Mersey beat

West Ham 2 Liverpool 3

Getting to West Ham is a marathon not a sprint. With no District Line tubes it’s a two-mile walk down West Ham Lane from Stratford station, taking in the ornamental Gardens of West Ham Park and the environs of Plashett Road before relaxing with an isotonic mug of tea in Ken’s Café. Matt’s back from Australia, which he found marginally easier than yomping from Canning Town.

It’s almost our first choice line-up with Behrami and Ilunga back and Diamanti playing behind the front two. Will the man from Diamanti be the new Di Canio? Zola says he has “crazy eyes”.

“Well, they say that Diamantis are forever” quips Matt.

We start well. In the second minute Cole challenges for the ball, the speedy Zavon Hines moves in to dispossess a dithering Carragher, he rounds Reina and hits the post. Should he have scored? Maybe, but it was a tight angle looking at the replay.

The Scousers soon show us their class. Gerrard plays Benayoun in with a fine ball but Yossi shoots straight at Green, and then Torres athletically volleys wide after another incisive move. Everything is going through Mascherano in midfield.

“He’s not fit to lace Hayden Mullins’ boots,” I mutter.

“He wouldn’t make it as understudy to Carl Fletcher,” suggests Nigel.

Liverpool take the lead after 20 minutes. Hines’ pass in midfield is intercepted by Mascherano who finds Torres on the left edge of the box. The Spaniard bamboozles Tomkins with a shuffle, outpaces him and then fires into the net from an acute angle, beating Green at his near post. A brilliant goal, but some naïve defending. Upson is injured trying to tackle Torres and Behrami’s sciatic nerve is playing up, so both players are replace by Gabbidon and Kovac.

But there’s still hope with Hines outpacing the Liverpool defence and finding 57 varieties of ways to make Carragher look slower than a District Line tube.

Carlton finds Hines on the left and he outpaces Carragher who brings him down for a clear penalty. Diamanti, who’s looked skilful throughout, shows an appetite for the big occasion by grabbing the ball and chipping the ball into the centre of the net. Or did he slip as he took the penalty and kick the ball with both feet? We don’t care, it went in.

Only 12 minutes later Liverpool get a corner, Gerrard rises to easily above Kovac and Kuyt prods home. Typical West Ham. But this is proving an exhilarating gamer. Skrtel brings down Hines and Diamanti’s free kick is deflected wide for a corner.

As half-time approaches a distraught Matt watches Noble jog up to the corner flag. “We’ll never score from this, they haven’t even sent Gabbidon up,” complains Mystic Matt.

Noble’s corner swings into the box and Carlton Cole gets between three defenders to head into the corner. Let’s hope we never send Gabbidon up again.

There’s still time for Mascherano to be booked for bringing down the effervescent Hines. Rarely can a young player making his home debut have exposed international defenders to such devastating effect. 2-2 at half-time and a great game.

The second half can’t possibly match the first and Liverpool appear to have kicked Hines out of the game. But it's encouraging to see Gabbidon making last-ditch challenges as of old, Parker is still making some great tackles and the crowd are really behind the Irons. Benayoun makes a mazy dribble into our box at one end, while Parker tries to dribble through the other penalty area instead of trying a long range shot.

Diamanti isn’t forever, he’s substituted for Kieron Dyer after 65 minutes. Dyer makes a fine run from the right but turns inside instead of shooting. Reminding Matt of why he was nicknamed ‘Jigsaw’ at Newcastle, “because he went to pieces in the box”.

Then on 75 minutes Kovac misplaces a pass, Johnson has a shot blocked and the ball runs to Babel who crosses invitingly for Torres to jump between Faubert and Tomkins and score with a header into the corner. Sod it. Credit the home crowd though, that goal is immediately followed with a rousing chorus of Bubbles.

We lump it long, Cole wins the ball late on and heads across to Kovac whose header is palmed away one-handed by Reina. But you can’t see Liverpool conceding again and they don’t.

We take the long march back to Stratford. Maybe the tube closures are simply a club plot to slim down some of the jelly bellies spotted on the pitch against Millwall. “Perhaps the players had to walk as well,” I suggest, thinking it might account for our long injury list. Poor old Deano probably made it for the first 100 yards.

But we eventually find a seat in the Park Tavern in Stratford and decide there’s cause for optimism. The quality of Mersey has been strained and young Hines was, ahem, full of beans. Our defence could be blamed for all three goals and the midfield gives the ball away too often, but with a fitter Ilunga and Behrami and Jiminez, Collison, Da Costa and Franco to come in we’ll surely soon move up the league soon.

Home truths

West Ham 0 Liverpool 3

It’s chaos at Mile End as numerous fans try to get on the truncated District Line trains. Planned closures for maintenance work, scheduled a year in advance, says TfL. It takes three trains before it’s possible to squeeze on board. You wonder if it might be possible for West Ham to have planned injuries. We could book Kieron Dyer in for September to May already.

Yossi receives a cheer as Jeremy Nicholas announces the teams and plays Fat Boy Slim. We would cheer Mascherano if we remembered him ever playing for us. We kick off and after 60 seconds, in horrible sallow motion, Torres plays the ball though our defence. The centre backs have stepped up, Neill hasn’t and Gerrard calmly rounds Green to score.

Fraser arrives after eight minutes citing a suspect package at Stratford (thought to be Di Michele’s shooting boots) and a late night watching the remains of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. They even performed I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (better than Frank Sinatra’s version) but sadly there was no sign of Billy Bonds doing a turn.

We improve after the early shock, Kovac heads Noble’s free kick over the bar. Amazingly, Boa Morte is causing them problems. He’s chopped by Mascherano and Alan Wiley waves play on, resulting in chants of “You’re too fat to referee!”.

Tomkins makes a superb tackle on Torres, which we all think is Moore-esque. Boa is hacked down by Mascherano again (what do you expect from a poor man’s Hayden Mullins?) and Liverpool race down the field to win a penalty. Torres heads over after a defensive mix-up, Yossi chips into the path of Torres and Boa Morte pulls his shirt. Green saves the penalty like a goalkeeping Odysseus, but the ball falls straight to Gerard who can’t miss.

Then comes our chance. Carragher air kicks in comic style, leaving Di Michele to run at goal. He hesitates like Bobby Zamora on Valium, tries to round Reina, kicks the ball against his foot, dives and gets booked for simulation. “He wanted to beat three players and then back-heel it in,” suggests Matt.

Liverpool continue to break at lethal sped in the second half. Yossi blazes a volley over, Green saves from Kuyt, Benayoun fires just wide. Boa still wins a few free kicks and Collison gets on for the final xx minutes. He plays one sublime ball to Ilunga down the left.

Di Michele seems to get the ball more than any other player, control it superbly, and then make ridiculous decisions rather than play the simple ball. “How many times? Get him off!” rages the vicar’s son beside me.

Herita (Hammer of the Year anyone?) never stops trying and with Noble is involved in our best move of the game, which ends with the hapless Di Michele firing wide. But really it’s like training game for Liverpool

“It’s a wake up call for this side,” suggests Matt. “We’ll struggle to stay up next season if all we have is Tristan and Di Michele up front,” I suggest. We need to buy at least two strikers.

Four minutes from time Babel has a header saved but scores from the rebound and the Koppites are singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

And then, because of the 5.30 kick-off, it’s time to rush to East Ham to make an Islington dinner party with Julie from Growing Communities and Polly a barrister turned environmentalist. No consideration for the chattering classes at Setanta.

We’re down to ninth, and now have to hope Parker and Cole are fit for our final two games, otherwise our obligatory tenth spot beckons.