Fowler searches in vain for fitting end
By Tim Rich
Last Updated: 3:54am BST 12/04/2007
He had not begun a match of any consequence for months and he is not likely to start another but when he came on Anfield rose to him. The man they once referred to simply as 'god' was in his kingdom, perhaps for the last time.
It was a dead game for everyone except Robbie Fowler. It has not yet been confirmed that he will be leaving Anfield at the end of the season but if he cannot command a starting place in a match which Liverpool are leading 3-0 with home advantage, it is time to draw your own conclusions.
Foreign managers have brought plenty to the English game, but they have not been overly sentimental figures. You think of Ruud Gullit's discarding of Alan Shearer, Arsene Wenger's refusal to play Ian Wright in the 1998 FA Cup final and Gerard Houllier's rotation policy that first forced Fowler from Merseyside six years ago.
However, as befits a Spaniard, Rafael Benitez's decision to bring Fowler back was a quixotic one that met with universal goodwill. However, hard as he trained and hard as he tried, the touch that gave him the surest instinct for goal of any centre-forward to have played for Liverpool since Ian Rush - he is still the last Liverpool striker to have scored 20 League goals in a season - had largely disappeared. The knee injury that cost him a place in the 1998 World Cup took a very heavy toll on Fowler.
To the Kop, however, the boy from Toxteth is still one of them although last night, if truth be told, Fowler did not do very much. He pulled back a loose ball to hand Peter Crouch the night's only goal and won a free-kick when scythed down by Carlos Salcido. But this had the feel of a testimonial evening, although Fowler was not a beneficiary. Yet, should he find himself on the bench in the European Cup final in Athens, there might still be time for one last twist, perhaps in a penalty shoot-out.
Like Shearer, Fowler does not have an awful lot to show for the adulation. He did appear on an open-topped bus parading the European Cup but that was in Madrid as a guest of his friend, Steve McManaman.
Fowler's second coming to Anfield produced no more than a respectable return. There were goals against Sheffield United and in minor Champions League games as well as the Carling Cup but the last major fixture he started was the disastrous Merseyside derby at Goodison Park that exposed all of Liverpool's traditional early-season failings under Benitez.
In the hard currency of medals, Fowler's pinnacle was the treble he won under Houllier. But like Shearer, his monument was his goals, mostly scored for entertaining but flawed teams constructed by Roy Evans, Liverpool's last link to Bill Shankly's bootroom - just as Robbie Fowler was the last link to the kind of footballer who on his way back from a match stopped off for chips and gravy and a can of Irn Bru with his mates.
By Tim Rich
Last Updated: 3:54am BST 12/04/2007
He had not begun a match of any consequence for months and he is not likely to start another but when he came on Anfield rose to him. The man they once referred to simply as 'god' was in his kingdom, perhaps for the last time.
It was a dead game for everyone except Robbie Fowler. It has not yet been confirmed that he will be leaving Anfield at the end of the season but if he cannot command a starting place in a match which Liverpool are leading 3-0 with home advantage, it is time to draw your own conclusions.
Foreign managers have brought plenty to the English game, but they have not been overly sentimental figures. You think of Ruud Gullit's discarding of Alan Shearer, Arsene Wenger's refusal to play Ian Wright in the 1998 FA Cup final and Gerard Houllier's rotation policy that first forced Fowler from Merseyside six years ago.
However, as befits a Spaniard, Rafael Benitez's decision to bring Fowler back was a quixotic one that met with universal goodwill. However, hard as he trained and hard as he tried, the touch that gave him the surest instinct for goal of any centre-forward to have played for Liverpool since Ian Rush - he is still the last Liverpool striker to have scored 20 League goals in a season - had largely disappeared. The knee injury that cost him a place in the 1998 World Cup took a very heavy toll on Fowler.
To the Kop, however, the boy from Toxteth is still one of them although last night, if truth be told, Fowler did not do very much. He pulled back a loose ball to hand Peter Crouch the night's only goal and won a free-kick when scythed down by Carlos Salcido. But this had the feel of a testimonial evening, although Fowler was not a beneficiary. Yet, should he find himself on the bench in the European Cup final in Athens, there might still be time for one last twist, perhaps in a penalty shoot-out.
Like Shearer, Fowler does not have an awful lot to show for the adulation. He did appear on an open-topped bus parading the European Cup but that was in Madrid as a guest of his friend, Steve McManaman.
Fowler's second coming to Anfield produced no more than a respectable return. There were goals against Sheffield United and in minor Champions League games as well as the Carling Cup but the last major fixture he started was the disastrous Merseyside derby at Goodison Park that exposed all of Liverpool's traditional early-season failings under Benitez.
In the hard currency of medals, Fowler's pinnacle was the treble he won under Houllier. But like Shearer, his monument was his goals, mostly scored for entertaining but flawed teams constructed by Roy Evans, Liverpool's last link to Bill Shankly's bootroom - just as Robbie Fowler was the last link to the kind of footballer who on his way back from a match stopped off for chips and gravy and a can of Irn Bru with his mates.
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