There were times at Anfield last night when the European Cup appeared to have become the subject of a particularly bizarre Dutch auction. Eventually Liverpool returned to the quarter-finals by beating AZ67 Alkmaar 3-2 in the second leg of their second round tie to go through 5-4 on aggregate, but such was the fluctuating nature of the match and so vulnerable did the holders appear in the second half, when Alkmaar twice drew level, that there were moments when their survival was in doubt. Last season Liverpool became the first British club to win the European Cup three times when they defeated Real Madrid in a dour Final in Paris. Against Alkmaar, both in Amsterdam and at Anfield, Liverpool occasionally betrayed the nervous frailty of a team setting out on its first season of continental competition. In the opening leg, lapses of concentration in defence nearly cost them the match after they had eased their way into a two-goal lead and last night their game threatened to cave in when Alkmaar, after falling behind towards the end of the first half, moved more men forward in a series of brisk, skilful attacks. To be fair to Liverpool, they had the relatively inexperienced Whelan and Rush playing instead of Lee and Johnson but it was not in these positions that their real problems lay. Not for the first time this season they made elementary mistakes at the back and this in spite of an exceptional performance by Neal, who wasted few chances of reminding the watching Ron Greenwood of his attacking qualities. When Neal instigated a movement which ended with Souness, Liverpool's other outstanding player, hitting a post just past the quarter-hour, the holders seemed set for a comfortable victory. Alkmaar again looked accident prone under pressure. However, Liverpool did not regain their lead in the tie until three minutes before half time.

McDermott scoring with a penalty after Treytel had brought down Dalglish. By then Alkmaar, while seldom mounting a sustained attack during the first half, had cast a shadow of doubt over Anfield when Tol, having made space for himself near goal, was only thwarted by the speed of Grobbelaar off his line. In the second half, with Metgod moving forward to support the busy perceptive Peters, the Dutch team seemed relieved that at last they were playing their natural attacking game. In the 55th minute, Metgod and Peters disrupted Liverpool's cover on the right and a low shot from Kist went in under the goalkeeper's falling body. Now Alkmaar, playing with poise and penetration, looked capable of taking the lead themselves but in the 68th minute, Souness sent a previously ponderous Dalglish turning past his marker and, with Treytel stranded, Rush deflected the ball into an empty net. Anfield breathed more easily but only for five minutes. Again Alkmaar brought the scores level, this time with an extraordinary goal. Grobbelaar punched out a Dutch centre and Metgod immediately produced a 40-yard lob which took not only the goalkeeper but the whole of the Liverpool defence by surprise. The ball sailed over all the heads, bounced down from the underside of the bar, hit Thompson who had sprinted back to cover and went in - an own goal. After all that had happened, Liverpool's nerves looked in poor shape for extra time and penalties. In the event, they were spared much anxiety in the 85th minute, when Hansen chested down a centre from McDermott and survived a tackle before slipping the ball past Treytel. In its odd way, the game had made for an enjoyable evening. Certainly it would have graced Paris last spring.

Holders Liverpool are in the quarter-finals of the European Cup. With the prospect of extra time looming ever nearer Bob Paisley's men snatched a victory that should never have been in doubt. And the man who put them through with an 84th minute goal was tall central defender Alan Hansen. It took a hotly disputed penalty to give Liverpool the lead. The bare facts are that Kenny Dalglish was pulled down by Dutch keeper Eddy Treijtel as he raced on to a through pass from Terry McDermott in the 42nd minute and McDermott's scoring shot was a formality. But, frankly, Liverpool had not looked very much like scoring before that incident. They cannot blame bad luck, great goalkeeping or any marvellous defensive qualities. The blunt truth is that Liverpool looked inadequate against very poor opposition. But, instead of turning this in to an opportunity to display their own silky skills and scoring power, Liverpool elected instead to show off. They could have had at least half a dozen goals with more convincing finishing in the first half. But, in fact, the closest they came was in the 15th minute when the man who ran the whole midfield, Graeme Souness, hit the foot of the post after a pass from Ronnie Whelan. It became a matter of recording and recounting the misses as they mounted - and one statistical instance of how one sided it was is that Liverpool achieved ten corners in the first 30 minutes. In all the time, Bruce Grobbelaar in the Liverpool goal was called into action only twice - once saving a low cross from winger Kees Tol and once grabbing a free kick from Jonker.

