoping to make posession count and try and breach the Pompey goal for the first time. Liverpool got off to a sharp start with Sissoko making another blistering run into the box, and going down under pressure. I cried out for a penalty, but on a replay looked like Momo went down cheaply to Sol’s dismay. But Momo was everywhere, hopefully he’ll put performances in like this regularly. (Take note Rafa)
The thoughts of the game turned to Fernado Torres, with the crowd going crazy, just waiting for El Nino to grace the field. When it finally came after 5 minutes of the second half on for for Kewell, the crowd went wild. Torres for his 40 minutes on the pitch showed glimpses off the £20 million Liverpool spent on him. With a few quick fire passes, and an excellent give and go with the outstanding Sissoko. Hearts were in the mouths of all that were in the stadium, when an extremely well taken first touch that had Pompey centre back Sylvain Distin in pieces for El Nino to fire just over. His next ‘near’ moment of glory was when an excellently timed kick from Reina set Torres on his way heading for James’ goal for the Pompey defender to cover well, but when all looked lost a flick out at the ball made James have to come out with an extremely good save down to his right.
Dirk Kuyt nearly scored the winner for Liverpool in the dieing seconds when Torres put a ball that just had too much on it through to him, but James dived on the ball quickly to stop the Dutchman.
Liverpool faced another penalty shoot-out.
Portsmouth’s new signing Utaka took the first penalty and got off to an awful start by putting it wide of the left hand post. Liverpool went 2-1 up with two very well taken penalty’s by Captain Steven Gerrard who was given a ‘God like’ welcome from the fans when he came on for the last 5 minutes (which maybe wasn’t the best thing to do due to his injury, but it pleased the fans, and was probably a bit to do with endorsement and marketing in Asia for the club.) And also Dirk Kuyt took his well. But at 2-2 it all went down hill when new boy Fernado Torres stepped up and hit a very poorly taken penalty at the right height for James to make a fairly comfortable save. Then another new boy Yossi Benayon stepped up and had the same fate, but this time forced James to make an excellent low dive to his left hand corner to tip the ball past the post. Portsmouth’s Niko Kranjcar won it for Portsmouth with a very well taken penalty beating Pepe Reina easily in the Liverpool goal.
Same old story as last campaign cost us again. We just couldn’t take our chances, and turn games we dominated into a win. Hopefully this will change by the start of the new campaign.
Congratulations to Harry Redknapp and his boys for the win, and a nice touch from Harry in his post match comments saying we played some excellent football at times, and we will be up there challenging for the title next season.
We should have won it, but it wasn’t to be in a game we dominated.
Better look in Holland boys.
Portsmouth win the 2007 Asia Trophy, 4-2 on penalties.

Carragher impressed by Andriy Voronin

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has been won over by new arrival Andriy Voronin.Carragher told Liverpoolfc.tv: “He has looked very good. He’s a big international player alongside Shevchenko and he’s doing very well.
“The big thing at the moment is to get fit and ready for the season but doing well gives you confidence and hopefully he can take that into the season.
“He took his goals very well in Switzerland and also looked very sharp against Crewe. It’s great news for us if he carries this kind of form into the season.”

Voronin praised after Reds win

Rafael Benitez was full of praise for new boy Andriy Voronin after the striker's impressive debut in the 3-0 friendly win at Crewe.
Voronin carved out game's opening goal for youngster Lee Peltier (21)during an impressive 45 minutes on the field.
Peter Crouch (24) added a second three minutes later when he turned in John Arne Riise's cross.
And Youth Cup hero Ray Putterill added the Reds' third after 58 minutes with a shot from the edge of the box.
"We know that Voronin is going to be another option for us," Benitez told the club's website. "He has good game intelligence, he plays well between the lines and he has a lot of quality.
"He played well today in what was a good game for us. We used 22 players and I saw a lot of good things on the field.
"Two of the young lads scored as well which is good for them. They need to be involved in these kind of games to show what they can do."

Benitez delighted with hat-trick hero Idrizaj

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez was delighted with the hat-trick performance of Besian Idrizaj in yesterday's friendly victory over Wrexham.
Austrian striker Besian Idrizaj scored a 22-minute first half hat-trick as Liverpool won their first pre-season friendly 3-2 at Wrexham, and we invite you to watch the highlights online.
Besides watching the highlights and goals you can also view the entire 90 minutes from an entertaining afternoon at the Racecourse Ground. Rafael Benitez fielded two teams in the match with a selection of senior and young players. Jermaine Pennant had a superb match for Liverpool and the winger set up all of Idrizaj's hat-trick.
"It was a good work out for the boys and they will feel the benefit of playing 45 minutes of competitive football," he told liverpoolfc.tv.
"We wanted to use some of the younger players with some of the senior players and I thought it was a good game for the supporters.
"Of course we are pleased with Besian. We know he is a talent and that he has ability but he needs to mature now as a striker. Can he fight for a first team place this season? It depends on him and how he improves over the year. We have a lot of competition for places in attack but you never know."