da spicy bet： Dirk Kuyt was never a flair player, and perhaps it took Liverpool a while to get used to that fact after they had just signed a man who scored 71 goals in 101 games for Feyenoord over the previous three seasons.
da cassino： Cult heroes aren’t a rare breed at Anfield, and a hard-working player like Kuyt who came up routinely with crucial goals for his team is the sort of player who can count on warming the hearts of his new fans over time.
He scored two goals against Everton at Goodison Park in a come-from-behind 2-1 victory, sealed in injury time in 2007. Both goals were penalties, and both were converted after penalties which led to red cards for the opposition. A game like that might be the most visible and obvious example, but it’s proof that Kuyt was not a man to let his team down. If it wasn’t important enough to convert a last-minute penalty to win at Everton, to fail to beat nine men would have caused something approaching scandal.
Always a man for the big occasion, there’s only really one game to rival a Merseyside derby for importance and prestige: Manchester United.
In March 2011, Liverpool found themselves behind all five of the Premier League’s current top six, but they were only two points above Bolton Wanderers and four ahead of Sunderland. Realistically, the best the Reds could hope for was a decent showing and Europa League qualification. By then, they had been dumped out of the League Cup by Northampton Town and out of Europe by Braga. Those embarrassing defeats were compounded by a terrible start to the season which cost Roy Hodgson his job, and an FA Cup Third Round defeat to Manchester United themselves. Really, the end of the season couldn’t come soon enough. But then United – top of the league – arrived at Anfield.
Sometimes a depressed team is the most dangerous one to play against. Liverpool never need any extra motivation to beat Manchester United at home, but if they were looking for it that day, they might have found it in the fact that the Red Devils were looking on course to run away with the league title. And more importantly, United and Liverpool were tied with 18 English titles apiece: if United did win the league, they’d have moved one clear.
There was still a title race to be had, though. United had lost their previous game to Chelsea, and although Arsenal drew with Sunderland the day before United travelled to Liverpool, a victory for the home side would have meant two defeats on the spin for Alex Ferguson’s side and would have cut their lead to just three points.
It is both surprising and yet thoroughly obvious that it should have been Dirk Kuyt who stood up to the mark in such a game. This was a big occasion, and one the Dutchman thrives on, and it should have come as no surprise that he would live up to it. And yet, for a player who scored, on average, about a goal every four league games throughout his time at Liverpool, to get three in one match was spectacularly out of character.
It was Kuyt’s first hat-trick for Liverpool, and just a year before he left for Turkey, and it came against his club’s arch rival in the year when they were on course to beat the Anfield club’s title-winning record. And yet, what made it even more special was that this was a hat-trick scored from a combined six yards: every goal a tap-in.
If Kuyt was not a flair player, he certainly wasn’t a poacher either. A man asked to play on the wing in big games more for his willingness to run and give his all more than anything else, you would have got long odds if you’d backed him to win the game by scoring three. They would have been even longer if you’d projected he’s score all three from within the six-yard box.
Two goals in quick succession just before half time, and then another midway through the second half won the game for Liverpool, even if United did have the final say, with a consolation goal in injury time. Fittingly, it was one of the Premier League era’s great poachers, Javier Hernandez, who grabbed the goal.
Liverpool and Kuyt had done their bit to keep the Premier League title race interesting. They had cut United’s lead to just three points over Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal – who had a game in hand – and their goal difference lead was also cut to just three. The two clubs even had to play each other at the Emirates Stadium in May. Arsenal, who hadn’t won a league title in six years since their invincible 2003/04 season, had a genuine shot at the title with only nine games to play.
But just like Kuyt’s surprising, yet bizarrely fitting hat-trick, Arsenal themselves did something both typically Arsenal yet uncharacteristic. Of their last 11 games, the Gunners won just two of them, not only blowing their best chance of a Premier League title in years, but slipping all the way down to fourth place in the table.
As though some sort of gravitational pull was drawing Arsenal away from the top of the table and back down to fourth place, they ended the season in exactly the same situation in which they seem to end every season, and yet Arsenal usually have a habit of finishing strongly after a collapse in February. This time it happened right at the end.
Ironically, one of those two victories actually came in the not-so-crucial match at home to Manchester United. What should have been a title decider turned into the game where Arsenal sealed fourth place and Champions League football.
In the end, Ferguson’s side, won the league by nine points, but having been beaten by Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal in the run-in. Liverpool had done everything they could to give Arsenal a chance at achieving so much more, and stopping United from winning their 19th title in the process. Dirk Kuyt was known for chasing lost causes, and perhaps it’s fitting that one of his finest moments at the club was exactly that.