AC Milan 2, Liverpool 1 (D,Post)

May 24 2007 Ian Doyle at the Olympic

And once Milan forged ahead, there was never any chance of them allowing a repeat of 2005, Kaka, the mercurial Brazilian, inevitably prevalent in both Milan goals.

For Liverpool fans, the questions will linger this morning.

Was Steven Gerrard best utilised in an attacking midfield position?

Should Peter Crouch have been brought on earlier?

And could Harry Kewell have been on from the start?

In the end, perhaps destiny was calling for Milan, as it was with Liverpool two years ago. After all, their role in the ‘Calciopoli’ match-fixing scandal that has besmirched Italian football in recent years had initially cost them their place in this season’s Champions League before they were reinstated.

That’s no consolation to Liverpool.

But this desperately disappointing defeat underlined what has been common knowledge for some time; despite their fantastic achievement in reaching a second Champions League final in three years, Benitez’s side need more quality to realistically contend both at home and abroad.

Now the Liverpool manager, armed with significant backing from American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks, will oversee a summer of rebuilding in which he will surely address his squad’s key shortcomings.

While Bolo Zenden was available, Momo Sissoko was unfit to make the substitutes’ bench from which the unlucky Robbie Fowler was also absent. No room for ‘God’ in the city of so many.

Benitez started with the Dutchman on the left side of a five-man midfield from which Gerrard was asked to provide support to sole striker Dirk Kuyt.

While the tactics were effective before the break, Zenden himself was a peripheral figure, unsurprisingly replaced by Harry Kewell on the hour.