Final insult on night of pain

May 24 2007 by David Prentice, Liverpool Echo

ON a night of bleak, Greek tragedy, UEFA cruelly twisted the knife on Liverpool’s shattered players.

The officials who organise these things, presumably the same blazered buffoons who allocated 17,000 tickets to a team supported by hundreds of thousands, positioned the post-match interview point directly next to the AC Milan dressing room.

The Italian celebrations were still reverberating ecstatically as Liverpool’s devastated stars gave dignified and magnanimous reactions to their Champions League defeat.

Jamie Carragher. Steven Gerrard. Bolo Zenden. Xabi Alonso. John Arne Riise. All stood patiently, pain etched in their faces, to give their views.

But the message wasn’t one of devastation and despair.

It was of hope and optimism.

Liverpool fell short last night in Athens – but not dramatically so.

But they fell short nonetheless of a high class AC Milan side. And Liverpool will spend the summer analysing methods of closing that gap.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett were inside Athens’ Olympic Stadium.

And they will have witnessed what the fans who have watched Liverpool all season already knew.

Liverpool lack a marksman of the highest class – a man who can produce magic in front of goal, a man who can take advantage when the Reds are in charge of games, and a man who can turn a match when they are not.

Neither Peter Crouch nor Craig Bellamy were trusted to show they could be that man last night. Poor Robbie Fowler failed even to make the substitutes’ bench.