disliked

Another night of complete and utter frustration against a truly-horrid Benfica. And their fans.

After going one-up due to a well-worked free-kick, we promptly returned to type and invited the opposition to beat the shit out of us for the next eighty minutes.

The Babel sending off, whilst technically correct - players can't raise their hands - was a bloody joke. A far more experienced official would've used some common sense to diffuse the situation. Some weird decisions were made by the referee, for both sides. His booking of Pepe Reina was another puzzler. Between the ball going out of play and Reina handling it, it was all of six seconds, yet the ref called it "time-wasting".

I don't think I've ever disliked an opposition team so much at any other point during the season. Their hod-carrying centre-half spent the entire game kicking lumps out of a increasingly-dispirited Fernando Torres. Their top scorer scored two penalties, but missed a glut of easy chances.

As for their fans, have you ever seen such a rag-tag shower of hatred in your life? This was a real blast-from-the-past. How many times did the telly show that young kid crying in the crowd - that young, yet that worked up! I know I'm bad, but I've had 35 years experience. God help him.

I don't think Benfica are as good as their approach play shows. I think, given the right service down the middle, El Nino will have a field day against their defence at our place. The best thing that happened was the result - doubtlessly it'll fire up an already-angered Kop next Thursday.