REDS HIT THREE IN ANFIELD WIN

Setanta 02 February 2008

Liverpool beat Sunderland 3-0 at Anfield on Saturday evening, but were far from their best as they climbed into fifth place in the Premier League.

Despite lighting the scoreboard up three times, the home side will know that there is a lot of work to do before they can get back in the race for fourth spot in the league.

Peter Crouch broke the deadlock on 57 minutes with a fine header, before Fernando Torres doubled the lead and Steven Gerrard finished it all off with a late penalty.

After a dreadful first-half that failed to offer up any major incidents, Liverpool started the second period in quite lively fashion.

Jermaine Pennant and Javier Mascherano both tried to open up gaps in the Sunderland midfield, but there was just no end product attached with their determined charges forward.

However, that end product did arrive on 57 minutes when Jamie Carragher burst up the right wing and supplied the perfect cross for Crouch to head in.

That goal lifted the atmosphere around the stadium and the hosts thrived off it as they buzzed forward in search of another goal.

Torres unleashed a wicked left-footed volley before Crouch had two chances in the space of a minute. The first of which was an eye-catching bicycle kick, and the second was a header that needed to be cleared off the line.

The Black Cats tried to erect a comeback and switched to 4-4-2 with Roy O'Donovan going onto the right wing and Michael Chopra moving up front. There was plenty of movement from the forwards, but hardly any passes arrived in their direction.

Liverpool then caught them offguard as Jonny Evans was sucked out of defence and a Crouch knock-on set Torres away to steam past Phil Bardsley before firing into the back of the net to make it 2-0.

Strangely enough Sunderland started to play a lot better after conceding that second goal and should have been awarded a penalty when a handball from Carragher was ignored by referee Rob Styles.

Jonny Evans came close with a header and O'Donovan hooked the rebound wide when he could have scored from three yards out.

Liam Miller had a shot fly over the bar and Darryl Murphy should have done better with a free-kick on the edge of the box. Their slack finishing was to be further punished.

Nyron Nosworthy, who was terrible all game, fouled Pennant inside the box to give away a penalty in the dying minutes that Gerrard tucked away.

It was a deserved win for Liverpool, but one that showed quite a few holes in their play which would be exposed by a better team.