Inter Milan fail to impress and Benitez betting suspended

Ah Fergie, you sly old dog. You did it again. Sure enough, come match time, there was Jonny Evans lining up at centre-back with O'Shea slotting in at right back. Although Evans did begin to struggle towards the end, it was academic as once again the hugely overrated Ibrahimovic failed to turn up when it really mattered and Adriano looked the slow, ponderous waster he has long been. The much lauded Maicon, who has also never been anything more than average, was made to look ordinary once again by decent opposition. It was the old hands who kept Inter in this game early on as Woody Harrelson, er, I mean Esteban Cambiasso produced an outstanding performance constantly doing just enough to dampen our attacks.

The strangest choice of the night seemed to be Berbatov up front on his own and the Bulgarian struggled all night to cope with most of his best working coming through earning free kicks. Ronaldo was also on the end of a lot of niggling fouls, especially in the first half when he gave young full back Santon a torrid time as we dominated but couldn't find that elusive goal. Inter looked a new team in the second half and pressed hard early on with Adriano guilty of missing a sitter. The Milan bench huffed and puffed about the referee, substitute goalkeeper Toldo getting booked for his moaning, but in reality he had a good game, stamping down on the Italian's penchant for kicking ankles all game long. He did book Rooney for a fantastic tackle, showing that even a good ref isn't above letting reputations go before players, but all in all he had a good showing.

Taking a 0-0 back to Old Trafford is scary, knowing a score draw will see us out, but we showed last night that we're a class above Inter Milan and should be impose our game on them in the second leg, we should progress.

Breaking news at the moment is the decision by leading bookmakers to suspend betting on Rafael Benitez leaving Liverpool. Has this been caused by opportunist punters putting two and two together and getting five, with regards to Rafa's activities while in Madrid for his Champions league match or is there more to it? I can't see him leaving just yet, it may well be a carefully thought-out plot to once more strengthen his hand in contract negotiations. He is hell-bent on securing total control at Liverpool before he will stay, something surely no one would grant someone with his transfer record and bottling mentality.