Liverpool FC Forum

[kopite_1232002]

Xabi Scored a goal in the european cup final, He is a true gent and a world class player...

If he goes then the best of luck


one word         LEGEND

YNWA  Xabi lad 

[Ciggy]

The mask is wrong - liver birds and flame

damn seems ciggy got their before me

Liar you copied me answer 

[GYBS]

The mask is wrong - liver birds and flame

damn seems ciggy got their before me

Liar you copied me answer 

i tell no lies ciggy - check the time we both posted - same time . hence why i edited after i saw you got yours on the board before mine . 

[bunglemark2]

Welcome back......to ME !!

I've been gone for two weeks on holliers, reading on and off about Alonso and Masch heading off to pastures new, and to be quite frank, I have developed a rather severe pain in the hoop as a result !

As the man so eloquently puts it : "Please shoite or get off the pot !". If it's not Alonso saying holding his hands up saying "Nowt to do with me, matey peeps" or Rafa saying "Jess, he isss our play-er....", it's idle speculation in the press....

Please, somebody - put an end to this !!

[ElNino9]

Xabi Scored a goal in the european cup final

Wasn't that just a follow up from a peno, anyone could have scored that.

[GYBS]

Xabi Scored a goal in the european cup final

Wasn't that just a follow up from a peno, anyone could have scored that.

what ?!? yes you always see penalties that are saved followed up the taker - esp in the biggest club match in football - dont ever under estimate that goal .

[bigmick]

In many ways when Alonso was suffering a dip in form, he wasn't "hacking" the Premiership, that was much of the problem. What happened was that in many ways Alonso was a victim of his own success from his first couple of seasons. So influencial was he as the mythical "deep lying playmaker" that teams began to sit up and work out a plan to stop him. When Rafa put Gerrard on the right wing and the captain scored 23 goals or something ridiculous, it didn't take a smart Alec to work out that 75% of the time it was Alonso who was finding him with crisp passes 25-35 yards, drilled into Gerrards feet.

It was much easier to stop Gerrard getting the ball in the first place, than it was trying to stop him once he'd actually got it they reasoned. Sissoko although being one of my favourite players was hardly likely to either carry it up into Gerrard country or even less to pass it to him, so they reasoned if they could stop Alonso they could stop Gerrard and then by definition Liverpool. They were right of course. So teams looked at where Alonso recieved the ball (the pocket 95% of the time) and who was giving it to him, and told attackers not to bother closing our defenders down as none of them bar Hyppia could play anyway. Much better to sit in on Alonso, stop him getting the ball altogether and let Riise hoof it. You have the treble pay off that you take both Alonso and Gerrard out of the game, and then when Gerrard goes a wandering off the touchline looking for the ball, you attack our right flank.

During this time, Alonso's form dipped significantly. Yes he was still positionally astute, but his contribution in a positive sense became a fraction of what it had been previously. At this time, he certainly wasn't "hacking" the Premiership. It became the teams problem very quickly, how we were going to get Alonso on the ball again. I believe Sissoko's limitations in aiding this aim were the significant factor in him being sold, and we wrestled with the connundrum for the best poart of 18 months.

Anyway I could go on as you all know, but nobody gives a feck anyway   

but then what happened last season? Why couldn't opponents apply the same strategy?

It's a good question, and although it took us quite a while to suss it out as a team we eventually found the answer, and here it is:

Problem number one which had to be addressed is that the players in and around Alonso had to improve. Sounds obvious? Well it is obvious, but making it happen isn't so easy. The reason why this had to happen, is that when we had the likes of Djimi Traore playing at full-back, Riise left midfield etc the opposition could quite safely let them have the ball and just shadow Alonso. Not only were they insufficiently good enough to play a pass of note, they weren't good enough to put a perceptive pass even into Alonso who was usually stood within 15 yards of them. If absolutely everything is being built off the same fella and nobody else in and around is good enough to share the burden, then it's easier to cut off that umbilical chord. Allied to that, Alonso hasn't the pace nor the mobility to shake his shadows off, so they sat on him and with the attention his confidence and influence drained away.


