Liverpool 3 Valerenga 3
Liverpool’s pre-season form continued to stutter as they were held to a draw by Norwegian outfit Valerenga.
Liverpool fielded their Summer signings Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam along with returning Pepe Reina, Jamie Carragher and Daniel Agger.
Indeed, it was Agger who proved his worth to the team, when fit, with two goals for the team, he really is a quality player for Liverpool.
Valerenga opened the scoring through Lars Iver-Strand on 14 mins, following some poor marking by Glen Johnson and Jamie Carragher.
The Norwegians doubled the lead minutes later when a very soft penalty was conceeded by Liverpool.
Fegor Ogude converted the spot-kick on 18 mins, despite Pepe Reina’s best efforts, to leave it two-nil to the home side.
Luckily and deservedly Liverpool got a goal back close to half-time with an Andy Carroll goal on 42 mins from a Liverpool free-kick.
This gave Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool hope going into the 2nd half and Daniel Agger scored from a header and then a second with a goal-box shot for Liverpool to lead 3-2 in Norway.
At that stage, Aquilani had come on for Charlie Adam and he grabbed everyone’s attention with his crisp passing, great corners and shots on goal.
A terrible amount of attention has been aimed towards Alberto Aquilani now that he is back playing for Liverpool, he is playing some great football for the Reds, even though he is the subject of constant rumour about him moving to Fiorentina and AC Milan.
Is he playing for his place in the Liverpool team or is he going back to Italy?
I hope he stays with us, Rafa saw his potential and took a risk on him, I think Kenny should do the same.
“The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.”
Bill Shankly