Liverpool FC Forum

[aCe']

He does have a point this one liners do my head in , its not a fecking chat room where you respond to everything on the job . At the rate you're going you're overtake ciggy's post count by next tuesday. You probably average about 40 posts a day

Sorry have I done that twice, Oh well another post to my name

[GYBS]

well when the player himself actually states he wont leave due to his wife giving birth you sort of have to believe him as opposed to a journo saying it .

[roberto green]

well when the player himself actually states he wont leave due to his wife giving birth you sort of have to believe him as opposed to a journo saying it .

So you don't think we will get Villa then?

[Toffeehater]

He does have a point this one liners do my head in , its not a fecking chat room where you respond to everything on the job . At the rate you're going you're overtake ciggy's post count by next tuesday. You probably average about 40 posts a day

Sorry have I done that twice, Oh well another post to my name

  , ah i tried !

[Effes]

I cant believe this thread wasn't re-visited after yesterday.

Well, it's definitely a viable option I guess - maybe just when we are away from home?

Looking at the games ahead - Stoke at home mightn't be necessary to do this.

Maybe Villa at home?

[maguskwt]

now we know good CM's are very hard to come by
... if I were rafa and wanted to keep Gerrard in the hole I would seriously think about buying Viera...

[aCe']

probably should have put this here...

If we drop Gerrard back to the middle we'll have to go with 2 upfront to compensate the Gerrard goals because anyone who would be playing his role would never score as many....

Our options if we did that? Funny one that but Kuyt upfront seems to be the best one, with Benny down the right... Kuyt as a RM in a 4-4-2 isnt any good .. the best thing about him is his positioning in attacking situations and the fact that he played as a RW in a 451 meant he had the freedom to take up more advanced positions knowing the 3 in the middle (plus FBs) would cover the width of the pitch behind him... in a 4-4-2 you'd be assigning him more responsibility to build up play down the flank and be more rigid in his positioning... safe to say you take out about 95% of his attacking game...


Anyways.. something needs to be done... we can play Benny in the Gerrard role but that would help us in keeping possession and controlling the midfield game but would seriously take away from our attacking threat...


Cant wait till Aquilani is back tbh...

[ConnO'var]

probably should have put this here...

If we drop Gerrard back to the middle we'll have to go with 2 upfront to compensate the Gerrard goals because anyone who would be playing his role would never score as many....

Our options if we did that? Funny one that but Kuyt upfront seems to be the best one, with Benny down the right... Kuyt as a RM in a 4-4-2 isnt any good .. the best thing about him is his positioning in attacking situations and the fact that he played as a RW in a 451 meant he had the freedom to take up more advanced positions knowing the 3 in the middle (plus FBs) would cover the width of the pitch behind him... in a 4-4-2 you'd be assigning him more responsibility to build up play down the flank and be more rigid in his positioning... safe to say you take out about 95% of his attacking game...


Anyways.. something needs to be done... we can play Benny in the Gerrard role but that would help us in keeping possession and controlling the midfield game but would seriously take away from our attacking threat...


Cant wait till Aquilani is back tbh...

There are options though ace......

We don't have the personnel to make wholesale changes but options ARE there.

1. Keep the formation but play Yossi in Gerrard's position. That way we steel up the central midfield while still having Lucas as a viable sub off the bench. We will need Riera on the left though. Babel's only good position is left outside..... the touchline. Downside to this is we effectively write off Lucas' time with us. If he can't get a place when the 2nd choice central midfielder is injured, he will never get a 1st team place.... and he'll know it too. Upside is that we'll be able to keep a stable formation for when Aquilani comes back.

2. Go for a 4-4-2....... Use Nemeth upfront with Torres. Upside is that we get to blood Nemeth and hopefully he'll come good which will give us a useful backup if and when Nando needs a break or get injured. Downside is we'll have a huge hole down the right as I agree, Kuyt as an RM in this formation is going to be a liability.

[Reg]

No need to pull Gerrard back, just buy the right calibre of players we need !

[aCe']

probably should have put this here...

If we drop Gerrard back to the middle we'll have to go with 2 upfront to compensate the Gerrard goals because anyone who would be playing his role would never score as many....

Our options if we did that? Funny one that but Kuyt upfront seems to be the best one, with Benny down the right... Kuyt as a RM in a 4-4-2 isnt any good .. the best thing about him is his positioning in attacking situations and the fact that he played as a RW in a 451 meant he had the freedom to take up more advanced positions knowing the 3 in the middle (plus FBs) would cover the width of the pitch behind him... in a 4-4-2 you'd be assigning him more responsibility to build up play down the flank and be more rigid in his positioning... safe to say you take out about 95% of his attacking game...


Anyways.. something needs to be done... we can play Benny in the Gerrard role but that would help us in keeping possession and controlling the midfield game but would seriously take away from our attacking threat...


Cant wait till Aquilani is back tbh...

There are options though ace......

We don't have the personnel to make wholesale changes but options ARE there.

1. Keep the formation but play Yossi in Gerrard's position. That way we steel up the central midfield while still having Lucas as a viable sub off the bench. We will need Riera on the left though. Babel's only good position is left outside..... the touchline. Downside to this is we effectively write off Lucas' time with us. If he can't get a place when the 2nd choice central midfielder is injured, he will never get a 1st team place.... and he'll know it too. Upside is that we'll be able to keep a stable formation for when Aquilani comes back.

2. Go for a 4-4-2....... Use Nemeth upfront with Torres. Upside is that we get to blood Nemeth and hopefully he'll come good which will give us a useful backup if and when Nando needs a break or get injured. Downside is we'll have a huge hole down the right as I agree, Kuyt as an RM in this formation is going to be a liability.

