Right foot, header, left foot.  The perfect hat-trick from Peter Crouch on his return from injury, sent Liverpool leap-frogging over their opponents into 3rd place.

3rd place, 4th place, doesn’t really matter in terms of qualifying for the Champions League, but it is an important victory none the less.  On one level, it’s purely revenge, for knocking us out of both the F.A. and Carling Cup, but more importantly, it is a mental victory that will demoralise Arsenal, and strenghten Liverpool,  moving towards the end of the season and into the next.

Now the talk is of Peter Crouch, “the saviour for England”.  It wasn’t so long ago that all the hacks thought he was an over-rated stick insect, despite the fact that, for England, he out-scores Rooney at a ratio of six to one.  With Michael Owen soon to return from the knee injury he picked up in the world cup, Rooney could find himself keeping the bench warm for the next England game.