A comfortable win in the end, to be honest we should've taken them apart like this in the first leg, I actually think Toulouse played a bit better last night.
Arbeloa looks a lot more comfortable on the right, in the last couple of games he's been caught drifting into the middle a few times, most notably when he picked up a yellow card at Sunderland when trying to recover. He can do a job on the left, he gets all the basics right but positionally he's not quite spot on like he was last night. An interesting defensive combination at the end with Finnan on the left & Riise in the middle, I don't expect to see us use this in the Prem but I think Rafa was just trying out his options as the game was already won. We looked a little shaky at the back without Carra, I'm glad we haven't got the toughest of opponents coming up whilst he's injured.
The midfield was definitely our strongest area for me. Benayoun seems determined to win a place in the team, and performances like last night are the way to do it, not shooting off his mouth in the press (if indeed he did). Momo looks brimming full of confidence after his goal & he's suddenly learned to pass! A close call between these two for MOM, but for me Benayoun just edges it, he didn't give up on a lost cause all night. The only slight criticism I have is that he needs to get more selfish, a couple of times he tried to play a team mate through when he was in a better position to have a go himself. Mascherano was solid as usual, against weaker opposition having more license to get forward & he seemed quite comfortable with it. I was encouraged by Leto, he made a couple of schoolboy errors which is to be expected, but overall he seems to have the potential to make it in this country.
Up front to be honest we weren't very good. Both Kuyt & Crouch could have had a hattrick with better finishing. The encouraging thing though is they were getting in goalscoring positions, especially Crouch who at the moment can still use lack of games as an excuse for his shooting being a bit off. Kuyt creates a lot for others, but hasn't turned into the goal machine I'd hoped he would this season. With Torres taking over the role of linking midfield & attack I expected Kuyt to start banging them in like he did for Feyenoord. I know it's still early days but I haven't seen any signs that the goals are going to start arriving in abundance, who knows though maybe last nights goals will kick start things for him.
The subs as usual came quite late in the game, I would've preferred to see Babel & Leiva thrown into the mix as soon as the second goal went in. Leiva didn't get too involved in the game but showed some clever passing & wasn't caught out of position when Toulouse attacked on the counter. Babel will become one of the Liverpool greats given time I believe. He's showing a lot of raw talent at the moment without having any real end product as yet, as the season goes on I think he'll get better & better. You can train someone how to use their talent in the right way but the skills are something you either have or you don't, Babel definitely has them. I was quite surprised to see Agger come off ahead of Hyypia, I would've thought it would've made more sense not to risk Sami's broken nose once the game was won, but I suppose who knows when Agger will next get a rest?
All in all a good performance against poor opposition but you can only beat what's in front of you. The fans behaviour was exemplary during the events before the game, just as I knew it would be. I think these events cast a bit of a sombre mood over the night which would explain the Kop being a bit subdued, I'm sure it will be swinging again next game as we celebrate another win.
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