Lethal Lisbie punishes Pool

Charlton 3 Liverpool 2

It was poetic justice for the Addicks, who felt they were hard done by when referee Rob Styles awarded a 52nd-minute penalty against them for a foul by Chris Perry on Emile Heskey.

Charlton manager Alan Curbishley congratulated Lisbie on his memorable hat-trick then told his striker: "You must score more goals."

It was a perfect response from the 24-year-old after having the fans on his back this season, but Curbishley wants him to do even better.

"Kevin's statistics are not good enough for a forward," said Curbishley. "However, everyone here has so much time for him because he tried his hardest. He knows what I think of him, he just needs to score more goals. A lot of his chances are self-created but he does not put enough of them away.

"The fans have been on his back and I am disappointed about that because they are fantastic and don't get after us. I think maybe they see the likes of Carlton Cole and Paolo di Canio in the squad and would prefer to see players like that.

"I am delighted for Kevin though, it was a special hat-trick that's for sure, and hopefully this result will kick-start something for us and we can push on from here."

The pen-pics in the programme warned that Charlton's strikers would have to be at their best to outwit Jerzy Dudek as the Liverpool goalkeeper had conceded just four league goals before this game, including just one away from Anfield.

How those words and statistics came back to haunt the Pole as he had one of his famous nightmare games and gifted Charlton their goals.

Liverpool were coasting after a flash of genius from Harry Kewell set up Vladimir Smicer to score the opening goal after 15 minutes. However, the game was turned on its head by Dudek's blunders which allowed Lisbie to first of all equalise after 30 minutes and then put Charlton ahead three minutes before the break.

Charlton must have sensed that a much-needed first home win of the season was on the cards but those hopes were dashed by Styles' harsh penalty decision. It came early in the second half when the ball was chipped into the area and Perry, on loan from Tottenham, tussled with Heskey. It looked a case of six-of-one and half-a-dozen of the other, but a penalty was awarded and Michael Owen gratefully accepted the chance to equalise with his seventh league goal of the season.

Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier afterwards refused to criticise individuals, and promised not to abandon his team's attacking philosophy.

"I shall not mention individuals, we are a team and that includes the manager," said Houllier. "We win together and we lose together. Sometimes you get some bizarre results in football and I can't believe we lost that game, although credit to Charlton because they believed right up to the end they could do it.

"I don't think we deserved to lose and the result doesn't reflect what the game was about we got the performance right but didn't get the result.

"There were a lot of positives from this game, particularly in the second half, but the negatives were our defending and we let ourselves down."

CHARLTON: Kiely, Young, Perry, Fish (Fortune 74), Powell, Stuart (Kishishev 71), Parker, Holland, Jensen, Lisbie (Johansson 90), Bartlett.

LIVERPOOL: Dudek, Finnan, Hyypia, Biscan, Riise, Diouf (Le Tallec 84), Gerrard, Smicer (Murphy 67), Kewell, Heskey, Owen.

Referee: R Styles (Hampshire).