Owen saves face for Liverpool

MICHAEL OWEN saved Liverpool yesterday from the embarrassment of starting their latest push for the Premiership title with a draw at home against a much-weakened West Ham. Thrown out of their stride by the Hammers' ferocious tackling and pegged back by an outrageously cheeky Paolo Di Canio penalty in the first half, Liverpool won this game with a late goal by Owen, his second of the match.

The little England striker just cannot stop scoring at the moment. This fine, match-winning brace brought his total this season to six in the first three games - the Champions League qualifier first leg against FC Haka and the Charity Shield being the others. Sven-Goran Eriksson must be praying Owen can keep it up until England go to Munich for that crucial World Cup qualifier on Saturday week.

This looked a gross mismatch at the start. David James's unfortunate accident while playing for England in midweek added West Ham's new £3.5 million goalkeeper to a long injury list already containing three regulars in Frederic Kanoute, Steve Lomas and Ian Pearce plus two squad players, Hayden Foxe and Paul Kitson. It was a severe handicap for a squad that also lost Frank Lampard and Stuart Pearce during the summer.

Nor were the historical statistics calculated to lift the Londoners' spirits. They travelled to Merseyside without a win at Anfield for 38 years and with only one goal to show for their efforts there since the start of the Premiership nine years ago. The virtually untried Glenn Roeder must have wondered what he had done to deserve such bad luck right at the start of his reign as the unexpected successor to Harry Redknapp.

Liverpool had problems of their own, of course, not least the ongoing row between Robbie Fowler and assistant manager Phil Thompson that has led to the England striker's exclusion from the squad. Fowler was watching from the main stand and received a wonderful reception when he was spotted. But the Kop instantly chanted manager Gerard Houllier's name to show they were not going to take sides in the ongoing row.

Houllier, with much greater resources, was better placed than Roeder to compensate for the loss of important personnel. Here, with Emile Heskey injured, he just whistled up Finnish international Jari Litmanen as Owen's partner.

The quality Litmanen can bring to an attack was quickly evident as, after just five minutes, he stabbed the ball through to Owen and only the speed of Shaka Hislop off his line prevented a goal. It was soon evident, too, what West Ham's tactics would be as they closed down Liverpool at every opportunity and were not too fussy about how they did it.

It was no surprise when the combative John Moncur, protector of the back-four, chopped down Danny Murphy; but a few eyebrows shot upwards when Joe Cole had to be warned by referee Jeff Winter for clattering into Owen. This unfamiliar West Ham approach to containment succeeded for only 18 minutes, however. Then Owen fastened on to Gary McAllister's clever back-heel and waltzed past Christian Dailly and Rigobert Song before placing the ball into the corner of Hislop's net.

Amazingly, West Ham equalised after 29 minutes of Liverpool pressure, thanks largely to the generosity of the referee. Following a bad miskick by Jamie Carragher in the Liverpool penalty area, Stephane Henchoz seemed to be trying just to clear the ball when he got his legs tangled with those of Svetoslav Todorov and the Bulgarian striker went down like a sack of spuds. Winter thought otherwise, though, and pointed to the spot.

Di Canio stepped forward to take the kick and, completely unfazed by the attempts of the Kop to put him off, not only converted the penalty but did so with the most delicate of chips. West Ham might have gone ahead before the interval, too, as the extrovert Italian put Todorov and Cole in for shots that Liverpool goalkeeper Pegguy Arphexad saved at full stretch.

However, the visitors were fortunate to go in at half-time with a full complement of players. Shortly before the referee called a temporary halt to the proceedings, he showed the yellow card to Moncur for bringing down Litmanen as the Finn moved to go clear on to Owen's through-pass. As Moncur was virtually the last man, he could count himself lucky not to have got red instead.

With close-season signing John Arne Riise on for Markus Babbel and Nicky Barmby replacing Igor Biscan, Liverpool built up their usual head of steam kicking towards the Kop in the second half. But heroic defending and some good saves by Hislop denied the Merseysiders until 13 minutes before the end. Receiving the ball in a tight situation on the right-hand side of the West Ham penalty area, Owen darted outside Dailly and Nigel Winterburn to lash the ball into the net off the foot of the far post.

West Ham, to their great credit, made a valiant attempt to break out of defence in search of a second equaliser, but all they managed to collect was a booking for Di Canio, their fifth of the match.

Copyright - The Telagraph