GYBS wrote:im sorry stu but the other squads dont have i gk of the quality of pepe nor centre backs like carra skrtel or agger plus midfielders like masher or xabi . As well as other players like keane , reira and kuyt . Yes gerrard and torres are our two world class players but we would be nowhere without the other players to compliment them . Even as stated by our own captain 'best squad he has ever been involved in ' . Also you say torres has been involved in helping us be top with some important goals ? Does that not also count for kuyt who has hit some important winners and has scored more than torres in the prem so far ? You really do a serious injustice to most of our players .it takes more than two superstars .
I'm sorry GYBS but thats completely blind again to any Liverpool players faults, not that I'm suprised by that though. Or the fact you again compare the contributions of Dirk Kuyt to that of one of the best players ever to play for the club.
Laughable really.
The fact is when you watch alot of football you realise there is more than one team in the league and there are other good players out there who are often as good at those at your own side and in some cases better. Now thats not to say that these players at your own team aren't good players or don't suit your system.
Its a bit like when your'e a kid and you play Sunday league and you always have two or three really good players in your side who you think are the best in the league. Then you're mates at School play for someone else and they have two or three who they think are the best, then they have town trials and you all get picked and you get to know certain players better and the lads who you did know are still good players, but you realise that theres other good players out there too and in some cases the lads who play for your team aren't always the best in the league, its just that you're used to the quality they have shining through every game you think they're untouchable.
There are plenty of midfielders out there as good as Alonso if not better, there are certainly sides out there with better players in other positions than what we have. For example Tottenham Hotspur have four better individual players at the back, but fitness, tactical play and whether they compliment each other are all massive issues. Woodgate is twice the player any of our defenders are in just about Every aspect of the game. King is probably also alot better than any player we have there, as is Bale and also Hutton and Corluka.
As for the other players there are plenty of players out there in the league better than what we have.
For example I'd say Man City have a far more creative and attacking team than we do, maybe not better individuals and not the right balance but in terms of footballers I'd say they consistently play "prettier" football than us. Obviously thats an obscene statement and couldn't possibly be true because it would mean a side in the bottom half of the league has the ability to produce better attacking football than the top side after half a season.
As for doing an injustice to our players I disagree completely. I think Alonso's very good. I love Carragher's fight, passion, brain and commitment. I love Reina full stop. He's excellent and his distribution, vision and intelligence to start attacks is unbelievable. Riera has superb attributes and does alot of good work. Mascherano has his uses and Keane has good intelligence and quality in his game. Just because I like alot our players doesn't mean I think they're something they aren't.
I can see their faults and what we lack as a team, I can also see when we have poor players like Kuyt, Babel and Lucas who often contribute absoloutely nothing to the team what so ever and are often a massive hinderance to our play.
You see, I'm a firm believer that great players don't have many "bad" games. They may have some average ones, but never bad ones and thats generally the case with Torres or Gerrard. They are either the best on the pitch or ok. They never play a poor game (unless out of position). The likes of Alonso, Mascherano, Carragher, Skyrtel, Agger, Hyypia and Riera again, while not consistently being one of our best players again dont' have as many bad games.
When one attacking player has a bad game it can immensely disrupt the flow of a team. There has been so many games over the years for Liverpool where a player like Kuyt has played badly and its seemed every move has broken down with him. Now, as a player I've played with a player like that before as a youngster and it frustrated the living day lights out of me. We had a lad called Mick who would throw his body in for any tackle and was a willing runner, he always chased lost causes and ran his
off and usually popped up with a tap in off someone elses good work. One game in particular we were struggling to break a team down and really were hammering them.We had about 70% of the ball. Everything though seemed to break down through him. At half time he got himself into a scuffle and got booked so the manager decided to swap him for aslightly better but less hard working player. All of a sudden the moves where continuing when they were breaking down in the first half, you were receiving the ball back in the area's you wanted it rather than being frustrated at someone losing it. You were able to pass to someone knowing they would do something decent with the ball rather than lose possession. This resulted in us winning the game 5-0, argueabley in the first half we had more of the ball.
The fact is not all of only see postives. Some of us are see both sides and often lean towards the side which favours the team. IE I personally think Alonso is slow occassionally and sometimes is to quick to play the simple ball, but overall his contribution to the team is immense so therefore you tend not to look at his weaknesses so much.
Where as the likes of the happy clappers look at Kuyt and don't care that all he does is run around alot because he gets the odd lucky goal where the ball deflects into his path and he smashes it in or because the keeper he's smashed the ball directly at isn't good enough to save it. But the objective people see him run upto players and not put a tackle in, see him pull out of 50/50's, they see him miss sitters and chances he should score, they see that as a forward he doesn't really create anything or make anything happen himself and he doesn't really contribute anything to this club. They also see the lack of basic Sunday league control let him down on occassions (which is unacceptable in the premiership let alone LFC) and the lack of ability he has to pass a ball. They also see a player who causes alot of moves to break down.
The fact is GYBS, Gerrard and Torres are world class.
Reina is superb. You can get away with one of Carragher, Skrytel, Hyypia and Agger (although I'd personally prefere one of them replaced with a world class centre half) and maybe a pairing of them. Reira and Alonso are quality as is Keane.
Keane Torres
Riera Gerrard Alonso
Carragher
Reina
Oh look, that leaves four positions I'd like to see improved, thats over half a team though that I think is good enough. Add into that players I think you can get away with ON OCCASSION, Agger, Skyrtel, Hyypia, Insua, Pennant, Bennayoun, El Zhar, Arbeloa and then all of a sudden it looks like I rate most of our team to a decent standard. We have a decent side and squad, but theres alot of room for improvement and we're lucky this season United and Chelsea are weaker than in previous seasons and we could well captilize on that if Benitez can get the best out of what we have. (He won't do that by dropping Keane everytime he hits form).
What I'd like though is a top player to replace adequate players on the right, at right back and at centre half.
If you put Woodgate, Bullard and Johnson in that team for example then there for me is a massive improvement on what we have and a team with real ability while keeping some of the qualities of the replaced players.
I'd absoloutely wet myself at the thought of those three players playing with the ones we already have as we'd have players there then that not only compliment each other but give us things we've already got and add things we don't have.
The frustration comes with people accepting average and dross players as first teamers and the manager continuously gambling on our chances when there is no need to.
Of course, I don't expect you to see any of that.
You just keep living in your dream world where we've always had the best 11 but can't win the league because we're unlucky.
You keep thinking that the weak links are good enough and they get made into "scapegoats" because of the way they look.
You carry on wondering why we often fall short and ignoring the fact its because players like Kuyt and Babel aren't good enough.
I'll sit here knowing that as soon as something is done about the dross this side like Kuyt the sooner we'll move forward as a team and improve to a level where I think we can consistently challenge and win the league.
