Liverpool FC Forum

7_Kewell wrote:would love to be proben wrong, but he looks too lightweight for the Premier league.

Maickito wrote:I agree with jacdaniels ; maybe its time to have two footballers back in the middle of the park

DM have a time and place. A DM isn't very useful against the Boltons of this world though

Aqua and Gerrard in midfield would be nice !

bigmick wrote:Come on Alberto lad, prove us doubters wrong, make us eat our words.

bavlondon wrote:Alberto Aquilani '100% healed' and ready to shine for Liverpool

• Liverpool's head of sports medicine impressed by Italian
• Aquilani 'has looked very sharp', he says

The Liverpool midfielder Alberto Aquilani has completely recovered from the ankle problem which hampered his first season at Anfield, according to the club's new medical chief.

The Italian had to wait more than two months for his Reds debut following a £20m move from Roma last year and then endured an indifferent campaign. But the 25-year-old is now back with the club for pre-season training and has already made a positive impression on the newly-appointed head of sports medicine and sports science, Peter Brukner.

Brukner told LFC Weekly magazine: "Alberto's ankle, which was a problem last year, is now 100% healed. He has been training and has looked very sharp. He'll have to keep working on his injury prevention programme and if he does, I'm sure the supporters will see the best of him because last season was very frustrating for him injury-wise."

Brukner's next task is to assess the fitness of star striker Fernando Torres, who pulled up with an adductor injury in Sunday's World Cup final in South Africa. Torres has now returned to Madrid with the rest of the victorious Spain squad and Liverpool staff are to fly out to meet him this week.

Brukner is generally pleased with the health of the squad but the group is only coming back together slowly because of varying lengths of involvement at the World Cup. "Staggering pre-season presents a challenge," he said. "I'm guessing that the World Cup guys will be pretty fit anyway. You don't lose a lot in three weeks and they've all been in contact with us to speak about their programme over that period."

bigmick wrote:

metalhead wrote:

bigmick wrote:Come on Alberto lad, prove us doubters wrong, make us eat our words.

I sense that you have this slight feeling that you might be wrong about the player and he will turn out to be good.

Well, here is hoping he can be a top player for us next season

Sadly no mate. Sometimes you make a call/have a guess about a player and you really aren't sure. As a veteran of many "I know it's early" threads I'm obviously well aware that sometimes you get it hoplessly wrong. This may be the case with Aquilani too, but if I was a betting man I'd rail against it.

The problem isn't that he doesn't have ability, he obviously has that. The problem is how you fit him into a team which is playing in the Premiership and has aspirations to be up there or abouts. If he was playing for Bolton or somebody for instance, it wouldn't be a problem. They could carry him Jay Jay Ococha style, Alberto could chip in with few spectacular goals, a few flashes of quality and a few assists, win their player of the year award and all would be good.

He isn't playing for Bolton though, he's playing for Liverpool. With us, there are three roles he can possibly play, and only one of them it seems to me offers up realistic possibilities.

He can play Gerrard style off the front man, but the problem for me here is he won't score often enough, or influence the game often enough to make it work. Neither will he tackle anybody, so the feeling you'll end up with is why don't we just play a genuine striker in there and have done with it?

He can play as one of a central two, alongside say a Gerrard. This would be OK, but his lightwieghtness defensively put's a huge strain on his partner. I don't think it would work.

The third way, and the way I'd set up if you were looking to give yourself the maximum chance of Alberto prospering, is to go 4-2-3-1. In this system, you sit say Gerrard and Lucas in behind, and have Aquilani, a Babel and say an Albert Riera playing in behind your central striker. It does mean you are almost playing a 4-2-4 though as none of the front four will track back, and I simply can't see Roy playing that way. The only other option is if you bought what would be my number one transfer target (STEVEN IRELAND) and played a diamond of 4-1-2-1-2. This way, you'd sit Lucas at the base, with Gerrard and Ireland ahead of him with Aquilani ahead of them. That'd work alright IMHO. Anyway we'll see, and everyone has long since stopped reading anyway .

bigmick wrote: Fair enough.

bigmick wrote:He can play Gerrard style off the front man, but the problem for me here is he won't score often enough, or influence the game often enough to make it work. Neither will he tackle anybody, so the feeling you'll end up with is why don't we just play a genuine striker in there and have done with it?