Otherwise, all the traffic flowed towards the Dutch goal and they countered with stubborn defence, their main concern being how to police Dalglish. It was never really effective because Dalglish wandered all over the place, pulled the Dutch defence apart, but then, again, his Liverpool colleagues made very little capital out of the space he was creating. Faced with a situation which forced them to attack, the Dutch champions manfully settled to that task. They had the ideal man to employ in midfield, international Jan Peters, and he was the engineer of the slightly dubious goal which pulled them level on the night in the 55th minute. At the end of a long, strong run he released the ball to Holland's top scorer Kees Kist whose right foot shot beat Grobbelaar but, for me, Peters had run so powerfully he was in an offside position at the time. Liverpool went in front again with a goal that was master-minded by Souness in the 69th minute and scored by Rush. It should have been all over just a couple of minutes later when McDermott was guilty of a wild slash wide when presented with an easy chance by a Dalglish cross from the left. But, suddenly, it all went sour for Liverpool as AZ pulled level with a freak goal in the 74th minute. Their sweeper Johnny Metgod, who had pushed forward in desperation, hit a speculative lob towards the Liverpool goal when he spotted keeper Grobbelaar off the line. The ball hit the angle of bar and post and Phil Thompson, the Liverpool captain, trying to clear, succeeded only in helping the rebound into his own net.

Alan Hansen lifted Liverpool out of another mire of their own making and into the quarter-finals of the European Cup by the skin of their teeth last night. The European champions were flirting with their first defeat to continental opposition at Anfield since 1974 when Terry McDermott lifted an 85th minute cross towards the Alkmaar penalty area. The ball spun high into the air off a defender. Hansen controlled it on his chest as it dropped, skirted around a defender and planted the ball home to a mighty roar of relief. The unfancied Dutch champions had Liverpool in a nervous sweat when leading scorer Kees Kist drove home their first equaliser in the 53rd minute as the defenders hesitated on an offside decision against Jan Peters that never came. Ian Rush put Liverpool ahead again in the 67th minute after Graeme Souness's incisive pass had sent Kenny Dalglish to the line to supply the cross that made the chance straightforward. But the defensive horrors becoming more than familiar that also struck Liverpool in the first leg a fortnight ago haunted them again when goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar raced to the edge of his penalty area to make a punch. The ball dropped 15 yards further out at the feet of Johnny Metgod who lobbed it straight back to bounce down off the crossbar onto the covering Phil Thompson and into the net, to put the tie level and extra time close on the horizon.

Alkmaar, for all their lapses in passing, particularly across the back four, grew visibly in confidence and were still charging at the Kop when West German referee Eschweiler blew the final whistle. Terry McDermott's 41st minute penalty was a fair reward for Liverpool's relentless if uninspired first half pressure. The Dutch may have pulled more men deep than in the first game but they were just as generous in leaving space in and around the penalty area that Liverpool might have exploited to greater profit. Phil Neal, vying with Souness as Liverpool's best performer on the night, set up repeated attacks down the right flank where Alkmaar allowed him a fair amount of freedom. The full-back might have got on the scoresheet himself with a 25 yarder that goalkeeper Treytel punched out. Treytel also denied Rush with a smothering save and was rescued by Spelbos's goal line clearance when the Welsh international striker beat him two minutes from the end, and by the post that kept out a Souness shot in the 16th minute. The best move of the match produced the penalty. Ronnie Whelan laced a silken thread through Alkmaar's white sheet of defenders with a through ball that McDermott touched on to the galloping Dalglish who was brought down by Treytel as he rounded him. McDermott's spot kick went high to the goalkeeper's left as he moved to the right. Booked: Alkmaar's Spelbos for deliberate handball.