Saturday 26^th Feb – kick off 18:00

Liverpool head to Urziceni for the second leg of their Europa League encounter against the Romanian champions

History

This is Unirea’s first year of European football, so the only time the teams have was last week.  Despite being the better team in that game, Liverpool have the slenderest of leads following the 1-0 win at Anfield.

The night proved to be a nail-biter for Liverpool fans; firstly the goal that they deserved refused to come until the 81^st minute, then Unirea woke up and started to put pressure on the Reds’ back line.  Luckily, we held out to keep the crucial clean sheet.

Injuries

Liverpool welcomed back Torres and Benayoun on Sunday and both may play a part in this game, but Johnson is still out with a knee injury.

Form

Liverpool have struggled all season to hit top form and Sunday’s dull game against Man City was a good illustration of how we lack penetration when we are missing our better players.  On the positive side, we have lost only one away game in the last 9 European ties – 2-0 against Fiorentina this season.

Unirea lie 2^nd in the Romanian league with 34 points from 18 games, but they beat Rangers 4-1 and even managed to beat Seville 1-0 at home, although the Spanish side had already won the group and fielded a weakened team

Teams

Liverpool – (from) Reina, Cavalieri, Agger, Kyrgiakos, Degen, Skrtel, Carragher, Insua, Babel, Mascherano, Maxi, Gerrard, Benayoun, Kuyt, Lucas, Riera, Ngog, Torres.

I fully expect Rafa to start the game with Lucas and Mascherano in the middle of the park with Gerrard just behind Ngog.  Torres may come off the bench if needed or to give him some more match time, but I don’t see him starting with Blackburn to come at the weekend and 4^th place still on the line.  Aurelio may come back in for Insua after playing in the first leg.  Babel did well from the bench a week ago – setting up the Ngog goal – but failed to impress at the weekend, so I see him returning to the bench.

Possible starting 11 – Reina, Carragher, Skrtel, Agger, Aurelio, Mascherano, Lucas, Kuyt, Riera, Gerrard, Ngog.

Unirea have Pablo Brandan suspended for this game after picking up a yellow card at Anfield.

1^st Leg squad – Arlauskis, Tudor, Maiftei, Galamaz, Bruno Fernandes, Brandan, Paraschiv, Vilana, Onofras, Marinescu, Paduretu, Rusescu, Apostol, Frunza, Bilasco, Mehmedovic, Nieu, Bordeanu

TV

The match is scheduled to be shown on ESPN – see the Talkthereds forum for links to streams.

My prediction

Unirea 0 – 1 Liverpool

A lot will depend on how Unirea approach this game.  If they are cautious at first, fearing conceding an away goal, Liverpool will have no need to push for a second – leaving a poor spectacle for all.  If Unirea attack and try to win, which they are capable of on last week’s showing, then Liverpool will have chances.

An early away goal would create the best game – with Unirea needing to score 3 times, meaning plenty of attacks from them and Liverpool having space to play.