Liverpool vs. Manchester City

Rafael Benitz's first home game at Anfield was always going to be a tense affair as the Spaniard obviously wanted to make a good impression to those sat in the hallowed Kop.

Despite a quite rugged first 30 minutes, Liverpool began to gel more in mid-field with the ever-excellent Steven Gerard spraying the odd elaborate pass forward to the inform Czechoslovakian striker, Milan Baros.

His striking partner, Gabriel Cisse, looked alienated from the play and did little to assure the directorial board at Anfield that their reported £14.5 million was money well spent.

Financial worry has also put pay to some of Kevin Keagan's more elaborate plans for his own brand of nitro-glycerine fuelled, attack-minded football.

So it came as a pleasant surprise when in the last minute of the first half, and against the run of play, ex-Anfield reject, Nicolas Anelka, pounced on Jamie Carracher's misdirected head-back to keeper Dudek, and scrambled the ball into the back of the net.

The second half was a much more open affair with Liverpool equalizing almost straight after the restart, thanks to a clever pass from the right foot of Gerard which found the cool, clinical, touch and finish of Baros.

The trio of Baros, Gerard and Harry Kewell heaped pressure upon their visitors with an aerial assault of crosses, causing David James to flap carelessly at the ball on more than one occasion.

Eventually, the deadlock was broken, thanks to Gerard and Baros combining once again. In all fairness, Liverpool created enough chances to win quite comfortably but without the striking prowess of Michael Owen, the score was restricted to 2-1 and the only other real noteworthy incident came in the final minutes when new Manchester City signing, Ben Thatcher, was sent off.

His second yellow cardable offence gave referee Graham Poe the chance to show his first red card of the season and Kegan had no cause to complain, as the ex-Tottenham player had callously chopped down Baros just outside the penalty box.

A positive win for Liverpool, which sees them move up to third place in the league and they can take heart from the fact that while goal-fountain Michael Owen has followed his heart to Madrid, Baros has Czech-ed out from the European Championships in fine form and hopefully will terrorize Premiership defences all season.

On the other side of the equation, Keagan can only hope that his first win of the season will come mid-week when they face Birmingham and pray that the performances of Robbie Fowler, Trevor Sinclair and Steve McManaman live up to their rather inflated price-tags.