Tuesday 30th August 2005, BPRL North, The Hawthorns, Kick-Off 7:00pm Albion 0 - 1 Liverpool     Barragan 51 Albion: Kuszczak, Hodgkiss, Forsyth, Moore, Scimeca, Johnson (Baker 63), Smikle (Humphrey 79), Chaplow, Carter, R Davies, Ellington. Subs not used: Daniels (gk), Pringle, McQuilken Carter (foul) Liverpool: Willis, Raven, Roque, O'Donnell, Smith, Barragan, Peltier, Hobbs (Mannix 79), Guthrie, Calliste (Crouch 63), Sinama-Pongolle (Idrizaj 59). Subs not used: Roberts (gk), Godwin Referee: R Fletcher Assistant Referees: M Jones, A Lindsay Half-Time: Albion 0-0 Liverpool Attendance: 847 Conditions: Humid, sunny evening A less than impressive performance by a strong Albion line-up. The home side created nothing throughout the match and were grateful to Polish keeper Tomasz Kuszczak for preventing the visitors scoring more. Recent signing Nathan Ellington was extremely poor whilst fellow first teamers Johnson, Scimeca and Carter were also less than impressive. Best players for Albion on the night were: Kuszczak, Jeff Forsyth, Jared Hodgkiss and Brian Smikle. Forsyth in particular put in a very commanding performance and on this showing could well be one for the future. MAN OF THE MATCH: Jeff Forsyth PLAYER RATINGS OUT OF TEN Kuszczak 8 - Made a number of crucial saves and kicked well throughout. Hodgkiss 7 - Played well, excellent defensively, guilty of poor passing a few times though. Moore 6 - Typical Moore performance, solid. Forsyth 8 - Strong in the tackle, kept things simple. Scimeca 5 - Average performance. Johnson 5 - Typical AJ performance, plenty of effort but no end product. Chaplow 7 - Decent performance although lost possession too often. R Davies 5 - Ineffective. Carter 6 - One or two nice touches but generally quiet. Smikle 7 - Fast and tricky, worked hard, looked our most dangerous player. Ellington 4 - Very poor. Subs: Baker 7 - Good performance, used ball well. Humphrey 5 - Struggled to get into game. REF WATCH R Fletcher 6 - Allowed game to flow. Evening Mail: THE Baggies suffered their second defeat of the season and deserved no more from an uninspiring match at The Hawthorns. Fielding a strong team, they made a bright enough start, with Rob Davies having a 10th-minute shot blocked from a Darren Carter corner and Darren Moore shooting over from the rebound. But that proved to be Albion's only first-half effort of note as Liverpool got on top and Florent Sinama-Pongolle set up a great 28th-minute chance for Ramon Calliste, who scuffed the shot. Eight minutes later Tomasz Kuszczak got behind a 25 yards shot from Antonio Barragan, who eventually broke the deadlock in the 51st minute. Again Sinama-Pongolle was involved, this time playing in Danny Guthrie whose close-range shot was saved by the keeper but Barragan was on hand to fire the loose ball home. Nathan Ellington ploughed a lone furrow up front with little chance to shine. Former Villa striker Peter Crouch, returning from a hamstring injury, came on for Liverpool after 63 minutes and the lanky England man showed some neat touches. wba.co.uk liverpoolfc.tv Hughie McAuley: "It was our first win of the season and I thought the lads thoroughly deserved their victory. They played very well collectively as a team and there was a lot of plus points to take out of the game. We defended very well against a lot of long balls and we won a lot of second balls as well. We were compact as a unit and Miki Roque has settled in very nicely to the team at centre half.” "It was a good move for the goal and it was nice for Antonio Barragan to score his first goal for Liverpool. It was good to see Peter Crouch back and he will be all the better for a game.”    "We gave our new signing from Austria Besian Idrizaj his first game in the second half and he did well and nearly scored but for a very good save." Source: liverpoolfc.tv
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