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Your support makes all the difference.Going to Anfield these days is much like standing on one of those London tube stations where a recorded voice keeps reminding you to "Mind the Gap". The divide between Liverpool and Manchester United is constantly on the mind.
Yesterday it closed slightly, but if anyone from United had been watching, they would immediately have construed that this is a team lacking in too many of the necessary requirements to have much to say in the New Year's honours.
The hard-won but stylish victory Manchester United achieved over Aston Villa earlier in the week had twisted the knife deeper into Liverpool's already wounded pride. They had been left so far behind that they must have been wondering whether even an upturn in confidence, reinforced by Steve McManaman's bright performance against Crystal Palace last weekend, had any chance of turning into a proper revival of their title hopes.
Everything depends on United dropping points rather than Liverpool, or anyone else, catching up. The Kop is not ready to acknowledge it, but the runners-up spot, with a Champions' League place thrown in, is surely a more realistic ambition forLiverpool this season. Even to attain that you have to win fixtures like this: ones that, if not having "home win" written all over them, have it confidently pencilled in.
After all, Coventry's 4-0 victory over Spurs could be discounted on the grounds of the reasonable question: "Why only four?" Against that, Coventry often play well at Anfield, but yesterday found themselves reversing almost permanently early on as Liverpool set up a 14th-minute goal after threatening for all of the preamble.
Michael Owen's pace had already exposed the Coventry defence before a gorgeous long pass from Jamie Redknapp far out to McManaman on the right edge ended with a similarly exciting broad pass across the penalty area. Owen sidled in at the far post to grab one of his less demanding goals.
McManaman was suitably encouraged, exploiting the hesitant Coventry defence with his speed, and piercing the penalty area with several more driven centres that Robbie Fowler and Owen mysteriously failed to convert. Quite how Coventry reached half-time without conceding at least one more goal was almost as baffling as the decision of the referee to ignore any number of fouls that could have caused the game to degenerate.
Having restricted Liverpool's scoring, Coventry gradually moved them from a state of unchallenged match-winning confidence to frustration. For all of McManaman's mastery of the right side and Owen's sometimes breathtaking movement in and on the edge of the Coventry penalty area, much of Liverpool's play became too lateral. Meanwhile, their midfield only occasionally came up with anything truly imaginative, which allowed Paul Telfer and Trond Soltvedt to considerably increase Coventry's possession in that area. Even George Boateng, playing his first senior game, began to gather confidence and show some neat control and thoughtful passing.
Not for the first time this season, a match that Liverpool had started in dominating form drifted into one that they still controlled, but only marginally, and which then looked like turning into a draw. The more so when Magnus Hedman somehow beat away Owen's sharpest and most accurate shot of the day, and when Dion Dublin virtually offered Fowler a goal with a clearance that landed at his feet. Fowler, in his lethargic frame of mind in the second half, predictably failed to take advantage.
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