Bruno delivers the knockout punch

The Fourth Round of the FA Cup. What a time for “the new Zidane”, Bruno Cheyrou, to find his shooting boots. Admittedly he’s finally started to live up to his reputation in recent weeks, with important goals away at Chelsea and Wolves. But to strike twice against us was cruel. We might not have done enough for a win, but we could have sneaked a draw and a replay at St James’s, particularly given a strong first half showing.

After encouraging results recently away to notoriously troublesome opposition (namely Southampton and Man Utd), we might have been forgiven for thinking we could settle another score by coming away from Anfield with a victory – but those hopes took a very early blow when Cheyrou scored in the second minute. Thankfully, Robert was on hand to rocket home a free-kick two minutes later to even things up – his 11th of the season, making this his most prolific campaign in a black and white shirt to date. But unfortunately we couldn’t capitalise on having a slight edge in the first half, and in the second Liverpool, buoyed by the return from injury of such key players as Owen, Gerrard and Carragher, wrested control away from us and then scored a decisive second. Even still, Shearer could have snatched the draw late on, had it not been for Dudek’s acrobatics.

So, now we can concentrate on the League and the UEFA Cup etc etc. All fine and well, but we had a much better chance of success in the FA Cup. Oh well, at least it wasn’t a disgrace, unlike last year’s lame Third Round exit at the hands of Wolves. I just hope that the race for fourth place doesn’t go to the wire, with us needing a win in our last game of the season – it’s at Anfield…