With Gomez though, its like every quality he has just completely deserted him. Its not like he was out of the game, especially in the first half. He was either hoofing good chances over the bar, letting his first touch get away from him, or taking unnecessary touches allowing the defenders to block his path to goal. On any normal day, he scores at least 2 goals from the positions he got himself into.
And then when you factor in the complete lack of effect he had in Bayern's buildup, and the way that he didn't do a single thing in the second half aside from falling over and booting the ball over from about 12 yards when he had an entire side of the goal to aim at, I think it goes down as a game-losing non-performance.
Is he the perfect example of a striker who does nothing but score? While that's an admirable thing to be, it also leaves the manager in a but of a fix in situations such as Saturday's. Us Liverpool fans saw it a few times with Torres, where you have to keep him on for the entire match, as he's always likely to score the one chance that comes his way, even if he's been shit up to that point. But sometimes a manager has to accept that the striker is simply not on his game, and is harming the team with his lack of presence in the individual performance.
For instance, against Birmingham in 09/10 (I think) Benitez took Torres off for David N'Gog. We still drew the game 0-0, but N'Gog outperformed Torres easily, yet he still missed 3 chances, one gilt-edged in the last minute. Would Torres have scored the chance? Perhaps. Would he have been in that position to potentially score, considering the hour he spent looking like a pub-defender forced to play up front? Probably not.
So the question is, looking back, should Heynckes have taken Gomez off at some point?