First, obviously, some nice football there fucking well done.
Second, I hope all the donkeys who've been saying "Mascherano in means Alonso out in the summer" now start to understand why that's such an idiotic opinion.
Third, and to quote the great man " ... can you tell what it is yet?" -- a team grounded in what Rafa thinks is the best central defence and central midfield he can buy -- 451 with a striker who can score goals but whose day-by-day skill is disrupting the opponent defence -- Rafa puts his best player at the head of an attacking midfield --
Gerrard is no Riquelme, but then Riquelme is no Gerrard. As long predicted, we're going to see a lot more Valencia-style 451 next season. Rafa tried and failed (miserably) to bring that to Liverpool in his first season, but he's gradually getting a team in place that can play that way even in the English league -- not every game, of course, but he's not going to use it merely as a defensive formation away from home, as we saw today. I think today's formation was only partly because of the pending PSV game. (For what it's worth, PSV will pretty obviously be 442 with Bellamy up front and Gerrard on the wing.)
Fourth, and back to the most obvious, even though I'm sure Sami has at least another season at LFC in him, his last great gift to us should be to spend the summer defending on the training pitch against Peter trying to get some power and accuracy into his headers. (Just like Momo should be spending the summer playing 1-touch five-a-side.) If even Mickey couuld learn to score a few with his head, surely so can Peter. Three goals against the Arse is awesome, but the most shocking goal out of the three was the header with power and accuracy, and there can be a lot more of those if he wants them.
