CITY 0 LIVERPOOL 5
League Division 1
10th April 1982
Attendance 40,112
Scorers Lee(8), Neal(42), Johnston(58), Kennedy(60), Rush(73)
ref Mike Peck
City Corrigan, Ranson, McDonald, Reid, Bond, Caton, Kinsey, Reeves, Ryan, Hartford, Wilson – sub Hareide(unused)
Liverpool Grobbelaar, Neal, Lawrenson, Kennedy, Whelan, Thompson, Dalglish, Lee, Rush, Johnston, Hansen – sub McDermott(unused)
FROM THE PRESS BOX
CLIVE WHITE WRITING IN THE TIMES 12TH APRIL 1982
Bob Paisley, the Liverpool manager, could afford a small chuckleon Saturday evening. Not just because of the funny scoreline, or the fact that Liverpool’s only serious rivals, Ipswich Town had lost.
… Liverpool’s all-round performance on Saturday was outstanding, even allowing for City’s alarming impotency. Lawrensen slipped into the boots of Souness in midfield so effectively that the injured Scotsman’s absence was not even noticed.
Johnston, preferred to McDermott, was aware of the benefits of hard work before he came to Liverpool. But now his efforts are being channelled more usefully. His goal, the third, which highlighted the appalling deficiences in City’s defence showed an encouraging understanding with Rush, himself the scorer of the fifth goal, taken with remarkable assurance.
Lee, whose chubby boy looks belie a strength and maturity, had been the first to penetrate City’s defence after just seven minutes when he drove a free kick past Corrigan that was awesome in its accuracy as well as its power.
A disgraceful penalty decision by Mr Peck, the referee, against Caton when his long legs stole the ball honestly from Rush was the sort of luck Liverpool hardly needed. But no doubt it helped.
… Liverpool’s excellence left John Bond, the City manager, awestruck but of course never dumbstruck. Naturally he was at a loss to understand how a team containg nine players from the one which inflicted a 3-1 home defeat on Liverpool on Boxing Day should now flounder so badly against the same opposition. It was City’s heaviest home defeat in more than a decade.
