Yossi Benayoun overwhelms Burnley with second Liverpool hat-trick

Yossi Benayoun (R) shoots to score his third goal against Burnley during their English Premier League soccer match in Liverpool. Sept 12, 2009. – Reuters pic

Liverpool – On the eve of this match, José Reina had described Liverpool’s chances of winning the league title as “unrealistic”. That may be the case, but on a sun-kissed day at Anfield, the hosts’ attempts to at least be contenders this season continued to warm up.

Gone here were the horrors of Liverpool’s last home league match – the 3-1 defeat to Aston Villa – instead, Rafael Benítez’s side displayed the relentlessness and deadliness to suggest they can, after all, better last year’s second-place finish. Bar a first-minute strike from Martin Paterson that slid just wide of Reina’s near post, the men in red were rarely threatened by Burnley.

It will have pleased Benítez that his side kept a clean sheet after a series of poor defensive displays. Three of their goals also came from a player who has become a firm favourite of the home support and perhaps now deserves wider recognition.

Yossi Benayoun was superb throughout this contest, as he has been since the tail end of last season, and played a defining role in releasing Liverpool from their initial sluggishness. His clever running worried Burnley throughout, and it was fitting that the Israeli should score his second hat-trick since arriving on Merseyside from West Ham in July 2007.

“He is a player with lots of quality,” said Benítez of the 28-year-old. “We have seen how good he can be from the bench and now he is showing how good he can be from the start.”

Benayoun’s first goal was undoubtedly his best. Collecting Glen Johnson’s pass, he snaked by the Burnley captain Graham Alexander before sliding the ball past a diving Brian Jensen into the far corner.

The second was a tap-in following a superb charge into the area by Steven Gerrard and the third similarly comfortable after the player found himself onside and in space having collected Andriy Voronin’s through pass.

But that should not take away from his achievement nor the class displayed by Liverpool, who briefly moved into fourth place before Manchester United’s win at Tottenham.

Burnley, meanwhile, should not be too despondent. Theirs was an encouraging display before Benayoun scored the first, and had they gone in at half-time 1-0 down, they perhaps would have achieved more.

But that was made impossible by a second Liverpool goal on 40 minutes, and again Benayoun was involved. It was his shot that the Jensen spilt into the path of Dirk Kuyt, who finished with ease. “I’m disappointed that we lost four-nil, as we started well,” said the Burnley manager Owen Coyle. “But we switched off and, with the quality that Liverpool have, they were always going to punish us for that.”

Gerrard and Voronin would have added to the rout had they scored with clear chances late on, but that was of little concern to the home supporters, whose only frustration came when it was announced that Chelsea had scored a winner at Stoke. – Guardian