Yea but you see...

-Yossi for Gerrard's position seems good on paper.. over 3 or more games its bound to cost us imo... We rely heavily on Gerrard and Torres to provide the goals.. With Gerrard playing down the middle you can rest assured that he wont be scoring a third of what he would if played higher up... Benny is a good player and would offer some much needed flair in attacking positions but he's nowhere near the goal threat that Gerrard is... exciting player and all, and on paper it looks good, but im not sure where the goals will come from consistently... Too big an ask for Torres imo, who would not only be relied on to score in quantity and consistently, but also to do so without Gerrard providing the slip ins he does..

-Nemeth upfront ? not for me... he isnt ready, no experience, not physically dominant, not the best at keeping the ball and just not prem quality yet imo.. Give him a run in here and there maybe but not as a starting player... Kuyt upfront could do a job imo... ahead of Babel and Voronin for me..
Benny down the right, Riera down the left, with Gerrard and Mascherano in the middle, Kuyt and Torres upfront... worth a shout imo given our situation.. would definitely try that ahead of a 4-5-1 with Benny in the Gerrard position as many seem to be suggesting...

Besides that i dont see where the options would come from... We dont have any backup central midfielders with Aquilani injured.. so its 2 of Gerrard-Lucas-Mascherano if a 4-4-2 is decided on... if its a 4-5-1 then Benayoun is the only one we can play in the Gerrard position... Upfront we're still atleast 1 quality player short... we can get away with playing Kuyt up there imo until Aquilani is back....

January market, i expect us to be going for someone to play upfront if we dont do anything about it before this window closes...

[ConnO'var]

Yea but you see...

-Yossi for Gerrard's position seems good on paper.. over 3 or more games its bound to cost us imo... We rely heavily on Gerrard and Torres to provide the goals.. With Gerrard playing down the middle you can rest assured that he wont be scoring a third of what he would if played higher up... Benny is a good player and would offer some much needed flair in attacking positions but he's nowhere near the goal threat that Gerrard is... exciting player and all, and on paper it looks good, but im not sure where the goals will come from consistently... Too big an ask for Torres imo, who would not only be relied on to score in quantity and consistently, but also to do so without Gerrard providing the slip ins he does..

-Nemeth upfront ? not for me... he isnt ready, no experience, not physically dominant, not the best at keeping the ball and just not prem quality yet imo.. Give him a run in here and there maybe but not as a starting player... Kuyt upfront could do a job imo... ahead of Babel and Voronin for me..
Benny down the right, Riera down the left, with Gerrard and Mascherano in the middle, Kuyt and Torres upfront... worth a shout imo given our situation.. would definitely try that ahead of a 4-5-1 with Benny in the Gerrard position as many seem to be suggesting...

Besides that i dont see where the options would come from... We dont have any backup central midfielders with Aquilani injured.. so its 2 of Gerrard-Lucas-Mascherano if a 4-4-2 is decided on... if its a 4-5-1 then Benayoun is the only one we can play in the Gerrard position... Upfront we're still atleast 1 quality player short... we can get away with playing Kuyt up there imo until Aquilani is back....

January market, i expect us to be going for someone to play upfront if we dont do anything about it before this window closes...

Good points but I tend to differ just a wee bit. The choice, as I see it, is fairly straightforward..... sacrifice a little forward thrust by pulling Gerrard back or lose the midfield impetus. In which case, it would be Hobson's choice....

Without a midfield that can be relied on, both Stevie and Nando are going to be isolated. Whose gonna get the ball to them in good positions? Yossi is no Gerrard by any means but he will still provide much needed creativity upfront while safe in the knowledge that we'll have Gerrard in the heart of the midfield.

On Nemeth, I don't quite agree..... I think he has what it takes and IMO is a far better option that Ngog or Babel or Voronin. I still prefer the 1st option but if pressed into a 4-4-2 for whatever reasons, I'd stick him upfront ahead of them 3 blokes..... and most probably ahead of Dirk too.

[Octsky]

if we play benni from the start, the result wont be the same.
right now, i am thinking how big a difference is Alonso's absence to us...

i will say the lost to Spurs wasnt just due to the fact of Alonso..it was
down to the whole team, particularly Torres, he was the focus of our attack,
and he lost possession too many times, on the other hand, Defoe who is 1.7m dominated our defenders.
Our center backs were very poor. Bench was poor too, Voronin should have converted the one-on-one, irregardless of the push or not.

[crazyhorse]

The thing is Rafa has to do the best with the players he has. That I feel means going 4-4-2 and pushing Gerrard back into midfield to provide that creative spark we lack.

My first team would be

Reina
Aurelio Agger Carra Johnson
Riera Masch Gerrard Benny
Torres Kuyt

Failing that Torres up on his own with Benny behind and Kuyt out on the right.

[Calum]

This may sound ridiculous, but would David Beckham be a viable replacement for Alonso? Yes, he is not the player he used to be, but I think he could do a great job in the middle of the park. It would still let Gerrard play in that role behind Torres. Man Utd buy a Liverpool legend, so why can't we buy a Man Utd legend? It's just an option.

[stmichael]

I thought last night highlighted the misconception that playing "two holding midfielders" against weak opposition is a negative move. Ok it may not be necessary all the time but it's certainly not "negative". Both Lucas and Mascherano were able to carry the ball into areas that forced a Stoke player out of position and got space for one of our front four.

Without the extra midfielder in behind them, I don't think they have the licence to do that, as they run the risk of an interception / tackle giving the opposition the ball back with a chance to run at our back four.