So we improved in and around, which gave us the option of not using Alonso every time. Suddenly we had Riera down the left who could take the ball, kill it, turn and pass it. It's no coincidence that Alonso's form improved immeasureably once the Spaniard replaced Babel, they are interlinked. We got Fabio Aurelio at left full back, who if Alonso was blocked off would quite happily find Torres himself. We got Gerrard in off the right touchline and got him drifting in and around the spaces, happy to recieve the ball anytime anyplace anywhere. We got Masherano in beside Xabi, a vast improvement on Sissoko. Those who say he has no ability (Masherano) are wrong. He is a very tidy footballer indeed so long as he keeps it simple. We got Dirk Kuyt on the right 




Anyway, I digress. Essentially we said to the oppositon, close Xabi down by all means but he's no longer our sole means of delivering the football into your final third, we have other ways of doing it as well.


But..... we also had to look at the way Xabi himself operated.


I'll take a break because I think everyone has fallen to sleep   

[GYBS]

will agree with the crux of that miick - esp the signing of masher which helped out xabi a lot - in fact would say crucial to him having a great season last year but think one thing that is missed about his below par performances was his persistant foot injury he had - same as agger - that seemed to knock him back a bit

[Sabre]

On the contrary that post put me straight on my chair. In that post, the main reasons you develop to explain Magus' question are external to Xabi. That is, correct me if I'm wrong, you think that the main reason of Alonso's improvement have to do with the context of players surrounding him. I agree that btw, I think it's a factor. The other factor is having a serious injury free season, with no broken foot, no falling again in the same injury, no Essien nasty tackle like a few years ago. Alonso has been playing consistently except for resting him, and he has noticed that continuity.

It also has helped the more attacking Alonso we have seen this season, he has been been closer to attacking positions this season.

I agree your post but I'm a bit surprised you gave so much relevance to external factors, I thought that if you understand his price has risen a lot, you'd think that the "how Xabi himself operated" part would have changed a lot aswell. Perhaps you'll develop it in the next post?

[bigmick]

I don't think anyone "missed" the fact that he was injured mate, nobody can play while they're injured. Similarly, everybody when they first come back from injury takes some time to get back into things. The reason though that the injuries became at the time a topic for much discussion was that they were being offered up as the main reason he wasn't performing, when in actual fact that wasn't the case. The main reason he didn't perform well (by his own standards, still good but a long way from his best) for two seasons and a bit (few injuries last that long), was that the opposition were stopping him from playing and we as a team hadn't found a way to combat it.

That was/is the reality, and there was a two stage way to eradicating the problem. Step one as I say was improving the players in and around Alonso so absolutely everything didn't come through him. Imagine for instance if Alonso played for Bolton, what would we do? Well, we'd say to Torres don't bother closing down the full backs because they are sh!t anyway (actually the left full back who was at Pompey is a good player although I can't remember his name, but nevermind you get my point), we'd tell him to sit close enough to Alonso so he could nail Xabi if anybody passes it to him. Because they've got nobody else and because Xabi at that time sat in the pocket, it would be fairly straightforward for a team which is well set up to do that. You just "pass him on" if for whatever reason you get pulled away from where your supposed to be.

We were obviously better than Bolton, but not in all positions. Anyway, improving the team was step one as I say.

[bigmick]

Step two, was that we needed to make Xabi much less predictable in terms of the areas in which he recieves the football. Like all right footed midfielders, his favoured drop off point where he likes his parcels to arrive from is left full back or left midfield. Particularly for a player with the passing range of Xabi, he looks from there and the whole thing opens out for him. Also with Xabi though, he was seemingly incapable of getting himself out of the pocket (a square about the size of a Badminton court in front of the centre halves, if he was playing well it morphed into a tennis court).

Now teams will have looked at how many times Xabi was getting the ball off of the left full back, left midfield, right full back etc and crucially, where he was standing when he recieved it, and what did he do with it. Because he was effectively our only out ball, and because he was extremely predictable in his movement (not once he's got the ball, before he's got it) they were able to combat him.

