It was confusing to see Salif Diao and Djimi Traore in the starting lineup, and it did little to fuel any optimism I had of us getting our first away win of the season. A good atmosphere in the first few minutes was quickly ended when Luis Boa Morte scored with a nice assist from, surprise, surprise, Mr Diao. He has to go it's as simple as that. Five minutes later it got even worse when Boa Morte did the same after taking advantage of Luis Garcia's unwillingness to put a foot in. In other words, bottling it. I don't want to sound like a moaner, but the whole team didn't have any bottle, passion or any ideas. You might as well have gone back to last year, as every time a player had time on the ball the others would stand there saying "Nah not me, just launch it up to van der Sar for a change."
At half-time a serious discussion about getting the four bells train ended when we came to the conclusion that if it didn't improve we'd be off after 60 minutes. On the train down, every now and again you'd hear a Red start whistling the "Ring of Fire" tune, the "der, der, der .." one. By the time we'd got to Euston everyone had it in their heads, and of course this carried on into the ground. The Redmen, obviously hearing this battle cry immediately got into action as Baros' shot took a wicked deflection off Zak Knight, a feller you deffo wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, and looped over van der Sar. By this stage Rafa had taken heed to the advice the travelling Kop offered him and replaced Salif 'We play in Red?' Diao with Xabi Alonso.
This goal lifted everyone and it was like watching a different team after that. Alonso, the new favourite in the crowd, was pinging every ball to red shirts, and each pass was met with a chrous of his name, whilst Jay Carragher made sure every Fulham attack, the few there were, were unsuccesful.
The funniest moment looking back, bar the Biscan goal, was the woman behind me who seemed to be Mrs Sensible. Take when Pembridge got taken out by Luis Garcia, it was met with a few cheers and as one lad put it, "Make sure you break the sheep sh#gging Blusnosed pr#ck's leg next time". But Mrs Sensible would claim it was a "rash challenge". Whilst everyone would shout "Just clear it Reds" for a corner, Mrs Sensible started her own little team talk. "Mark your space Reds, JC you're in Sami's area." I could just see Jamie turning round and going "Oh yeah sorry love." If you're reading, get a bit of a life please, rip into Biscan whilst he's warming up, or call Diao a tw#t or something.
Everybody in our end was convinced we'd get another, and after a good 20 from Cisse, who came close a few times, it was Luis Garcia's shot that gave Milan Baros a chance to stab it home, and that he did. Cue mayhem in the away end, and bruised shins for the majority of people. Five minutes later Josemi was sent off, a bit rash but fair. The fact that one lad only found out on the train home that Josemi got sent-off shows that we dealt with his dismissal superbly, especially Jamie Carragher. And no, the lad wasn't even [that] p#ssed.
With the away end booming the Reds kept on pushing and it was fitting that the man of the moment popped up to get the goal to put us ahead for only the second time away from home this season. A bit lucky maybe but well deserved, as Alonso's free kick deflected off Dioup and ended up in the back of the net. I'm sure that Xabi meant to get the deflection, and the way he pinpointed every pass means that it would be hard to argue.
As for Biscan's goal, the confused look on his face after he scored it said it all for me. Looking back now i'm still not quite sure what I saw, but I'll take it.
Bring on Deportivo
