Pool win but suffer Kirkland setback

Liverpool 3 Bolton 1

Kirkland received treatment from physio Dave Galley during the second half and then an X-ray after the match revealed the full extent of the injury.

It means that Jerzy Dudek, who has been linked with a move away from the club when the transfer window opens next month, will be pressed back into action during the rest of the crucial holiday programme and for the FA Cup tie a Yeovil.

Boss Gerard Houllier said: “Chris could well be out for between three and four weeks.” The injury put a dampener on Liverpool’s victory, which had lifted the pressure on Houllier. And, while the Frenchman was relieved, Bolton boss Sam Allardyce branded his side capitulation at Anfield as “unacceptable.”

Allardyce could have done no more to register his disgust than to humiliatingly substitute three of his star foreign imports Ivan Campo, Youri Djorkaeff and Jay-Jay Okocha early in the second half.

And Allardyce said: “It could have been any of the 11. I could have thrown all their names in a hat and pulled out three to take off. It would not have mattered.

“What we saw was an unacceptable performance from the whole side. We have produced some excellent displays recently but this has let us down.

“We did not do enough to find out whether Liverpool’s confidence had been affected by what has been going on at Anfield. It was an awful performance. We conceded silly goals, we did not mark people and found the smallest players on the pitch heading too goals early in the second half.

“That is what killed us off. We gave Liverpool goals and they gratefully accepted them. They deserved their win but we made it easy for them.”

Houllier was relieved to have seen his side finally lift the gloom around Anfield with goals from Sami Hyypia, Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Vladimir Smicer.

Only Henrik Pedersen could reply for Bolton, and his goal came too late to have any impact on the game.

Houllier said: “Bolton are a good side. They have recently won at Chelsea, drawn with Arsenal and beaten us in the Carling Cup, they were the form team. But I could feel a new strength and solidity and you cannot win without that. The defensive play must be strong. Everybody was prepared to run the extra yard. They only had one chance in the first half and that situation gave us confidence.”

Houllier added: “You could feel before the game determination. The players, like our fans, were so disappointed by the defeat by Southampton in our last home game and they wanted to put that right.

“We did not panic in the first part of the game when things did not go so well. We kept our cool, our composure and got ourselves into a good position.”

LIVERPOOL: Kirkland, Otsemobor, Biscan, Hyypia, Riise, Murphy, Hamann, Gerrard, Kewell (Diouf 66), Smicer (Le Tallec 79), Sinama Pongolle (Heskey 66).

BOLTON: Jaaskelainen, Hunt, Thome, Charlton, Gardner, Nolan, Frandsen, Campo (Ba 51), Okocha (Pedersen 51), Djorkaeff (Giannakopoulos 51), Davies.

Referee: J Winter (Cleveland).