I agree with the many Reds on the RAWK forum — Last night’s match was the most exciting Liverpool match since Istanbul. And the sheer magnitude of the match meant it edges even the West Ham FA Cup Final.
Not that Liverpool was playing particularly well. In fact, for the first ten minutes, Arsenal were awesome. Breath-taking. And them taking the lead seemed inevitable. I’m sure it got every Red shocked lah. But well, Sami Hyypia (I thought it was Kuyt at first due to the shaggy hair and poor quality of streaming) completely lost Senderos (with a cut that wouldn’t be out of place in Ultimate) to head a corner into goal.
The equaliser always gave us an assurance that this would be our day. But the performance in the first half was pretty bad. The defence was desperate defending at its best (our hallmark) but further up in midfield Gerrard was anonymous (he was right, one of his worst performances in a Liverpool jersey) while Kuyt was out of place in right midfield. Mascherano seemed lost.
And so Liverpool won today through 1) the sheer brilliance and form of Crouch and Torres, and 2) Benitez won the battle of wits over the three games. Okay, let me add Senderos into the equation, haha. Torres scored because no one closed him down as he turned to shoot. Kind of like Winning Eleven where you can score from anywhere as long as your striker is in the right position. Arsenal then scored a jaw-dropping goal from a really, really quick counter-attack by Theo Walcott and co., and when you thought all was lost Babel got us a penalty. Damn drama lah! But Babel’s goal summed it up over the three matches — Benitez got it right. It was a damn sad sight, but Fabregas didn’t lose out to Babel because of pace — he lost out on energy.
Ultimately, the Liverpool team never ever looked tired. And in matches as important as this, I guess how fresh you are at the closing stages of the game can decide everything.