After dropping out of the Champions League with a tame display at home to FC Basel last week, it’s safe to say that yesterday’s draw for the next round of UEFA’s European competitions was met with considerably less interest than had the Reds made it to the knock-out stages rather than dropping into the barren wastelands of the Europa League.
While fellow Premier League clubs Manchester City and Chelsea got themselves glamour ties against Barcelona and Paris St. Germain respectively, the Anfield outfit was handed a far less prestigious opponent in the second tier competition in Turkish club Besiktas. Although the excitement of returning to the scene of arguably their greatest European night adds an extra layer of intrigue for Liverpool, it’s highly unlikely that anyone associated with the club could exist on the same plane of anticipation as Besiktas board member Ahmet Nur Cebi.
The last time these two teams met, in a Champions League encounter back in the 2007/2008 season, it was a bloodbath with Liverpool scoring a astounding 8 unanswered goals. Yossi Benayoun scored a hat-trick and both Peter Crouch and Ryan Babel went home with braces — though they failed to put even the faintest glimpse of a smile on then boss Rafa Benitez’s perpetual scowl.
Time, though, moves on and the Reds, who haven’t scored eight goals in their last eight matches, are a far different team than they were that night with as the Anfield outfit struggling to put anything resembling a coherent performance together. This, of course, works well for Cebi. “Liverpool should be more concerned about us than we are about them” he said following the draw. “We will knock Liverpool out of the competition. There is an account which wasn’t settled in England from previous years. Yes, I mean that 8-0 defeat. We’ll settle the account now.”
We’ll just wait and see about that…
