Brief talk of the footie

A frustrating Champions League final. Milan 2-Liverpool 1. Liverpool were clearly the better team on this day, but poor finishing and poor crosses did them in. They have no one to blame but themselves. It was still an impressive Champions League campaign, but it should have ended in glory. A few remarks (if you don't follow this stuff, you can probably stop reading):

1. What the hell was Bolo Zenden doing on the pitch? At all. Let alone for 60 minutes. He was absolutely awful and definitely cost Liverpool a few good chances at goal. Zenden was coming bak for injury and has been terrible all season. Rafa Benitez is normally an astute team selector, but this was simply inexplicable.

2. Wasn't Inzaghi's first goal a hand ball? Maybe I'm wrong on the rules, but I'm not wrong in saying that he clearly redirected the ball into the net with his arm. Shouldn't someone have at least explained this?

3. It was nice to see Jermaine Pennant with acres of space on the right side throughout the first half, but there were two problems: he kept on putting in bad crosses; and he had no one to cross to...which leads to:

4. Where was Peter Crouch? I suppose I can understand excluding him from the starting lineup and seeing how the game goes, but once Liverpool were down and Zenden was clearly useless and Pennant had run out of ideas, how could Benitez not have brought Crouch on earlier? He waited until the 78th minute! I was simply shocked. Crouch may be ungainly at times, but he is always valuable on set pieces and he was clearly a much greater goal threat than almost everyone else on the pitch.

5. Javier Mascherano was fantastic. So was Daniel Agger. The problem (as has been the case many times in recent years) was that Liverpool simply have major trouble scoring goals. Their defense is generally excellent, but they desperately need to sign a top-class striker this summer.

That is all for now.