we had an ageing team which needed sorting out, Dalglish's last buys were David Speedie and Jimmy Carter iirc
Yes Souness made a real mess of things but the decline had started under Dalglish
Midweek Football Thread 20 - 22 *spoilers*
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we had an ageing team which needed sorting out, Dalglish's last buys were David Speedie and Jimmy Carter iirc
Yes Souness made a real mess of things but the decline had started under Dalglish
I wouldn't put it all down to the departure of Alonso but more so the incredibly poor pre season in which Benitez instead of trying to nail down a new system for the team to play with, he made some strange team selections and effectively wasted a great opportunity to see what the core of his first team squad could do in Alonso's absence.
And while the discussion is on Liverpool players, there's no dispute that Torres and Gerrard would walk into any team, I'd include Reina and a fully fit Agger too. I used to like Mascherano but he's very one dimensional, does a good job at harassing the opposition but there are a few players in the league who can do that just as well as possess other skills like picking out a pass and being able to do something when the team are attacking.
And while the discussion is on Liverpool players, there's no dispute that Torres and Gerrard would walk into any team, I'd include Reina and a fully fit Agger too. I used to like Mascherano but he's very one dimensional, does a good job at harassing the opposition but there are a few players in the league who can do that just as well as possess other skills like picking out a pass and being able to do something when the team are attacking.
Name from the past! I sure I remember seeing him score a brace at Highbury
Only played 25 games for us.
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Mascherano does the tackling/hassling bit better than anybody but really, really needs to work on composure once he has the ball back. If Song could tackle like Masch he'd be the best DM in the world because his distribution is excellent
Problem with Mascherano is that he is now being asked to be more of an attacking force in the abscence of Alonso and a fully fit Gerrard. I liken him a lot to Claude Makelele. Great at breaking the play up stopping the oppostion dictating the game. However he needs more around him. I would still love to see him at Utd
Caporegime
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Agree. Hopefully Aquilani will allow Mascherano to play his natural game again.
Soldato
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Previously we would have had both Agger and Alonso who would be able to take the ball forward and out of defence/midfield. The current lineup at Carragher, Skrtel, Mascherano and Lucas all tend to pass sideways or backwards leaving us lacking ideas to get the ball out of our half. Agger is on the way back now and with Aquilani not far off hopefully they can do something for us.
As much as I agree with all of that, our problem on the whole hasn't been going forward and creating chances. We created enough to win 2 matches yesterday but just couldn't kill them off when we were 1 up. Our problem has been defensively and ironically the players you named would probably be the 4 you'd pick for a game where you wanted to be as solid at the back as possible.
Regarding the talk about Mascherano; clearly he's not going to offer us as much as somebody like Gerrard going forward but I do think some people are underestimating his ability on the ball. Generally he keeps it simple and plays within his means but he is capable of hitting the odd 50 yard pass (as he done several times yesterday) or breaking forward and playing the odd through ball. Saying all that, he is at his best when he's got somebody more creative alongside him and without knocking Lucas too much (because as I've said before, he's been far from our worst player this season), he isn't good enough and like Pigeon says, hopefully Aquilani can provide that alongside Masch and allow him to go back to his best.
Soldato
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I see what you're saying, but I think part of our defensive issues yesterday were down to us not being to control the ball in the midfield area which then put the defense under more immediate pressure than they should have been. Had we had a full strength Agger and someone in the Alonso/Aquilani mould I think we would've been better placed to control the game taking pressure off the defense.
I'm quite looking forward to seeing Aquilani play, always been a fan of his. Hope he doesn't get injured 10 minutes in like Feo
He's going to be making a sub appearance for our reserves tonight. You can watch it on LFCTV at 7pm
Fair point, our ball retention at times this season has been pretty poor, I wouldn't say that was the case with either of Lyon's goals yesterday though. The first 20mins and first 10mins of the 2nd half Lyon were the better side and controlling the game but other than that I thought we were fairly comfortable all over the pitch. With everybody fit I'd fancy us to beat them in France.
For any Arsenal fans, Samir played for the reserves last night for an hour, came off unscathed and even made an assist.
Read the thread!
Caporegime
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Name from the past! I sure I remember seeing him score a brace at Highbury
Aye was a cracking president
You could have used the search ability, just to check their hadn't already been a thread made.
I still should have bumped this before I left to watch Wednesday.
KRAP - Keep Rafa at 'Pool
I like Rafa, He's just having a rough patch at the moment.
While the loss will of hurt Liverpool, the injuries will hurt them more.
Or you could stop making threads for games 4 days in advance...
*sighs*
or You could stop complaining?
I killed time, I didn't have time to do the thread over the past couple of days, I made it in advance.
Cry me a river.
