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English press butcher Kuyt and Zenden

May 24th, 2007 | By: Jan | 11 Comments »

The morning after the day before… The English press, never too shabby for some quirky quips, jumped on the shortcomings of Liverpool like Inzaghi on a Kaka through-pass…

There was also a lot of distraught about Inzaghi’s hand-handling of the ball: “Liverpool robbed by the hand of Zag” and “Armed Robbery” were typical tongue-in-cheek headlines.

In the Guardian, a so-called quality newspaper, Paul Doyle was ruthless. Zenden and Kuyt in particular are seen as players who are not good enough for the quality needed at Champions League level. “If Pennant and Zenden were the mailmen where you live, your mail would be splattered all around your front-yard! That’s how bad their delivery is. Zenden was slumbering around ineffectively, like he did against Chelsea. Bolo Zenden is enjoying a strange career indeed.” Doyle thinks Kewell should’ve played from the start. “Kewell is faster, more targeted and more threatening than Zenden ever will be.”

Dirk Kuyt is another player without a lot of credit at the Guardian. “Zenden wasn’t the only Dutchman who failed. Kuyt does not have the class to play Champions League football. He is definitely not better than the players he keeps on the bench. He may be more disciplined than Baros and that’s why technocrat Benitez loves him, but is touches and handling is below par and he misses the speed of -say - Djibril Cisse.”

Well well well… Let’s do the if-only game… If Inzaghi didn’t get that ball against his hands and if Pennant would’ve crossed that ball better to Gerrard in the 1st half, it would’ve been 0-1 instead of 1-0 at half time. That second AC Milan goal would’ve had happened. And Kuyt’s header would mean 0-2. I’d be surprised if Doyle would’ve written the same stuff… And what about that miss of Gerrard in the second half, alone before Dida… But if’s don’t get you nowhere, I s’pose…

Tags: Bolo Zenden, Dirk Kuyt, The Netherlands

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Comments

By ferenc | May 24th, 2007 at 5:48 am

i also think that kuyt doesn’t have the level of a cl final. he’s working hard,running like hell,but technically very mediocre. misses the finess,the lethal touch etc. even a bad huntelaar worthes more than him. actually i like dirk but he’s a little like for ex. dick nanninga was. no less,no more.

Posted from Hungary

By stephen | May 24th, 2007 at 9:33 am

I thought all the dutchies were bad yesterday. But they weren’t the only ones.

Posted from United States

By Rami | May 24th, 2007 at 10:33 am

Yea.. Many of liverpool regulars and stars were not playing that great last night. Riise, horrible.. Carragher as well. Gerrard missed to many chances, and just shoots from long range too much.
So if u want to make a go at kuyt, better criticize all the rest as well.

Doyle should eat crap.

Posted from Canada

By ferenc | May 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am

i criticized kuyt (and should zenden) because they are the dutch players at liverpool. i really really don’t mind the other players of the “red devils”. anyway,it was a boring game.

Posted from Hungary

By goose | May 24th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

yes, terrible game, lucke Milan (at least lucky goal), true Kuyt isnt the most skilled striker in Europe but Liv. need a striker like that if their gameplan is to attack the opponants built up..you can put in Crouch but tham the italians would have had much more room to built up from the back and reach midfielders like Pirlo, Kaka and Seedorf…now, cause of all Kuyts running it frustrated the italian game
but true, all dutchies were bad yesterday…to bad!

Posted from Netherlands

By Luis | May 24th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

hey guys - Welcome to the English media’s inquisition. The PT blog knows it well. They love playing the blame game. Kuyt isn’t the most talented striker, but he does have a high work rate. Zenden just wasn’t up to par yesterday, but everyone is allowed an off day. There is plenty of blame to go around for Liverpool. Benitez made some bad decisions and Gerrard was missing in action for long stretches of the match. Pennant was the only stand out in my opinion. Don’t expect the English media to go after Gerrard though. He’s their golden boy and can do no wrong, even when he stinks.

