Fowler's peace offering

PHIL THOMPSON's first Premiership game in full charge of Liverpool as caretaker manager proved a lot happier yesterday than Dave Bassett's home debut as Leicester's manager. A hat-trick by the recalled Robbie Fowler and a headed goal by Sami Hyypia enabled the Merseysiders to chalk up their second away win of the week and give the recuperating Gerard Houllier another tonic.

The recall of Fowler was significant, given that this was the first Liverpool team selected by Thompson and given the bad blood between the two Scousers not so long ago.

The victory was not quite as comfortable as the scoreline suggests. Leicester dominated long stretches of the match and might have got something out of it had Ade Akinbiyi taken four clear chances to add to the goal scored by Dennis Wise. But if they continue to play with the spirit they showed here, Leicester must have every chance of climbing off the bottom of the Premiership. Both sides had made changes, Liverpool mostly by choice, Leicester out of necessity. Fresh, if that is the right word, from their Champions League win in Kiev, the visitors brought in Stephen Wright, the England Under-21 international, for injured centre-back Stephane Henchoz and preferred Fowler and Jamie Redknapp to Nick Barmby and Vladimir Smicer.

As for Leicester, injury compelled them to replace Gary Rowett in defence and Muzzy Izzet in midfield with Frank Sinclair and Trevor Benjamin respectively.

Despite a pre-match rallying cry on the pitch by Bassett, this looked an unequal struggle from the start. That feeling grew even stronger when Liverpool went 2-0 up inside the first 10 minutes. It took Fowler only four of them to repay Thompson's faith, the striker steering in his first League goal of the season after Leicester goalkeeper Ian Walker had done very well to block the ferocious shot John Arne Riise blasted at him from a corner by Gary McAllister.

Then, six minutes later, Hyypia rose virtually unchallenged to glance a McAllister free-kick into the roof of the Leicester net. An embarrassingly heavy home defeat now looked on the cards; but Leicester, to their credit, got up off the canvas. A through-pass by Callum Davidson and a clever dummy by Dean Sturridge put Akinbiyi clear, only for the striker to waste the chance by shooting over the bar.

A chant of "There's only one Peter Taylor" followed, though this sounded more like an exercise in irony than a protest against the sacking of the former Leicester manager. Akinbiyi is one of the Taylor signings the Leicester fans regard as not being good enough for the Premiership. Nevertheless, the home side kept up the pressure, Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek punching out Benjamin's far-post header from a Robbie Savage cross.

With Akinbiyi having spurned another chance, from Matt Elliott's headed pass, Leicester must have thought they were beginning to control the game when Liverpool suddenly counter-attacked lethally a couple of minutes before the interval. They owed a great deal to Lee Marshall's failure to control a dropping ball, Danny Murphy pouncing on the error and then offering Fowler the chance to beat Walker with a left-footed shot to which the goalkeeper got a hand.

Liverpool made another change at the start of the second half, Patrik Berger replacing Steven Gerrard. The reason was not immediately clear, but it could have been that Thompson, with his side 3-0 up, saw an opportunity to rest Gerrard, patently jaded after his efforts for club and country in recent weeks, and give Berger, not long back from injury, some match practice.

Although only a timely interception by Sinclair stopped Fowler completing his hat-trick soon after the restart, it was Leicester who again forced the pace after the interval. Marshall should have put them back in contention when Benjamin, at the near post, flicked on a Wise corner, but the tall right-back snatched at the chance and blazed his shot high over the bar.

However, the introduction of Andrew Impey for Sturridge after 56 minutes led to something more positive for Leicester. It was Impey's pass, two minutes later, that released Davidson to deliver a centre for Wise, the smallest player on the field and completely unmarked, to guide the ball carefully past Dudek with his head. Akinbiyi should have made it 2-3 soon afterwards, but fluffed his shot from Benjamin's flick-on.

Akinbiyi's agony continued right to the end, the hapless centre forward somehow managing to head wide from six yards after 89 minutes to howls of derision from the home fans.

It did not help his or their mood when Liverpool promptly broke away for Fowler to spectacularly volley home his third goal from a centre by substitute Smicer and give a thoroughly false gloss to the scoreline. +

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