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Last night's lessons - avoid luckless Liverpool, cosy up to ruthless Barca

Following another action-packed evening of football, here are the five lessons learnt from last night's Champions League football...

Rafa's experiment didn't work
Leading 1-0 at half time, Richard Keys and co were discussing the "rebirth of Liverpool", with Alberto Aquilani, Gerrard and Benayoun behind Dirk Kuyt, at the expense of an additional defensive option alongside Mascherano. But their collapse in the second half suggests that Rafa will revert to type and reinstate Lucas against Arsenal. As for the £17m man making his full debut, he had some good moments before fading, but did nothing to suggest that he will join Torres and Gerrard in the Anfield "untouchables" column.

Yet the Reds remain favourites for the Europa League
The defeat means that Liverpool will now not be seeded for the Europa League when the draw is made for the next round. Again last night a side including Gerrard, Benayoun, Mascherano, Kuyt and later Torres still looked frail at times, yet Liverpool's reputation clearly precedes them in Europe, as they remain 7.8 favourites to win UEFA's secondary trophy. Once again, we'll state that we just can't see that happening.

Inter and Barca were always going to go through
Credit to Rubin Kazan and Dinamo Kiev for keeping things interesting in Group F until the final matchday. But while Juventus' shocking collapse the night before had us all wondering if the unthinkable could happen and another of Europe's giants go out, it was never going to really happen. Despite falling behind early on, Barca's equaliser from the classy Xavi effectively ruined any chance Kiev had of going through, while Inter weren't really troubled by Kazan, as Mario Balotelli inspired them to a 2-0 win. It means Barca remain second favourites behind Chelsea at 4.9 to win the trophy, and Inter are further out at 13.0.

Aaron Ramsey is going to be some player
Olympiacos had clearly turned up with only one thing in mind - a draw. Yet after Arsene Wenger's youth team demonstrated that they were well capable of nicking all three points and putting the Greeks' qualification in doubt, the home side were forced to come out and play. In the end a mix-up at the back was the only difference between the sides but there was no doubting the stand-out player on the park, as Aaron Ramsay dictated the play in a similar manner to the way he did for Wales against Scotland recently. One pass in the second half in particular, with the outside of his right boot, was worthy of gracing the biggest stage. He has a very bright future.

The Scotland job really is cursed
With his team needing only a draw in Stuttgart to qualify, Dan Petrescu hit the news before the game because of a cancelled meeting about the vacant Scottish national team post - the SFA apparently pulled the plug on the "informal chat" when it was leaked to the media. Unirea Urziceni, then proceeded to lose 3-1 to Christian Gross' new club, confining them to a Europa League spot. It just goes to show that no one is safe from the misfortune that follows the role of Scotland manager - not even the Romanian champions. As for impressive Stuttgart, they are now 3.15 to finish as the best German team in the tournament, with only a very inconsistent Bayern to beat.

Published: 10 Dec 2009 - Tags: Aaron Ramsey , Alberto Aquilani , Steven Gerrard , Xavi Hernandez