Paul Parker thinks that Ruud should be delivering:
"He has had enough games to be sharp. You have to have a question mark over him, rather than say he is not match fit. You cannot keep going back to that. He started brightly but then seemed to drift out of the game. When it mattered he did not deliver. If he is not delivering goals what is he giving? He could have been back to being a hero in this game. He had two golden chances and should have finished them off."
Sammy McIlroy said: "We are going home without the cup because we could not score. We played well and created chances and they were golden chances. You have to ask if Ruud is 100 per cent, only he knows that. The club knows this is not the Ruud of old. If these chances had come six months ago they would have gone in."
Paddy Crerand agreed:
"We had so many opportunities and should have won the game. Ruud missed a couple of chances you would expect him to put away. He will be disappointed. You have got to put the ball in the back of the net and if you don’t do that you will suffer."
Lou Macari believes he has the solution: "I want to see Wayne Rooney up front in that penalty box.
"I want to see him up front with Ruud van Nistelrooy going for winning goals. He was never given the ball in the centre-forward position where he can twist and turn. Had he been pushed up there we could be sitting here with a cup winners’ medal not a losers’ one."