Football News

Liverpool’s solid backline will pose problems for Marseille

LIVERPOOL: Liverpool have not found goals as easy to come by this season as might have been expected from a squad boasting a strike quartet collectively valued at more than £60mil.

Rafael Benitez's squad will however go into today's Champions League clash with crisis-hit Marseille bolstered by the knowledge that their defensive form is currently as good as at any time in the club's illustrious history.

Jose Reina has yet to concede a goal in open play this season and a first English Premier League clean sheet at Wigan on Saturday ensured the class of 2007 have equalled a 30-year-old club record for the best defensive start to the season.

Reina's form has been key to that run but the Spanish goalkeeper insists it is the way Liverpool defend through the team that means their former striker Djibril Cisse is likely to find life difficult when he returns to Anfield with his new team-mates.

Fooling around: Liverpool's Jose Reina (right) and Fernando Torres during a training session at their Melwood training complex in Liverpool yesterday. Liverpool are set to play Marseille in the Champions League today. – Reuters

“We're proud of the record but we all defend together so it's everyone's record,” Reina said. “We have only conceded from penalties so far, which is important. It is something we can be proud of but we must keep working in that way.”

He added: “We know that to win the most important thing is to keep clean sheets. Then we have possibilities to score with the quality of players we have here.”

Liverpool's cause has probably been helped by the turmoil at Marseille, who last week sacked Albert Emon and installed former Belgium defender Eric Gerets as their new coach.

Emon paid the price for the club's disastrous domestic form. Marseille have won just once in nine league matches this season and are currently hovering just above the relegation zone in France's top division.

Among those hoping to exploit the disarray in the French side's ranks will be Yossi Benayoun, who has demonstrated why Benitez snapped him up from West Ham in the summer with two goals in his last two appearances, including the winner at Wigan at the weekend.

The Israeli playmaker appears to have been ear-marked by Benitez as the kind of player who can provide the extra guile required to unlock defences in cagey European clashes, but he will not be banging on Benitez's door demanding a starting place against Marseille.

“I can't say I deserve to play in this game or this game, because we have a lot of great players,” Benayoun said. “For me the most important thing when I'm on the pitch, whether it's for 10 minutes or from the start, is to prove that I'm good enough to try to do the things I was lucky enough to do on Saturday.”

“We have to respect the decision of the manager. We have a lot of great players so we just have to wait for our chance.”

After a somewhat fortunate 1-1 draw in Porto Liverpool need to beat Marseille to avoid putting themselves under too much pressure for the remaining four matches in their group, and history is on their side as far as realising that objective goes.

No French club has ever won at Anfield and Liverpool have won eight out of nine of the Anglo-French meetings in European competition at the famous old stadium.

Liverpool will be without injured duo Daniel Agger and Xabi Alonso but otherwise Benitez will be selecting from a full squad.

Marseille, meanwhile, will be without Samir Nasri, the 20-year-old touted as the “new Zidane”, and centreback Jacques Faty as a result, respectively, of illness and injury. – AFP