Finnan clears skipper of red card blame
Mar 27 2006
By Andy Gilpin Daily Post Staff
STEVE FINNAN believes captain Steven Gerrard doesn't need to apologise to his Liverpool team-mates, despite him being sent off in Saturday's Merseyside derby.
The England midfielder was shown a second yellow card in the 18th minute for a tackle on Everton winger Kevin Kilbane, just seconds after entering referee Phil Dowd's book for kicking the ball away.
But despite the needless nature of the sending off, Republic of Ireland international Finnan says that his team-mates - who dug in to win the game 3-1 - don't want him to say sorry.
"Stevie was very quiet after the match," said Finnan.. "These games mean a lot to him and he is disappointed to have missed out on the victory.
"But he doesn't need to apologise. The first one was for kicking the ball away, but he looked like he got a bit of the ball for the second one. However the referee said it was twofooted.
"It's okay because he has got us out of trouble so many times in the past, he was just disappointed that it happened in a derby game."
Finnan believes Liverpool were content with a draw after Gerrard saw red, but Phil Neville's 45th-minute own goal which put them ahead gave them the self-belief they needed to go on and win the match.
"Maybe at 0-0 we may have thought we couldn't win it and would have settled for the draw," Finnan added. "But going in 1-0 up gave us the belief in our own heads that we could go on and win it.
"That goal was important. We were still causing problems with 10 men and the confidence we have got from our previous three wins helped us through."
Finnan believes that Liverpool were well worth their win, despite being reduced to 10 men so early on.
"We got the goals at really good times," he added.. "When we went down to 10 men, maybe we expected a little bit more from them, but I thought we deserved to win in the end. We fought really hard and showed a lot of character.
"It didn't really happen for them. They had been on a good run, but when they got the goal back, they started playing long balls and that wasn't a major problem. It is great to do the double over them and psychologically you can sleep well after a derby win."
Centre-back Sami Hyypia criticised referee Dowd for sending off Gerrard - believing the Staffordshire official was hasty in giving the Liverpool captain his marching orders.
Hyypia reckons Dowd didn't need to book Gerrard for kicking the ball away, but admitted the referee was correct to caution the skipper for the challenge on Kilbane.
"I don't know if the referee needed to give the first one against Stevie," he said. "The second one I don't think you can argue that it was a yellow card.
"But when he gave the first one so easily, maybe he could have let him off the second one.
"Stevie is a big leader of our team and he takes a lot of responsibility so it was up to the ones left on the pitch to take more responsibility. We did that.
"We needed to work hard and we did and at the end we are very happy," he added.. "Defensively, I really don't remember many chances coming along for them, and it wasn't their best day.
"We closed them down and got a lot of second balls".
