[lfc-news] Mark Lawrenson column - Post

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Liverpool Daily Post, 8 Mar 2005
Benitez's men must carry fight to Bayer
By Mark Lawrenson, Daily Post

THANKS to Jerzy Dudek's lapse at Anfield, Liverpool go to Leverkusen
needing a goal this week.

Looking at the teams the Germans have turned over on their own patch,
you would not feel confident of holding them out for the whole game, but
if Liverpool could nick one, then their job becomes a lot easier.

With that in mind, Rafael Benitez will need to be more aggressive in how
he sets his team up than he was at Newcastle.

If we know anything about Newcastle it is that you can get at them, even
with one fit striker. All right, so Alain Boumsong may have stiffened
them up in defence, but while they will come at you, they'll give you a
chance as well.

However, if your gameplan is to sit back and invite them on to you, then
you will be in trouble. That goes double for Bayer, who are very strong
at home.

If you sit back, then immediately the home team push their full backs
forward and if they are good players, they can hurt you.

If you look to break at pace and with runners from midfield however,
they are a lot more uncertain about going forward, for fear of what may
happen behind them. Having players running behind you changes your
mentality and is a lot more difficult to cope with. That means that the
midfield and full-backs for Liverpool must try to carry the fight.

Milan Baros gets past the Leverkusen defence during the Champions League
match at Anfield

It also means Milan Baros has to look like the player he was in Euro
2004 and not the one he was at St James' Park.

After he was dropped for the Carling Cup final, I could understand
Baros's anger. If I was him and I'd been left out in favour of Harry
Kewell and Luis Garcia in present form, I'd have been upset too.

To my mind, Baros is more effective than either of those two. He may
have his faults about playing with his head down, but he will have a go
and run at defences all day, working extremely hard.

Where he went wrong was in expressing his disappointment to a Czech
journalist and not to Rafael Benitez face-to-face. A talk to clear the
air would have been the best solution instead of airing their
difficulties in public.

As it is now, Benitez will have to talk to Baros to try and impress upon
the striker how important he will be in Germany.

As Liverpool's spearhead, their hopes of nicking a goal rest largely
with him, so this is no time for him to spit the dummy out and sulk.

I have been in dressing rooms where players have argued and dis-agreed
with managers and each other, but when the games came around, you
played. End of story.

Making his players perform no matter what is where a manager earns his
corn and Benitez and Baros appear to have enough about them to make that
happen.

Of course, it almost goes without saying that another player Benitez
will be talking to is Steven Gerrard. The Liverpool captain has given
everything and dragged the rest of the team with him on so many
occasions in the past few years, and this is another game where they
need him to be firing on all cylinders.

If Liverpool can get the result they need, and I believe they will, then
the competition could open up for them as a lot of good teams will be
going out in the next couple of days.

Look at last season when Porto and Monaco got to the final. Not many
people would have predicted that before the competition started, so who
is to say how far Liverpool will go?

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