Relief all round for Bellamy as goal famine finally ends

CRAIG BELLAMY is not a footballer who normally elicits sympathy — too many on and off field indiscretions over the years have made sure of that.

Yet the Welsh international striker, fresh from scoring the first Premiership goal for his new club against the one he left in a £6.5m transfer this summer, spoke frankly afterwards of the mental stress that the barren run in front of goal had placed upon him.

Opposition supporters will find it hard to empathise with a 27-year-old international footballer but Bellamy was clearly speaking with a large degree of relief and not only because his headed equaliser, from Fabio Aurelio’s 63rd minute corner, rescued a point for a lacklustre Liverpool team.

“My performance wasn’t anywhere near the level I want it to be at the moment, but maybe this will help me in a different way and kick-start my season,” said Bellamy. “It’s probably all down to me. Because you’re desperate to do well, you probably try too hard at times and not getting a goal early on probably weighed a bit heavy on me. It can affect players. Usually I’m quite good with that, but it did start to affect me and I was disappointed in myself. Hopefully this goal will help me go on from here. I’ve missed one or two chances and that can take over then but you have to show character and get on with it.

“When you go to a new club you want those one or two goals to give you a bit of breathing space so you can just get on with your performances. It went the other way for me. I didn’t score my first league goal until November last year with Blackburn. No one cared. But you would have known if I’d gone to November with Liverpool,’’ Bellamy added.

“You’d be reading about it, hearing about it — it’s a completely different kind of club. You have to deal with that pressure otherwise you wouldn’t be here long.’’

Bellamy would certainly appear to be a perfect candidate to cope with the pressures associated with playing for Liverpool and former manager Mark Hughes is convinced that his opening league goal will provide the necessary fillip his season required.

“I can’t say I’m pleased for him today but he was excellent for us last year,” said Hughes. “He was a big success and a big part of the success we had as a team. He’s an exceptional footballer with a great work ethic and I’m sure he will be a success here.”

Bellamy’s goal — and the fact that Liverpool showed great spirit in the second half to recover from an a dire first half performance — was one of the few positives manager Rafa Benitez could take from the afternoon.

Benni McCarthy, taking advantage of some shoddy defending, shot Blackburn in front in the 17th minute from David Bentley’s superb right-wing cross, one of a number of such balls played in by the former Arsenal winger who has played an assured role in Blackburn’s impressive start to the campaign.

“David’s doing exceptionally well,” said Hughes. “This is the first time in his career that he’s had a consistent run in the same position over a period of time at this level, and he’s benefiting from that. He was highly thought of at Arsenal and, for whatever reason, it didn’t happen for him down there.

“He didn’t progress as much as he wanted to, but we’ve been able to bring him on board and he’s been continuing to progress. He’s got a good work ethic, wants to improve and we’re reaping the benefits.

“I don’t know about Bentley for England yet. He’s just been dropped from the under-21s, after all. He’s had a good game, no more no less than that, and it’s premature to think he’s going to be involved at senior level,” Hughes added.

Indeed, Bentley might have won the game for Rovers but his late shot struck Liverpool goalkeeper Jose Reina and rebounded to safety off the post.

“It was good that I made the save at the end because they would have won had I not,” said Reina. “We’d lost many chances to get that second goal and, at the end, we have dropped two points. That’s the way I see it because, at home, you must win the games you have. This was one of them today.”

With Liverpool now eight points behind leaders Manchester United and a visit to Old Trafford looming on Sunday, Reina and his team mates know there is little margin for such error remaining.

Opta Fact: Liverpool have conceded just six goals at Anfield in their last 20 Premiership home matches.