lankyguy007Liverpool had set out to attack Milan early on. They'd done the same thing in the first leg of the quarter final against Juventus and had overwhelmed them, leading 2-0 in 25 minutes with a team full of players like Carson, Le Tallec, Traore and Biscan against players like Buffon, Cannavaro, Nedved and Ibrahimovic.

However Milan scored in 50 seconds and though Liverpool came at Milan for a few minutes after the goal, they were all over the place. The wingers, Riise and Garcia were playing high up and were trying to press Milan's full backs but the whole defence was calm and composed on the ball and this created more space in midfield for Milan.

In fact Liverpool's main problems were who to pick up in midfield. Milan set up with a 4-4-2 diamond but the 'wide' players in Gattuso and Seedorf didn't play on the flanks but instead stayed narrow and with Pirlo and Kaka, surrounding Gerrard and Alonso. Liverpool's full backs therefore couldn't pick up any wide men and were otherwise pre occupied with Crespo and Shevchenko who were making smart runs on the shoulder of the defenders mainly between the centre backs and the full backs. Liverpool had real problems with this and therefore struggled to get the full backs forward.

Gerrard was very indisciplined in midfield and was trying to go forward but was cramped out by the narrow Milan midfield and was leaving space for Kaka to exploit. Alonso's defensive capabilities aren't his main strength at all and he couldn't deal with Kaka. For the second and third goal Gerrard and Alonso overcomitted and left Kaka with space with which to hurt Liverpool's back four with some lovely passes. For the second goal Liverpool couldn't deal with the pace or movement of the strikers and Carragher was ball watching as Shevchenko's pass came across to a free Crespo to knock home.

For the third goal Liverpool's centre backs were completely opened up with Shevchenko going short and Crespo going long but it was a sublime pass by Kaka to get Crespo free and Crespo finished off with a lovely dink over the goalkeeper.

All in all Liverpool were completely outclassed in the first half and were struggling very badly. It looked as if there was no way back.

25.02.2011

lankyguy007Also Cafu and Maldini were both really pushing up to provide width, particularly Cafu and this also caused Liverpool problems.

25.02.2011

dragonulteoBaros and Kewell are now at Galatasaray,but the turkish team don't play very good with this 2 and with Hagi on bench.

06.03.2011