Re: Liverpool Thread
Peter Eyres said:
always nice to beat Chelski....considering the starting lineups, we equipped ourselves very well. Sissoko was outstanding yet again IMHO.
Bellamy, Gonzalez, Pennant, Aurelio, Paletta....They're all gonna add something to us this season, I'm excited
you forgot agger, in fact i don't expect to see paletta that much this season especially after seeing agger's performance today
i'm excited too which isn't normal at this time of the season (including last season when we were champions of europe) personally i think we've got the strongest squad in the league now, chelsea have a better first eleven but i'm not too sure about them if they're going to fuck about with the formation that has been so effective over the past couple of seasons, i'm not getting carried away with today's result but their strength over the last 2 seasons has been their solid back 4 and makelele with 2 pacy wingers supplying dogbreath and fat fwank backing him up from midfield, i just think now they've got too many "big names" and it's gonna be difficult to keep everyone happy especially if they want to use the formation that has served them well for 2 seasons
from our point of view i think rafa is getting close to the team he wants, with the exception of strikers i think we've got options all over the pitch now, the starting lineup today dissapointed a few people but i think they proved that we'll be able to rotate the squad especially whe we're playing the weaker teams
the most difficult thing from my point of view is deciding on the formation, i'd like to see 2 up front more often but this means sacrificing someone in midfield especially if we want to play with 2 wingers
depending on form, the time it takes them to settle in and opposition, we could end up with pennant and gonzalez/aurelio/kewell starting most games, this'll leave us either having to drop one of gerrard, alonso or momo, or play one up front to fit all 3 in, personally i think bellamy partnering crouch (or another target man) could be our best option but i wouldn't like to drop any of the 3 central midfielders
on current form i'd say drop alonso but that would be stupid, when he's on form (the majority of the time) he's part of what makes us tick, his defensive work is generally very good and he's capable of spotting passes nobody else can see
gerrard is gerrard, he's probably too flexable for his own good which means he gets pushed into positions where he's less effective (england anyone?) like on wednesday when he played on the left for a while until gonzalez replaced him or most of last season when he played on the right a lot, he's capable of playing almost anywhere but he's most effective playing through the middle
now on to momo, i was impressed with him last season, he's a rough diamond and will always carry the risk of picking up cards but he's so good at playing the destroyer role and has an unreal engine (think he covers something like 14km a game) i think if he can keep improving he'll be the best defensive midfielder in the league in a couple of years if not less, at the moment he still has problems but his athleticism and workrate is 2nd to none, today a couple of moments stuck in my mind, his tackle on ballack early on showed him who's boss, also saw him chasing back after robben (i think?) finnan came across to cover so momo moved back infield, anyway robben skinned finnan then all of a sudden up popped momo from nowhere to win the ball back, he was like that all afternoon and last wednesday against haifa, from the past couple of games it looks like his passing and dribbling have improved but i prefer to judge over a lot of games but if he keeps it up he's gonna be one hell of a player, just glad we pinched him from under the nose of the bitters
i've been thinking about our formation for a long time now and the longer i go on the more it hurts, like i said with the exception of the strikers we have options all over the pitch now, if rafa can add a quality striker to the squad then i think we're capable of pushing the chavs close this season, if not i'll happily settle for number 6 in athens
