Roy Set For Club Record Tonight

Victory tonight will see Roy
Hodgson become the first
Liverpool manager ever to win
his first five European games.
Here are some more stats and
facts ahead of the big match.
26 different players have been
used by Liverpool in the Europa
League this season. That is two
short of the club record set in
2001/02.
Lucas and Martin Kelly have
started all four games, while
David Ngog has featured in
each match of the European
campaign so far.
This is the second successive
season that Liverpool have faced
Romanian opposition. Last
season they beat Unirea Urziceni
1-0 at Anfield and 3-1 in the
return leg.
The Reds have won all six of
their Europa League games
played at Anfield.
Yossi Benayoun scored the last of
Liverpool's 16 European hat-
tricks - against Besiktas in
November 2007.
Liverpool have not conceded a
goal to a Romanian team at
Anfield in six previous clashes
on Merseyside.
Tonight's opponents are two of
only six teams in the group
stages of the Europa League who
have won the European Cup. The
others are Juventus, PSV
Eindhoven, Borussia Dortmund
and Porto.
This is the only one of the 12
groups that contains two
winners of Europe's premier
competition.
The teams have met once before
in Europe. In November 2003
Djimi Traore scored in a 1-1 UEFA
Cup draw in Bucharest while
Harry Kewell scored the only goal
of the return. Steven Gerrard,
who appeared in both games, is
the only current Liverpool player
to appear in the tie.
Steaua are the fifth different
Romanian team to face
Liverpool in Europe. The Reds
have never been eliminated by
a team from that country and
on two of the previous
occasions they went on to
European glory, winning the
1984 European Cup and the
UEFA Cup in 2001.
This will be Liverpool's first ever
group game in this competition
and Steaua are the only team the
Reds have met before.
Ryan Babel, with six, has scored
more goals in Europe as any
other Liverpool substitute in
history.
Steaua are Romania's most
celebrated side with a record 23
league title wins and 21 Cup
successes.
Last season they finished 4th,
seven points behind champions
Cluj. Unirea, who Liverpool met
last season, were runners-up.
They scored 49 goals in their 34
games.
Steaua won the European Cup in
their halcyon days in 1986 in
Seville when they beat Barcelona
2-0 on penalties after a goalless
draw. The hero was goalkeeper
Helmuth Ducadem who saved
four successive penalties in the
shoot-out. The Barcelona side
was managed by Terry Venables.
They followed that up a couple
of months later by beating
Dinamo Kiev to lift the
European Super Cup.
In 1989 they lost 4-0 to AC Milan
in the Final with two of the
Romanian stars being Gheorghe
Hagi and Dan Petrescu.
Last season Steaua won
through to the group stages of
the Europa League but drew
four and lost two to finish
bottom of the group that
contained Fenerbahce, FC
Twente and FC Sheriff.
Their leading scorer in the
competition last season was
Bogdan Stancu who scored six
goals.
Steaua have met English
opponents six times but have
yet to record a victory on
English soil - drawing twice.
They have scored four goals in
those clashes.
Coach Ilie Dumitrescu spent eight
years with Steaua as a player
before joining Tottenham in
1994 following the World Cup. He
also played in the Premier League
for West Ham.
They reached the Group Stages
of this season's competition by
defeating Grasshoppers 4-3 on
penalties after a 1-1 aggregate
score with Bogdan Stancu
scoring the goal. He then
scored in the shoot-out along
with Romeo Surdu, Stanislav
Angelov and Iasmin Latovlevici
After five wins and a draw in
their opening six games this
season in all competitions, they
have failed to win any of the last
three, losing two.
Last weekend they were
beaten 1-0 at Unirea in the
league despite fielding five
players who were signed from
Unirea during the summer.
They have only conceded seven
goals in nine games this season
with no team scoring more than
once against them.