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Maxi, Yossi and Aqui: Yay!; Stevie: That doesn't smell like Alex...

Poor Burnley. You have to respect a club who’s ballsy enough to play a 4-3-3 against the likes of Liverpool. Unfortunately, that strategy has pretty much got them to where they are: relegated. It was just a bad day to be a Claret. Absolutely nothing was going their way.

Satistically speaking, the teams were pretty evenly matched. The only difference being that Liverpool scored on their opportunities while Burnley did not. The first strike came at 52′ when Steven Gerrard sent a hard shot in that took an unfortunate deflection off of one of the Burnley defenders. He had no help from the defenders on his second goal which was pure vintage Stevie G, a powerful shot curling into the top corner. Brian Jensen never had a chance. 

Two more goals would come from Maxi Rodriguez and Ryan Babel. Maxi had been threatening to make his debut on the score sheet for several matches and finally made good on it. Babel had a fortunate breakaway late in stoppage time and had a horrible finish, but Jensen was not able to get a good enough hand on the ball to block the shot.

Dirk Kuyt started up front as striker and was substituted just after halftime due to a calf injury. It doesn’t look that serious, but that’s what I said about Torres’ knee. With Kuyt out, Ryan Babel went forward and looked like he was troubling the defenders more than Kuyt was. Aquilani played the full 90′, showing some intelligent play and also some silly passes. Liverpool had problems getting the ball past midfield and then seldom had enough players to spread the defenders.  Mascherano seemed invisible, but maybe it was my own eyes that were deceiving me. ¹

It wasn’t pretty and really the score was generous for the Reds, but we’ll take it. I will miss Burnley, their players have a lot of heart as do their fans. It was almost inevitable though that someone would put them to the sword. Might as well be us.

-CSD

1. it’s hell getting old. [↩]