Rafa is making the right noises

WE WERE called boring by an Italian hatchet man, and accused of lacking ambition by a club that won one title in the previous century.

We won in the Nou Camp and lost at Craven Cottage.

Welcome to our world of weirdness.

Anyone who can think for himself is cursed. Every so often you’re forced to agree with people you despise.

Cups show how good you can be (and how low the great teams can go); the league usually shows how good you are.

More points, fewer excruciating away trips — who in their right mind wouldn’t want that?

But the malicious, the feeble-minded and the simply uncharitable always have to go too far, don’t they? To listen to some, Rafa and the lads got their deckchairs out last August and only emerged from their torpor whenever the continent called.

What rubbish.

The truth is no more palatable, mind you; that we were simply not good enough to challenge for the Premiership.

With next year’s qualification in the bag, the first ‘practice’ match was at City in mid-April. Hardly a season-long plan, then.

We thrashed PSV three days after walloping Arsenal. It’s amazing the things you can forget once you put your mind to it. In the words of Lennon, whatever gets you through the night.

Ferguson’s proclamation that United can only play the one way turned tactical ineptitude into a virtue. I shall let Mr Kurt have the floor for that one, as long as his chums free up some of the Athens accommodation they prematurely booked in defiance of history.

I’m not gloating, honestly. It’s relief more than anything.

As for Jose, it was surprisingly difficult not to feel sorry or worried for the man. I managed it somehow through sheer will. Almost from the moment Cole scored, Chelsea showed little inclination to get another.

I’m naturally pessimistic anyway, but knowing the damage an away goal would have inflicted last Tuesday ill prepared me for the chronic lack of ambition they displayed on the night.

It was always going to be a war of attrition but there seemed to be a general consensus that the right team won in the end.

There’s always someone that has to stick out from the crowd, though. “The beat team lost, we were the only ones trying to win” — he’s phoning it in now, isn’t he? When your best effort on goal comes from Carragher, best to keep quiet. Fat chance of that, obviously.

By Friday all manner of spite had gushed forth. One pundit called Reina a cheat and said Cech was too honest for his own good.! I guarantee that’s the first and last time you will ever hear that said about any inhabitant of the Bridge, and even then it was rubbish.

Take it from someone who watched the penalties 10 times or more: the keepers behaved the same way, it’s just one has his technique down cold and the other faced far better placement.

The save from Robben must have been especially sweet.

A word for Kuyt. He worked so hard and ‘scored’ too, everything you want from your forwards. Like others before him he’s feeding off scraps. I doubt things will change much next season, but hope springs eternal.

Fair play to Zenden. He was professional all night but I stand by what I said last week. Unless Kewell’s remarkably timed powers of recovery influence matters, that’s Bolo’s place in the final cemented. How Gattuso and Kaka will play after 21 sleepless nights God alone knows.

Before the game Jose and Co were keen to point out they weren’t afraid of the atmosphere. Keen bordering on obsessive, actually.

Which, for the third semi-final in a row, missed the point completely. It’s not for you, it’s for our players. Crouch was poor, and both sides ended up kicking the ball till it squealed, but all our boys ran non-stop and did us proud.

I only saw Rafa’s Buddha impression on TV (row 63 of the Kop not being conducive to the observation of minutiae) and laughed my head off. He’ll drive me round the bend eventually with his caution, yet you can’t help but love him sometimes.

Comments about the Reds’ unimpressive efforts in the league are valid. We can’t dismiss them just because we can’t tolerate the people whining.

Rafa, perhaps slightly sheepishly, is making the right noises about going for the Premiership next time. We’ll see.

But it looks as if even the top clubs are now prepared to admit that prioritising certain trophies is the way forward.

This bedeviled Chelsea team sought a Quadruple. The United team bore little favourable comparison to their 1999 counterparts. Liverpool are in the Champions League final again.

Anyone wishing to argue that football is in great shape should form an orderly queue at the sanatorium.