The absolutely crucial thing with Xabi was him picking the ball up in different areas of the pitch. In short, he needed to move up and down the pitch as well as accross it. Because he has done this over the second half of the one before last season, and pretty much throughout last season, he has become very difficult to nullify. Now, Aurelio will move it on to Riera, who'll move it inside to Masherano, who'll nudge it on to Alonso whoi's picking it up in between the half way line and their area. You can hardly ask your centre forward to cover that. The Badminton Court has been replaced by a polo field (feck knows how big they are but you get my drift) and Xabi is so much easier to get on the ball.

Once he's on the ball with the time to see, then there's never been a problem. As a team and as a footballer, the challenge was to overcome those that were trying to stop him from doing that. We got there in the end, and we had our top class midfielder back.

[bigmick]

On the contrary that post put me straight on my chair. In that post, the main reasons you develop to explain Magus' question are external to Xabi. That is, correct me if I'm wrong, you think that the main reason of Alonso's improvement have to do with the context of players surrounding him. I agree that btw, I think it's a factor. The other factor is having a serious injury free season, with no broken foot, no falling again in the same injury, no Essien nasty tackle like a few years ago. Alonso has been playing consistently except for resting him, and he has noticed that continuity.

It also has helped the more attacking Alonso we have seen this season, he has been been closer to attacking positions this season.

I agree your post but I'm a bit surprised you gave so much relevance to external factors, I thought that if you understand his price has risen a lot, you'd think that the "how Xabi himself operated" part would have changed a lot aswell. Perhaps you'll develop it in the next post?

"Continuity" is a good thing Sabes, we know that from experience. If a player plays regularly in the same position with the same team mates, his perormance almost always goes up. We know that and have proven it beyond any shadow of a doubt over the last five years, so I agree with you there.

As I've said before and here though, the injuries were a factor but not the reason he played sub par for two and a half seasons.

As for his transfer value, it's an interesting one this. Once he goes to Madrid assuming he will, he will if he likes be able to revert back to his old Liverpool days. He can sit five yards in front of the centre halves if he wants and dictate the pace of every game and nobdoy will try and stop him. Why? because Sergio Ramos isn't Djimi Traore, Kaka isn't Bolo Zenden and Christiano Ronaldo isn't Dirk Kuyt (no really guys, he isn't). Because as a team they are going to have numerous ways of moving the football around and hurting you, Alonso dictating the flow of the game is going to be the least of the oppsotions problems. I don't think he will go that way because he's better when he moves, but he could if he wanted to.

As such, he will fit in at Madrid perfectly. So why has value "jumped" by 100%? Well two factors really. Firstly the market has gone mad, and secondly he has categorically proven that he retains the ability he showed when he first arrived at Liverpool. Allied to that, he has the experience and the maturity that five years at a top club brings.

The time to buy him was last Summer. He had shown definate signs of improvement for us given his moving out of the pocket, and he would have been a bargain for low to mid teens. Wenger was onto it, and I think he must be absolutely kicking himself that he didn't get him for the sake of a couple of extra million.

Ultimately though, Xabi has surprised almost everyone. I say "almost" because there are some that with the greatest of respect are faithful to his ability to the point of blindness in regards to other aspects of the game, but to even nearly all of his staunchest followers, the sheer size of improvement last season must have been a surprise. Wenger and Ranieri were just about the only two who were onto it, and to be fair they both know a player when they see one.

[Nando26]

Xabi Scored a goal in the european cup final

Wasn't that just a follow up from a peno, anyone could have scored that.

He drilled it in the top corner with his left foot its not like he only had to tap it over the line

[7_Kewell]

Xabi Scored a goal in the european cup final

Wasn't that just a follow up from a peno, anyone could have scored that.

[Nando26]

Also why do some people on here write whole chapters everytime they need to make a point

simplify ddduuuddeeeeessssss