I didn't enjoy that game.

First of all the better team lost. Huff and Puff overcame mesmerising football.

Secondly, I didn't enjoy watching it on the BBC. I can't blame Liverpool or their supporrters for the fact that the BBC team was so ridiculously one-sided, but it was getting my back up. The script for the evening was "kop, european night, glory years, Gerrard, passion" - a complete yawn.

I would hope that at the later stages of the champions league, the best quality would start to make its presence felt. It does also point out to how Manchester United and to a lesser extent Chelsea are a class apart from Liverpool and Arsenal. The former two have quality and 'huff and puff', the latter have one of each.

The high price paid by the loss of Eduardo and now Flamini proves that it practically impossible to win the PL / CL without 80m permanently sitting on the bench.

Did you mean ITV, chippy?

The commentator had a very bad habit of getting excited at the WRONG moment and SCREAMING for no apparent reason.

I do wish that someone other than Gerrard had taken that penalty... thats about the only thing about last night that really grates.

dunno about that loose... but certainly, if you dont have at least two internationals (apart from Senderos) in each position, then forget it.

Fuck me, that was like being on drugs.

I watched the match in one of those massive lad-pubs with an all-night happy hour, but with the sound turned so low you couldn't hear the commentary. The experience of watching the match on one massive screen and countless smaller ones, hanging at angles from the ceiling, was almost psychedelic.

My nerves can't take many more games like that, but what an incredible match.

I know it's easy for the victor to show magnanimity, but I still want to say that Walcott's amazing run to set up Adebayor, shrugging off challenge after challenge, deserved better than to ultimately go down as a consolation goal.

And also to acknowledge that Arsenal completely disrupted Liverpool's gameplan. Pre-match, Benitez said that "compact" was the keyword (admittedly, the words were put into his mouth by the ITV interviewer), but Aresnal stretched us all over the place, which made it the open, end-to-end game it was.

(In a similar spirit, I want to applaud EIM for his "Pablo Dorito in the great River Island team of the 60s" thing. That was brilliant.)

You know, when Torres scored his wondergoal, I immediately thought "Let's see AIATL & co describe that as 'lucky'", so I was kind of pleased for them when a penalty decision which was a penalty all day but was relatively soft (i.e. it didn't involve hospitalisation) gave them something to latch onto. Bless them.

I was amused, on a previous thread, to read (I think) AIATL saying that Benitez' use of Kuyt as an auxiliary defender proves that he doesn't know what he's doing. As opposed to, you know, proving that Benitez, having worked with a player for a while, is intelligent enough to spot their potential for positional versatility. In any case, I was pretty impressed by Kuyt's defensive play last night (and indeed by Skrtel).

I'm pretty sick of us being (relatively) shit in the league and brilliant in Europe and I don't want another season of that, but I'll enjoy the ride for a few more weeks.

Just wish it wasn't fucking Chelsea again.

The ITV interview gave an insight into how Gerrard gets treated by the media and hangers-on. When he said he put in one of his worst performances in a Liverpool shirt the interviewer disagreed vehemantly. The fact is Gerrard was poor although displayed balls of steel for the penalty.

I'm sure that there will be people lining up to tell him it wasn't his fault and that Benitez played him out of possession and he showed passion and courage. I'm sure it's hard to keep a bit of perspective if that's all you're hearing.

Well, Mr Kuyt
we're out.

How do you feel?
Believe its real?

You played well
I'm in hell

Good things come
to an ex Feyenoord bum.

c sulky bugger aged 4

By the way, I also wanted to point out that threads like this one show exactly why the "xx hours, xx minutes ago" thing is so crap.

When you're reading back through an as-it-happened match thread, and enjoying people's live reactions to incidents, it's much more useful to know whether someone was posting at 8.47pm or 9.11pm than having to sit there making mental subtractions to work it out.

I fucking hate this Stevie G shite. He's called Steven Gerrard. And saying you expected him to score is a bit rich, since if it happens to be an England shirt, that can't be relied upon.

Also, someone mentioned to me that after Adrian Chiles criticised him as captain for not calming Mascherano down in the game against man Utd, he decided not to speak to the BBC for a bit. Is that true?

Perhaps its like that thing where casinos have no clocks so gamblers don't know how long they've been there.

Oh and on the game. How quick was Mascherano as he tried to get to Walcott?

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

QUOTE:




I was amused, on a previous thread, to read (I think) AIATL saying that Benitez' use of Kuyt as an auxiliary defender proves that he doesn't know what he's doing.

As opposed to, you know, proving that Benitez, having worked with a player for a while, is intelligent enough to spot their potential for positional versatility. In any case, I was pretty impressed by Kuyt's defensive play last night

And yet some would say that having spent £9m on a forward he should really be , you know, pretty good as a forward.

You could have got a far better non-British wing-back for that money if that's what you were looking for.

Sorry ITV

Harry Carpenter wrote:

QUOTE:
Spearmint Rhino wrote:

QUOTE:




I was amused, on a previous thread, to read (I think) AIATL saying that Benitez' use of Kuyt as an auxiliary defender proves that he doesn't know what he's doing.

As opposed to, you know, proving that Benitez, having worked with a player for a while, is intelligent enough to spot their potential for positional versatility. In any case, I was pretty impressed by Kuyt's defensive play last night

And yet some would say that having spent £9m on a forward he should really be , you know, pretty good as a forward.

You could have got a far better non-British wing-back for that money if that's what you were looking for.

Dirk Kuyt is very good as a forward. Not necessarily as a goalscorer (although he chips in with his fair share), but as a contributor to the attack. He does the sort of things for which Wayne Rooney gets praised to the skies. Helps to be English, I suppose.

You are taking several gallons of piss. Kuyt is one of Benitez's worst and least effective signings.

You're not seriously suggesting that Kuyt plays like Wayne Rooney?

I also have a distinct memory of there being a girlfriend in fever pitch,
although they didn't split up.

In the plotline I remember she became more and more of a supporter, until one day they're discussing kids,
and she says, you can go to the football one week and I'll go the other. At this point he
realises he's going to have to do something quick, otherwise he'll have to
share Arsenal with her, so he goes in a huge sulk after a defeat, until she falls into
his trap and comes out with the old 'It's only a game'.

He then has a massive rant about how she doesn't understaaand, and she backs off a bit.

Clever tactics I thought, although it now appears that I may have made it all up in my head.

Excellent game last night, what does Walcott have to do to get a start ? Every time he's come on recently he looks electric, as well as using the ball really well. Or is he stamina free, collapsing after 25 minutes ?