to be battered for most of the final.
Ride your luck and actually play for only a few minutes in the game, say somewhere between two and a maximum of six, if you’re an English team think ’99 and ’05.
Benitez sent out the team to do that, like he did in 2005 but this time instead of meeting a far superior team on the night they met an even more inept one who managed to grab a win.
Did the best team win? Was there a best team or just a least worst team but then that was probably Liverpool.
I don’t think I’ve seen an Italian side give the ball away so much but I don’t think I’ve seen an Italian side look as nervous as they did before the game when the teams came out.
A pedestrian outfit from which Pirlo and Ambrosini were totally absent with Seedorf, Kaka and Gattuso not exactly standing up to be counted, continuously they gave the ball straight back to Liverpool after gaining it, so much so you’d think the English side were in white and the continentals in red.
But Milan were lucky, not just with the first goal but with the team Benitez picked, like the choice of Kewell in Istanbul two years ago the choice of the wide men and Kyut up front on his tod was strange. Benitez is wanting rid of Zenden as soon as but picks him for this game, he’s slow of thought and deed and has never been a good deliverer of the ball into the box. On the other side Pennant saw a lot of the ball in the first half but again didn’t deliver a telling cross. Strange how he didn’t get as much of the ball in the second 45 minutes after the half time team talk by the manager was said to be give it to him, maybe someone got a bit jealous.
Kuyt was mentioned as a Spurs target quite a lot before the move to Liverpool and I never wanted him and I’m glad we didn’t get him. What I saw of him in Holland and for his national team he does a lot of running about, not much of it creatively, hasn’t got good positional sense, finds himself behind defenders a lot and isn’t a great scorer (same tally as Shevchenko this year – one we are told has been useless the other great) and that’s what was on show last night.
Gerrard did his usual ponce about and attempts for glory, Alonso lucky to stay on, was he even booked for the large number of fouls committed? Mascherano was probably their best player and controlled Kaka and yet he came off for Crouch which gave the Brazilian a lot more space and probably contributed to the Milan second goal.
Crouch should have been on earlier than the 78th minute, he really should have started, I’m in agreement with Jan Molby on that one. Crouch never let’s people down and he’s got a few more goals in Europe than Kuyt this year, holds the ball up well and lays it off which you need with one up front the only problem is referees hate him and give fouls against him at the drop of a hat. The other one I can’t understand is Kewell coming on while Bellamy sat on the bench all night, you got a bunch of defenders resting on their zimmers you want some annoying little git like Bellamy running at them.
Suppose the whole night summed up by Inzaghi being named Man-Of-The-Match for his lucky deflection and a decent second, he’s one of the most over rated strikers around but somehow now second only to Der Bomber in the European Cup scorers list.