Much has been said of our toothless attack lately and rightly so. You can dress the stats up as much as you like but the simple facts are that if we win a game it tends to be a midfielder who gets the points. Crouch, Morientes, Cisse and Fowler are about as predatory as a particularly stuffed sloth. Look at last night’s attempts. Crouch’s panic echoes my own disbelief of the kerb getting ever closer to my wheels several hours earlier. He could have done something – he didn’t. I’ll point out the Morientes mistakes when I track the effort he made last night. I don’t doubt that his shirt was dry when he got back to the dressing room. He could still be wearing it now and it would still bear the traces of whatever fabric conditioner he keeps under the sink.
I can’t blame Cisse too much. It’s like claiming that Warnock is a useless plumber. Cisse is not a right winger in the same way that Diouf was never a striker. The Champions of Europe shouldn’t be shifting people into positions that don’t belong to them. The fact that his position was taken by Morientes is alarming in the extreme and I fear the writing’s on the wall. Still, congrats to Cassius.
As for the Prodigal Son, there’s more to come and he didn’t get a sniff last night. His performance was better than that against Charlton when, whisper it, he was awful. I still want more from but so does he so I’ll accept that.
You can’t complain about the rest of the team. We conceded two goals, the second of which meant nothing. The first one was down to Carragher dawdling and Finnan not closing down the shot so I was bemused to see criticism of Traore. Every team needs a scapegoat but last night was ridiculous.
It’s our first European exit since Marseille. That’s not a bad run. Bring on Athens!