THE PRELUDE to Liverpool’s Champions League defence drones on with this second leg against a Kaunas side who showed little enough in the first game to suggest they can make a match of it.

Giedrius Barevicius did put the wind up Reds fans in Lithuania with an early strike while most of the Premiership stars were seemingly still on the bus, but within ten minutes Liverpool were ahead, and the tie was effectively over shortly after half-time.
With a two-goal away cushion, off came Steven Gerrard with half an hour left, to give new boy Mohamed Sissoko a bit of quality time learning people’s names and whatever the talents of the £5.6 million man from Valencia, his introduction signalled the easing down of Liverpool’s efforts.


The swap of Morientes for Crouch with 16 minutes to go was more interesting in that it raised the question of how Liverpool will deploy their peculiar menagerie of strikers, though the evidence on that one is far from conclusive. Perhaps this return will offer further clues, and opportunity for experimentation.
Indeed, punters will do well to bear in mind that this game is little more than part of the Premiership warm-up for Rafa Benitez’s men.

That makes dabbling in the superiority markets look very resistible. It’s not a question of how much better Liverpool are, but how much better they want to be.
Granted it’s more difficult to adopt a laid-back approach in front of your own fans, but the way the tie is poised along with the evidence of the first leg, makes


it seem very unlikely that Liverpool will strain every sinew to assert the full extent of their superiority here.
Punters are guessing on how much is enough as far as Rafa is concerned.

If in your view Reds supremacies are a tad on the conservative side, you risk an unhappy evening screaming at the telly, as the Pool back-line strokes the ball around nonchalantly.

Look to sell Liverpool’s edge, and the chances are the Kop will put a rocket up their side’s behind and they’ll rattle in half-a-dozen.
If you simply must have a bet, a small stakes buy of bookings could be fun.

Sometimes minnows get all niggly in front of a big noisy crowd for the first time.