Liverpool: Westerveld, Ziege, Babbel, Heskey, Fowler (Murphy 78), Hyypia, Berger, Hamann, Gerrard, Barmby, McAllister.

Subs Not Used: Henchoz, Smicer, Arphexad, Carragher.

Booked: Ziege.

Goals: Heskey 69.

Leicester: Flowers, Rowett, Izzet, Lennon, R. Savage, Eadie (Sinclair 78), Davidson, Gilchrist, Elliott, Cresswell (Akinbiyi 62), Impey (Guppy 70).

Subs Not Used: Royce, Oakes.

Booked: Gilchrist, Davidson, Elliott.

Att: 44,395

Liverpool 1 Leicester City 0.

Our prodigal son returns.

It was all handshakes and good feelings before the game when our prodigal son Emile Heskey met up with his old team mates but when the starting whistle went all was changed. Emile was part of a Liverpool team which of late have appeared to have been 'getting it together' whilst we , despite our brief stay at the dizzy heights at the top of the table, are an unbalanced side and it not only 'up front' where our problems appear to be. There can be no doubt that we still have the toughest defence in the premier league but our mid-field is where the true weakness lies. Since the demise of Emile Heskey,Tony Cottee and Stan the Man we have had to rely on comparatively inexperienced players who do not possess the keen opportunism required of Premier League strikers. This has been aggravated by the fact that they have not been receiving anything like good service . The lack of shape in mid-field would appear to be connected with a slight lack of form, we hope temporary, of key man Neill Lennon who in the past has been the player who made the team 'tick'. We owe a geat deal to Neill for his brilliant past performances in mid-field and look forward to him once again rallying the troops in the near future.

After last week's home defeat by Manchester United, today's game seemed to be the ideal occasion to put things right. After all, we usually beat the 'scowsers' don't we? This, however was not to be our day and ex. City players Emile Heskey and Gary McAllister made sure we did not have an easy ride.

Despite our unbalanced performance we were a match for Liverpool and broke out several times to threaten the Liverpool defence, but the scoring of goals is not our strong point at the moment. On the other hand, our goal came under serious threat on many occasions and it was only due to a brilliant performance by Tim Flowers and the City defenders that the Liverpool goal tally remained at a respectable one. We witnessed once more the damaging surging runs by Emile Heskey which we frantically applauded when he was wearing the blue shirt, but now the tables were turned on us and after tormenting us with a series of near misses, our prodigal son Emile, dealt the death blow by scoring Liverpool's only goal from a cross from Gerrard in the 68th minute.

In the closing stages, Matt Elliott went up front , Guppy came on to produce a series of brilliant crosses and we had a number of corners in quick succession but despite our late revival, goals were not forthcoming.

We were beaten but not disgraced. It's just the case that Liverpool had an 'on day' when we were having the opposite.

Player Performance

Flowers: Magnificent……England’s finest.

Rowett: Adequate, unlucky not to score with a header, made a brilliant goal line clearance too.

Elliott: Played well in defence but sadly still the best striker we have.

Gilchrist: Found Emile Ivanhoe a veritable handful.

Davidson: Took a bit of a roasting.

Impey: generally ineffective missed an open goal and another good chance

Lennon: Run ragged by 35 year old Gary McAllister; have you tried dieting Neal ?

Savage: Ran himself ragged.

Izzett: Very quiet.

Cresswell: Thanks for trying.

Eadie: Ran about a lot

Subs:

Akinbiyi: Sorry but I’d rather not pass comment it’s unfair on the lad, oh all right then £5m we paid what could we sell him at?

Guppy: Took good corners but running about seemed to be asking too much.

Sinclair: Came on for Matt to go up front, looked fine and dandy