Nov 4, 2009
That was going to say "BABEL!!!!!" up until the 90th minute. Then Sotirios Krygiakos committed his second error of the match and this time Pepe Reina couldn't bail him out. Lisandro Lopez buried the chance and Liverpool's CL hopes likely with it.
There's almost a strange symmetry between Liverpool and my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets these days. Injuries to two of their best players hurt badly, but the subsequent injuries are what does the team in. Today missing Steven Gerrard hurt as did not having Fernando Torres at full strength. But what proved to be the death blow was the lack of Glen Johnson on the backline. If Johnson plays, Jaime Carragher is in the center with Daniel Agger and Krygiakos is on the bench. Does Liverpool then walk away with the victory? It's impossible to say, even if it is tempting to superimpose Johnson into that moment instead of Krygiakos. But what we do know is that we can't do that; he wasn't there and the end result is a Liverpool draw that may as well have been a loss.