Bad Bob wrote:Good points, mate, but I suppose I'm in a bit of a nit-picky mood today, so...
While I absolutely agree that Didi was a great player for us and while I also agree that Alonso does not play the same game as the German, I still think that Alonso is naturally inclined to sit deep and not go forward. He's not at all like Lampard, who is like a poor man's Stevie--that's why the two can't work for England...Lampard has no defensive instinct whatsoever. Alonso, on the other hand, has come on by leaps and bounds in that department to the extent that he now seems even a little hesitant to get forward. I'm still convinced that he and Gerrard can be amazing together but the proof, they say, is in the pudding so we'll have to see how they do once Xabi's back.
Right, back to Istanbul once more. I think it's important to remember that while Didi came on and helped us shut up shop in central midfield, we also switched to 3 at the back. Now, this might suggest that Didi's heroics were even greater because he had one less defender behind him but, to me, it basically meant that he AND Alonso plugged up the midfield gaps while Gerrard bombed forward (compared to the first half, when Alonso was left to mind the store on his own while Gerrard went forward in search of needed goals). Let's not discount the fact that Milan were resting on their laurels, too. Not saying this to diminish the Kaiser's role--he was a collosus in that game--but to suggest that this is perhaps not the best game to use as a yardstick for assessing the suitability of the Gerrard-Alonso CM partnership.
I didn’t realise you had replied back, Bob! You raise further good points about Alonso perhaps he would be inclined to sit more deep and not venture forward, but what worries me about the partnership is that if we were to go behind that they would both lose their discipline and both will launch themselves forward in hope of getting an equaliser and that would cause more problems, unless we play a well disciplined defensive midfielder behind both Alonso and Gerrard than that is an entirely different matter. I guess the only way for me or you to be proved right and wrong (for bragging rights
) is for them two to be played together and what’s the worst that could happen? I’m not saying Alonso is like Lampard, I wasn’t making a comparison, I was simply going by the way Gerrard’s partnership with Xabi has in terms of discipline and leaving gaps has is near enough the spitting image of the partnership between Gerrard and Lampard. You’re spot on again, Xabi did help mop up and fill the gaps after we were three nil down, but could he have done that without the help of Hamann? I don’t think, there have been three occasions when the absence of Hamann were costly (in terms of making things more difficult for ourselves) that’s the Champions League 2005 final, the FA Cup 2006 and the Champions League quarter final against Leverkusen in 2002, Houllier took him off, what happens? We lose our shape in midfield, the discipline falls on deaf ears and we crash out.
Hamann IMO was the best player on the pitch in all three of these, that’s not taking credit away from the rest of the players, but to me Hamann stood out the most and I think for a lot of people after Istanbul finally realised what importance Hamann played in our team. We had this anti-Hamann Liverpool fan at my workplace called Steven and he was won over by Hamann after Istanbul, he finally realised what Didi bought to the club and he was very upset when he left. If you watch the match again you will Alonso bombing forward again, so I won’t except that he was staying back and mopping up because he most certainly wasn’t, he was up top a fair bit and by doing so allowed Kaka and Pirlo to pass deadly balls into the path of Shevchenko and Crespo, but I’m starting to fall into this category that blames the midfield for everything, so I’ll stop. It’s not the best game, but it’s one of the few and they were pretty poor in the other matches they played together, but as you say lets wait and see.
