Is it Due to the Brilliance of Nir Davidovitch or Poor Preparation of Liverpool

Liverpool’s performance against Maccabi Haifa was pathetic given their status, players, training, budget, etc, compared to a team from Israel. They only managed to creep into the Champions League via a draw in Kiev 1-1 which gave them a 3-2 aggregate win and savings in the tune of £12million had they lost that game.

Liverpool looked scoring more in the game but goalkeeper Nir Davidovitch was phenomenal both in position and in timing that stopped the assault by the European club. His presence and gameplay ensured Liverpool could not assert their firepower holding them of any spectacular performance. To add salt to injury, Israel side claimed that they were supposed to have a better game had it been played on their turf and instead just settled for a draw. That’s a sign of confidence from their side who previously thought they will get demolished by a top European team only to realize they could have had them had it been on their homecourt soil.

In defense of Liverpool, they have a string of injury in Jamie Carragher, John Arne Riise, Steven Gerrard and during the game itself Fabio Aurelio and Mohamed Sissoko had to be carried off because of injury.
Pennant, Crouch, Daniel Agger, Xabi Alonso and Mark Gonzalez played with determination as they held off a highly energized and attacking Israeli side to save their team from embarassment.

Rafael Benitez on the other hand did not use the injuries as an excuse but rather poor preparation on their part: It has been very hard to get the players to the same level of physical preparation.

They have all returned from the summer at different times because of the World Cup and that has made things very difficult.

We dominated the first half and should have scored more, and had it not been for their goalkeeper who was man of the match, we would have done so.

We could not score the second goal to finish the tie, and that gives teams confidence to keep going right to the end. Haifa are a well organised, good attacking side and they did give us problems.

But we created by far the most chances and deserve to go through to the group stages. Maybe after the next couple of weeks and the when the international break is over you will see a side that can progress more together.

Whatever, it is, Liverpool needs to step up and get to the next level to avoid any close matches especially on a supposedly no contest game.

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