Ngog doubles up for Roy

David Ngog was Liverpool's unlikely hero, scoring the first two goals of Roy Hodgson's reign to silence the hostile fanatics in Macedonia.

And assuming they paid their £4.99 for the privilege to watch the game on Primetime, Steven Gerrard Jamie Carragher and Joe cole will have watched a very satisfactory performance from Liverpool's young second string.

More than 20,000 turned out for the biggest game in FK Rabotnicki's 73-year history, double their normal attendance for even the biggest league games.

Although the Macedonian side, including four Brazilians, could not match their supporters' passion with football to test Liverpool, Hodgson knew they were tricky opponents for his first game.

Yet, Liverpool breezed through the first half and Diego Cavalieri, making a rare appearance in the Liverpool goal, had nothing to trouble him from the side who finished second in the Macedonian league last season.

They only effort Cavalieri had to save was an ambitious strike from 30 yards from the Rabotnicki playmaker Ze Carlos which bounced about 10 times in front of the stand-in 'keeper before he made a routine stop. His warm-up was harder.

Liverpool, cheered on by about 300 fans who had made the journey from England and various part of Eastern Europe, went close before Ngog broke the deadlock with a simple move in the 17th minute.

Captain for the night Lucas Leiva forced goalkeeper Martin Bogatinov to race from his area and clear after 12 minutes, following Alberto Aquilani's neat through ball, and teenage winger David Amoo caused havoc on both flanks, slipping one cross beyond Ngog and Bogatinov.

Defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos, who was jeered relentlessly for being Greek, also went close with a header from a Lucas corner.

But Lucas made no mistake when he turned provider with a quick free-kick which caught the home defence napping. Bogatinov and Fernando Lopes made a mess of a simple clearance at the edge of the area, allowing Ngog to walk the ball into the empty net with ease.

It was his eighth Liverpool goal since his £1.5million move from Paris St Germain two years ago and a crucial one for Hodgson.

It was a game Hodgson could afford to lose but certainly did not want to. He had asked the Liverpool board to prioritise the Europa League as the last of their concerns, and certainly way behind Champions League qualification, and appeared to get his wish.

Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel and Sotoris Kyrgiakos were back earlier than he and they would like, but at least he managed to preserve the long-term fitness of his big stars.

It took him 18 games to reach the Europa League Final with Fulham last season and the London side suffered in the Premier League as a result, finishing 12th and failing to build on the impressive seventh place finish the previous season which had got Fulham into Europe in the first place.

Different club, different expectations. Twelve months ago Hodgson's Fulham players were back in training in the first week of July.

Several of the players he has inherited at Liverpool are still waiting to return for their first day of pre-season training.

His England contingent have been back for more than a week but, taking the advice and pleas from his sports science staff, Hodgson resisted the temptation to play them.

They are more likely to play some part in a friendly against Borussia Monchengladbach on Sunday and could even play in the second leg at Anfield next Thursday.

His pre-season campaign with most of the same young and fringe players, plus Alberto Aquilani, David Ngog, Milan Jovanovic and Lucas Leiva had hardly gone to plan.

They drew 0-0 in Zug against a strong FC Grasshopper side and then lost 1-0 to Kaiserslautern in Germany at the weekend, failing to create a chance of any real note against a side promoted back to the Bundesliga last season.

As a team whose season had started with the first qualifying round in Andorra in early July, and won the two legs 11-0, and then just managed to overcome similar opponents from Armenia by a single goal, FK Rabotnicki would ordinarily represent good opponents for a pre-season run-out.

But this was serious competitive action and although he was forced to put out an experimental team, Hodgson wanted a positive result.

Such was the ease and margin of victory, Hodgson may be tempted to rest the stars next week, too.

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.