Liverpool FC Forum

[Zidane]

Carra worries me but I agree with Scott we at times ask a lot out of him.  I miss Sami.

[stmichael]

Be honest here, does anybody feel that Carra and Skrtel is a good partnership? At times they look like they've never trained together, let alone played together before. Neither is commanding in the air either.

[Toffeehater]

Carragher is a born and bred scouser , he has been at the heart of the defense for many years and saying that he has been below par for these last 18 months or so , saying that i'd love to see agger and skrtel given a chance together for the next 5 games with carragher being dropped

[Fowler_E7]

Carragher is a born and bred scouser , he has been at the heart of the defense for many years and saying that he has been below par for these last 18 months or so , saying that i'd love to see agger and skrtel given a chance together for the next 5 games with carragher being dropped

why? Skretl is very average and i cant see anything special about him at all, he is never of the required quality for our team, in fact if we had Skretl and Agger as our first choice partnership we would leak goals for fun. Agger i like but i dont think him and Carragher really work well together either it has to be one or the other with an aerially dominant centre back. We need another Sammi Hyppia but that looks unlikey in the near future.

[stmichael]

Carragher is a born and bred scouser

thanks for that wonderful observation

[JamCar05]

Once again I find myself saying this, but I think we're missing Agger a great deal. Not only going forward, where he is a MAJOR improvement on both Carra and Skrtel, but also because of his calmness in defence. Skrtel seems a bit too rash for my liking these days, and he hasn't really recaptured the great early potential he showed upon his arrival. That being said I agree with most other posters on the fact that we desperately need someone Hyypiaesque (and I'm VERY doubtful the big greek is the answer to that).

[stmichael]

Skrtel seems a bit too rash for my liking these days, and he hasn't really recaptured the great early potential he showed upon his arrival.

He's never really been the same since he got that dreadful injury against Man City last year.

It's a sad state of affairs when we don't even have the money to bid £4m for Distin. Looks like he's off to the bitters now instead.

[sully0182]

Skrtel seems a bit too rash for my liking these days, and he hasn't really recaptured the great early potential he showed upon his arrival.

He's never really been the same since he got that dreadful injury against Man City last year.

It's a sad state of affairs when we don't even have the money to bid £4m for Distin. Looks like he's off to the bitters now instead.

I tend to agree that skrtel hasn't been the same since he was injured last year, but i'm confident he's gonna get his form back this year.
I think i'm gonna get a lot of stick for suggesting this but if it were up to me i'd play agger and skrtel as my first choice CB pairing. For me, Carra has become slower and clumsy in the last 12 months. We need to be ruthless if we're gonna win the league and I don't see that happening with Carra slipping at the last moment (Bolton) or having some young striker with pace run rings around him.
Another thing that erks me about the guy is that he is constantly pointing the finger, I can appreciate that he's passionate about the club but I'm sure players don't need to be singled out for mistakes a few seconds after they've made them.
I'd also like to see Agger and Skrtel form a partnership for long term reasons, they're both pretty young so forming a solid pairing could save the club a lot of money in the future.

[bigmick]

I don't know about "getting stick" for suggesting Skrtel and Agger as your preferred partnership, but I don't agree with you about it to be honest. I think while there may be something in the idea that Carragher is not (quite) the same player he was two years ago, I still think he is the best defender we have and I don't think it's even that close currently.

I've been on about us signing a really good centre half for quite a while now, a good strong defender who's good in the air and has a bit of class about him (I don't think any of ours totally fill that brief to be perfectly honest). Mathew Upson would be my preferred choice, of that Heguland (or whatever the feck his name is) bloke from Fulham at a push. He's an intersting one in that he had a very good first season, if he backs that up with a solid second one even up until Christmas, my guess is that one of the big four will go in and pay big for him.

For us though, I don't really see Agger and Skrtel as a viable partnership based on what we've seen so far, even if Carragher wasn't available.

[aCe']

I'd personally sell Skrtel and bring in a top quality CB... As things stand, Carra is undoubtedly our best CB despite his dip in form... Why is he not as good as he used to be ? could be for a number of reasons.. the ones thrown around most often are his age and subsequently how he lost a bit of his pace... No to me... Think it has more to do with the players around him and how his responsibility has pretty much increased ten fold having to play alongside the likes of Insua, Skrtel, Johnson, and to a lesser extent Agger.... None of those players are particularly good defenders.. Add to that the dip in form Mascherano has had and all the freekicks and Setpieces we give away in our own half and you have a recipe for disaster at the back... We're obviously nowhere near as solid as we used to be when we had Hyypia, Finnan, even Arbeloa, Sissoko and Alonso... Our main strength has always been the fact that we're solid defensively.. Forget all the nonsense about us being the top scoring side and all that... We always built on the fact that we operated as a strong defensive unit and left the goalscoring tasks to the few who were good at it...

Today, we have Lucas and an under-performing Mascherano letting everything pass through the middle, we have Johnson who isnt quite known for his defesive abilities, we have Insua who for all his good work remains a bit of a question mark defensively... And we have a second CB slot that refuses to be filled...

Skrtel is an okay defender but not one to be playing at the top level... Agger has many other things in his game to add, and for that id take him ahead of Skrtel every day of the week.. Is he an outstanding CB ? not to me... top class? maybe, but not because hes excellent defensively...
He adds a different dimension to our play.. AHave alwayss been a fan of having a left footed player alongside a rightfooted player in central positions.. think it adds balance and a different sense to build up play...

We could certainly do with changing things around... Sell Skrtel and put in a cheeky bid for Pepe, Chiellini, Carvalho, Mexes, Gallas..etc 
Our CB partnership is a worry though, no doubt about it... Cant wait for Agger to be back, think he'll improve things drastically at both ends of the pitch...

[DrPepe]

Today, we have Lucas and an under-performing Mascherano letting everything pass through the middle, we have Johnson who isnt quite known for his defesive abilities, we have Insua who for all his good work remains a bit of a question mark defensively... And we have a second CB slot that refuses to be filled...

Fair enough for this season, but many have noted carra's "decline" for at least a season.

That would make it  difficult to pin the blame on Lucas, Johnson or insua

[NANNY RED]

EXCLUSIVE: Agger out for 7 weeksby Tom Burgess at Anfield. Published Sat 12 Sep 2009 18:35

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger is set to be out of action for a further seven weeks after suffering a recurrence of a back injury.

Sources close to the club have revealed exclusively to ClickLiverpool that the Danish international's return to first-team action has been delayed after pulling up in training with a strain.

Agger has had continuous problems with the injury since joining the Reds from Brondby in 2006.

It is believed that Rafael Benitez prefers the 24-year-old to partner Martin Skrtel in central defence but his injury problems have allowed Jamie Carragher to lead Anfield back line despite criticism from some elements of Liverpool's support.

Agger is expected to be available for the trip to Fulham on October 31.

Didnt even know he was back in training

[Owzat]

I did say perhaps we should have sold while we had the chance. We may see little of him, arguably a wasted CL squad member. You do have to wonder about players returning from injury when they return to training and suffer reccurences, whether they were back in training too soon etc.