thoughts on tonight

[Helios Creed]

Unfortunately we are now playing to chelski's game plan. They will do what they did tonight, play on the break. Drogba is brilliant. Man of the match by a long way. It's going to be very hard, even with the crowd. I think we're out I'm afraid.

BAN THIS SICK FILTH!

[Tom]

When they had the ball they bypassed our midfield by playing it long, when we had it they crowded us out. Tactically crude but extremly effective. It'll be more of the same second leg.

[tomasjj]

thoughts on tonight for me is what the **** is bolo zenden doing in a red shirt

Thing is, with SG on the right drifting in, he was the main outlet for much of our play. Not what we want is it...

[kemm1]

It will be very difficult from now on. Essien returns in the second leg which makes them even stronger. I hope Pennant and Gonzalez starts.

[lfc4ever]

We need better & more skillful players in our squad, unlockers, jinxy players that make things happen, better forwards as well, no-one held up the ball to bring others into play - the final pass was woeful (from both midfield & forward lines) to say the least.

Hard work won't get us through this time, the unexpected line-up just might though.

[Tom]

BAN THIS SICK FILTH!

don't worry i'll ban me-self. hang on, wrong internet forum....

[ronan]

thoughts?
not good enough
finnan was a big miss tonight,arebola was awful
alonso/zenden/kuyt and agger to a certain degree were no where near good enough.
could easily have been 2 or 3-0 but for carra and reina
were still in it but were going to have to score twice at home to win and thats going to be very very tough going by tonight

[mick the click]

Unfortunately we are now playing to chelski's game plan. They will do what they did tonight, play on the break. Drogba is brilliant. Man of the match by a long way. It's going to be very hard, even with the crowd. I think we're out I'm afraid.

Disagree - he was a diving primadonna - and I say that cos I don't often use the word ****. I wouldn't say we're out of it - how the **** can you with 1 goal in it? But we need to buck our ideas up. We look clueless sometimes.

[Cisseshairdresser]

Don't fancy are chances sorry boys.

We have to go looking for a goal. First off, their defensively brilliant, they will give us nothing. Secondly, like someone said earlier, its how they want it, us hunting for a goal and then they pick us off on the counter attack. Thirdly, Essien and Ballack are back.

It just feels like Benfica to me all over again. I still feel there was too much over confidence on are part leading upto this game, players and supporters alike.

Right I'm off to kill myself! Sorry for the gloom, just the way I see it!

[anfieldanfield]

We're VERY lucky to still be in this tie.

Chelsea should have had three or four tonight. We were poor.

The tie is still wide open. Anfield will be bouncing.

[Tom]

I said I think we're out of it, based on having a 40% chance of going through. I don't see that as being some kind of wild-eyed analysis based on the evidence of tonight.

[breffniboy]

typical

A typical Rafa Benitez-type away performance against a domestic rival. We see all too many of these and after three years it's no longer good enough. We're just too easy to stifle, no craft, no guile, no finesse. And now we've money we're looking at filler like Voronin, Simao, Pedersen etc.

Make no mistake, that 20 minute spell after the break where we sort of had the ball a bit, that was our 'big response', our 'go at them at full tilt' type football. Sometimes under Rafa, and GH before him, our efforts to rouse ourselves and claw back a defecit is the singularly most pitiful, lamentable and downright depressing thing I've ever seen.

Agger was owned tonight by diver Drogba and Carra struggled on him as well. He always does well against us.

The selection of Zenden was surprising, his retention for the full 90 minutes was bordering on the ridiculous. Why bring on Crouch if you know there's nothing on the flanks to service him? An appalling blot on Rafa's copybook.

Xabi had a very poor game with his passing.

Arbeloa was solid enough defending-wise (edit: goal apart obviously) but distribution was shocking at times.

Now that Chelsea can sit back in the second leg and watch us shuffle it about in front of them, and hit us on the break like they love to do, it's easier to see them scoring before we do. And the way we play, us getting the first goal is crucial.

We're relying on the Anfield factor to lift us and in my opinion we'll need a wonder goal or set piece to score because we're such a laboured workmanlike attacking 'force' I can't see us scoring any other way.

And so much for resting players. Some of our guys looked like they were coming out of a coma. The only consolation is that we are only 1-0 down as it could and should have been 1-0 before it was and Gerrard's chance apart, they had the better chances after that as well.

Very unhappy after that. Cat and mouse battle tonight. Who were the mice?

[AFII]

I won't be surprised if Kewell starts at Anfield.

[kurtangle01]

It's just been proven that while Arbeloa hadled the ball he was 5 yards outside the box so stik that in your pipe Jose you dick!

[Kopite_Colin]

Unfortunately we are now playing to chelski's game plan. They will do what they did tonight, play on the break. Drogba is brilliant. Man of the match by a long way. It's going to be very hard, even with the crowd. I think we're out I'm afraid.

We still have a chance, but we're going to have to do it the hard way. I honestly feel we needed to score tonight and Rafa blew it playing Zenden and Bellamy. We now need a clean sheet at Anfield, which we could have done without. We need an early goal, to set us up. My biggest fear is I can see them scoring at Anfield. If that happens, I hope the spirit of St Etienne is with us on our 30th anniversary. How we could have done with a Supersub tonight.

Step up......Harry Kewell. Stranger things have happened.