Posted from United States

By Igor | May 24th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

well zenden was definitely poor yesterday, just couldn’t beat a defender and often lost the ball. But i thought that kuijt was rendered somewhat ineffective by the referee, everytime kuijt challanged for a ball in the air, the ref would call a foul…now, nesta is a physical player who dishes out as much as he receives, so i am not sure why the fouls alwasy went against kuijt. seedorf was mostly invisible when you think of his play on the ball, but i think that it was because he spent much of his time marking the player making a run down the liverpool right. especially in the second half he seemed to match all of pennant’s runs (surprisingly for someone with seedorf’s work rate and defensive consiousness!). but its true that none of the three played a great game.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | May 24th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

Igor, wise words my friend. I think this is gutter-journalism. To start off:

1. Zenden was injured and played with an injection. He needed to play because Benitez needed him for tactical reasons on the flanks. He didn’t play well - he was pretty bad - but what can you expect? This is not Zenden’s fault, but Benitez’.

2. Kuyt played the best he could given the circumstances. I watched him closely. Yes, the ref was against him and never gave the advantage to him - the striker - but favoured the defender (Nesta). Well spotted!
And, Kuyt was alone up front. No one to bounce off to. I think again, Benitez’ tactical plans were instrumental in the way Kuyt played. But, Kuyt was involved in every attacking action. Every time Liverpool took over, it was because workhorse Kuyt pressed the back line of Milan. He had some intelligent runs and passes setting up Pennant or Gerrard. I think Pennant in particular was “clumsy” with some passing. I think Liverpool had at least two major scoring opps in the 1st half (thanks to Kuyt) that were clumsily played.
Hell, Kuyt even scored!! What more can you ask? The only mistake I saw Kuyt make, was in the first half when he passed the ball through to Pennant in the box, who took a shot at Dida. If Kuyt was more alert, he would’ve and could’ve taken two extra steps to finish off the rebound. That was the only time I thought SHIT KUYT, WHERE ARE YOU??

Doyle is full of sjite.

Benitez is the mastermind of Liverpool. You can’t blame the players for doing what they do according to the game plan.

If the ref would’ve given a hans ball (Inzaghi goal) the Reds could’ve won and Kuyt would be the hero.

This type or reporting pisses me off!

Hear that, Doyle? Where did you play football anyway?

Posted from Australia

By Ishmael | May 25th, 2007 at 2:02 am

Now I find man who knows football like I do. Mr Doyle is very good. He sees it like me. I said so earlyier. Kuyt and Zenden miss quality of CL football. Haha

Posted from Australia

By Miguel Rosado | May 25th, 2007 at 11:34 am

I totally agree with Jan.
Come on people if you are going to criticize a player you need to know what went wrong.

1)Zenden played horrible not because he is bad but because he is injured and hasn’t played that much throughout the entire season. Zenden has the quality to play in a CL final my friends. For the people who say that he doesn’t have the quality to play in the CL final I think you didn’t watch him play in the WK 1998 or in the EK 2000.
He was injured.

2) Kuyt is a really good player, he scored.
It is his first year abroad and I think he is doing an incredible job, he needs to improve in many aspects of his game I agree but only time will tell how good he can be.

3) Seedorf didn’t play well but give him a break it is his 4th CL title.

Ferenc if you say that Huntelaar is a bad player you have to be crazy men, he has scored in almost every important match for Ajax. He is a big match player.

By ferenc | May 25th, 2007 at 11:58 am

Miguel: i didn’t say that huntelaar is bad. i wanted to suggest that even a 50% huntelaar is better and more skilled player than kuyt who scored only once in cl. sorry guys but i really like attractive dominant football and kuyt’s style is definitely not that attractive.

i’m agree with you,zenden was really good in 2000 but for ex in barca he wasn’t at his top level. but technically he’s gifted.

Posted from Hungary

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