Sky show class in 'Clive' TV coverage but Kenny's under a cloud

It looked as if they had slept in the studio when coverage began last night at six o'clock. They wished they had after thousands of carousing Liverpool fans outside their hotel kept them awake throughout the night.

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"We hoped for some rain but it did not come," Ruud Gullit said. We, as the armchair audience, hoped for a repeat of 2005, in terms of both result and drama.

"I don't think it will live up to the expectations of two years ago," said Kenny Dalglish, ITV's special studio guest. Some opening line. Talk about raining on a parade.

The Liverpool legend was obviously modelling himself on that Scottish soldier, Frazer, in Dad's Army. Were we really all doomed?

"It will not be as adventurous as 2005," he continued as if willing the uncommitted to switch over to BBC 1 and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

ITV could afford to lose a few viewers. The terrestrial station would have expected a 10-1 ratings victory over the satellite boys for the European Champions League Final in Athens regardless of the respective merits of the two productions. Such is television life.

So, the vast majority of home spectators will have forsaken the intelligent Sky Sports combination of Graeme Souness, Jamie Redknapp and the aforementioned Gullit — despite their continued hotel bleatings — and settled down to a diet of Dalglish, Andy Townsend and, er, Clive Owen.

Not Michael Owen or even Clive Dunn but the actor of that name.

Liverpool in his blood, we were told. Cliches in his script, that's for sure, as he looked back to 2005 from a seat in the front stalls of an otherwise empty cinema. It was the perfect example of one of those ideas which emerges from brainless brainstorming sessions.

A bit like the Sky Sports decision to give all the lettering on their graphics a local flavour, plucking liberally from the Greek alphabet. And if I see another cracked Doric column...

The other Clive, the award-winning Tyldesley, showed Dalglish how it is done. "It can't possibly be as good again, can it?" he said at the start of his commentary in another reference to the previous Liverpool-Milan final. It is called leaving the options open.

Gabriel Clarke, touchline reporter and interviewer, revealed that Milan had been practising penalties against "dancing goalkeepers".

But he portrayed the selection of Steve Gerrard "in the hole" as a surprise. Sky Sports had predicted that 24 hours earlier.

And their intrepid man at the coal face, Geoff Shreeves, managed to elicit more than the usual platitude in his little pre-match chat with Rafael Benitez.

Liverpool, the manager said, would play wide down both flanks with Gerrard running behind and between defenders. Contrary to all expectation, they were going to be positive,

And, indeed, they were for 44 minutes until a "fluke of a goal", as Tyldesley greeted the Milan free-kick which broke the deadlock.

It must have been a long journey home for the two Liverpudlians interviewed by Matt Smith. They were wearing laurels and off-the-shoulder togas and travelling exceedingly light. "No luggage," one declared.