by bigmick » Sat Jun 16, 2007 11:00 pm
All good reads, and if Bent was seen in Liverpool yesterday then it tells it's own story. I think I agree with John Craig the most to be honest (nice to see him posting again) where he alludes to the theory that if rafa sorts out his meddling then we will have a chance to challenge. I've long maintained that we were easily good enough to challenge THIS season had we given ourselves a chance (I'd like to see Chelsea or Man Utd make as many alterations to their starting line-up/formation etc as we did in the first few weeks and still mount a successful challenge put it that way) and therefore we wouldn't need too much to be right in the mix.
As I said in the original post though, the feeling persists that our goalkeeper, defensive unit and midfield are Championship quality, but our attack is a bit short. If you think back to the Chelsea Away game I think it demonstrates the difference ina nutshell. Even stevens for half an hour, nip and tuck with few chances then Drogba scores with a goal out of absolutely nothing. Not a good build up, not bad defending, not bad goalkeeping just a bit of inspirational play, a free goal if you like. After that, even stevens again but we never really looked like getting the goal back.
We don't get enough "free" goals during the course of a season. You normally get one or two off Gerrard, Agger scored one against West Ham at the start of the season but we just lack that little something, that spark. Usually we overcome it, but not always and ultimately it is that little finger snap of inspiration which a really top striker would bring which may, just may leave us five or six points adrift at count-up time.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".