Vitesse Arnhem 0-1 Liverpool
Liverpool began their UEFA Cup campaign with a win in Holland against Vitesse Arnhem last night, thanks to a single goal from Michael Owen, scored in the first half.
Stephane Henchoz was surprisingly restored to the starting line up, despite many reports prior to the match suggesting that he would be used only as a substitute.
There was also returns to the starting eleven for Steve Gerrard, Bruno Cheyrou and Milan Baros, while the England under-19 captain, John Welsh, was on the bench.
The game took rather a while to rally get going, and there was bad news for Liverpool after just seven minutes, when Bruno Cheyrou was forced off the pitch with an injury that was picked up when making a challenge on Frankel. After a couple of minutes of treatment, the Frenchman was replaced by Vladimir Smicer.
The first real attempt on goal came in the 20th minute, when Janssen curled a free kick towards Jezy Dudek's near post, but Dudek made a good catch.
A minute later saw the game's first booking, which was to be given to Diao after a challenge on Claessens, despite the Vitesse player clearly appearing to dive a couple of yards after getting past the Senegalese midfielder.
The match was evenly matched at the midway point in the first half, when Liverpool recorded their first attempt at goal, but Steve Gerrard's 20 yard volley went high into the south stand of the Gelredome, Arnhem's equivalent of the Kop.
The home supporters were to see a goal at their end on 27 minutes though, and Michael Owen was the scorer with what was his 5th European goal of the season and his 18th in total for Liverpool.
Smicer won the ball on the touchline halfway inside the Vitesse half, and he picked out Gerrard, whose first time cross landed at the feet of Baros, and after good control in the area by the Czech in holding tha ball up, Baros played a short ball to Owen, and he coolly sidefooted into the bottom corner of the net.
Liverpool then started to look the more dominant side and within two minutes could have been 2-0 up.
Owen beat Cornelisse near the left hand corner flag and a perfect lay off to Danny Murphy should have finished with Murphy adding to Liverpool's lead from close range, but in trying to place the ball in the top corner, Murphy put the ball a few feet over the bar.
Murphy was unlucky not to grab a goal for himself on 32 minutes though, when he flicked a header over Jevric, the Vitesse 'keeper, but the ball just cleared the bar and dropped onto the roof of the net.
Gerrard went close from 30 yards with a shot on his left foot that flew just over the bar, and Mustapha fired across the Liverpool goal after a cross by Stefanovic had gone beyond the whole of the Liverpool back four, leaving Mustapha with an easy looking chance, but he took the chance first time and failed to hit the target, instead seeing the ball run out for a throw in.
Vitesse started better in the second half, and had a couple of chances in the early stages, the best of which was a 20 yard strike by Frankel, which was a couple of yards wide of Dudek's post.
Liverpool came back into the game though and soon had an opportunity through Owen to kill the game off.
Owen was played in by Murphy, and with only the keeper to beat, Owen shot straight at him, ignoring the arriving support in the area from Baros.
Mbamba then wasted a chance to equalise for Vitesse after getting himself into the area following a slip from Hyypia, with the final shot being sliced well wide of goal, and in front of the opposite goal, Micahel Owen was again unable to get his second of the night with probably the best chance of the whole evening.
Baros collected the ball in the Liverpool half at the start of a Liverpool counter attack and he played in Owen who was 45 yards from goal and had a clear run at goal.
But as Jevric rushed out of his goal to meet the Reds' striker, Owen tried to lift it over him, and Jevric managed to get a hand to the ball and Owen's follow up from an acute angle missed the far post by inches, although faced with an empty net, he really should have scored.
Smicer was next in the queue to try his luck at goal and he also got into a position in which he only had to beat the keeper, but again Jevric stood up well and Smicer's attempted chip over him was blocked by the keeper's leg, and eventually cleared.
Emile Mbamba tried on 75 minutes to win a penalty after throwing himself at Dudek after he and Hyypia had missed the ball on the edge of the Liverpool area, but the Spanish referee was having none of it and waved away the protest by Mbamba.
Vitesse were enjoying their best spell of the game though, and should have been level on 81 minutes.
A cross from the right hand side by Cornelisse missed a crowd of players in the second half and at the far post Mustapha's fierce right foot shot came back off the inside of the post, rebounding to Kalle Sone, who somehow missed an open goal from five yards out with no players between himself and the goal.
It was a let off for Liverpool, who for much of the game had looked comfortable, but were starting to look a little nervous for the first time as Vitesse, helped on by a terrific atmosphere inside the stadium, finally began to look more threatening.
The Ere Divisie side never quite managed to create another clear cut chance on goal though, and Sone's miss with ten minutes to go was to proved extremely costly, as Liverpool held on to the one goal lead to put them firmly in the driving seat for the return leg, which takes place on December 12.
