Alias75

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If you watch the Newcastle goal there really wasnt a lot we did wrong, but the delivery was almost perfect. Sometimes if the delivery is good enough it doesn't matter what system you use. The ball just cleared the man at the near post but it was the perfect height so Carragher who was marking the zone where the goal was scored couldn't get his head on the ball without going through the player in front of him. Anyone thats played football in defence knows sometimes when a ball is played to the guy your marking at the perfect height theres nothing you can do to win the header. I guess in that situation you just have to hope the guys header isn't as good as it was yesterday, but if the delivery is spot on it doesn't matter what system you use. As somebody else said Newcastle went man to man and we could have scored 5 or 6 from corners.

Some very poor performances tonight, especially in midfield. I think its clear that we have 3 or 4 players are getting no benefit whatsoever now from playing at this level, Plessis looks like he can't be bothered, and while others like Insua, Spearing, Darby and Nemeth show a much better attitude you do feel they need to be playing at a higher level to develop. Today the back 5 look solid and they all have a chance, but in midfield Plessis was strolling around and giving the ball away far too easily and the guy on the left Weiji? was poor although hes looked ok in other games ive seen. Pacheco was the one attacking player we had that looked like he might create something, not only is his attitude very good but technically hes probably the best in that team in terms of touch and awareness. Bruna again looked lost. Nemeth had zero service and hes the one player id be most worried about because he is a very good player thats going to get disinterested quickly if he doesn't start playing at a better level. If hes not going to get a chance here he needs to go out on loan in January because hes on a different level to most of the people hes playing with.

Hes in a group of players we have that are no longer benefiting from reserve team football but aren't quite good enough for the first team. Id put Nemeth, Plessis, Spearing, Darby, in that category. You can see with somebody like Plessis for example hes clearly not motivated playing in the reserves and it can't be easy for those players aged 19-20 to motivate themselves every week, at that age they should be playing first team football somewhere. Its in our interest to loan these players out and see which ones do well, the benefit of this is those that aren't quite good enough to make it here but impressed on trial will fetch a fee if they're sold. For what its worth i think Nemeth is good enough to make it here, but with the players he has in front of him at the moment i think he'd benefit from a loan spell, ideally to a top Championship team.

But with Hyppia maybe 1 season away from retiring and Jamie not getting any younger if we wanted to replace Agger its going to cost more than the increase in wages hes after. Just think it'd be a big mistake to let one of the best young defenders in Europe leave especially in January with us finally in the title race. If Skrtel takes time to get match fit or we get another injury we're left with Hyppia and Carragher plus some young untried reserves at centre back which is one of the most important positions in the team. If Agger does want to go and isn't going to sign a new contract then obviously we're left with little choice although once again we've allowed a key players contract to get under 2 years, but if that does happen its vital we have a replacement in January because we can't challenge for the title with just Carragher, Skrtel and Hyppia.

Its always a potential injury with a player as quick as Torres, i wonder if the cooler weather is making it worse? Lets hope he fully recovers this time before coming back, but Keane really needs to step it up now. The Aurellio injury is just as big a worry with our problems at left back at the moment.

This is how Rafa does things, his teams are far more efficient than they are entertaining, Valencia won La Liga basically on the back of a very strong defence and winning lots of games 1-0. What we have now is a team that is very tough to play against and even on a bad day a team that is very tough to beat, several opposition managers this season have commented how tough we are to play against. On top of that strong backbone we rely on Torres and Gerrard (plus 1 or 2 others) to provide the attacking edge its very similar to how Valencia played relying on Aimar to provide that attacking spark around a group of very consistent hard working players. At the moment we're missing too many chances and thats making some of the games tougher than they should be, but personally id much rather a team thats very tough to beat with 2 or 3 top attacking players that are currently not at 100% than one that has a soft underbelly thats wins more games 3-0 but is also capable of losing 3-0.

The Valencia side that won La Liga under Rafa very often played efficiently rather than spectacularly, and they won a lot of games 1-0 in winning La Liga. Even though we haven't played well that often this season i also don't recall us being outplayed in many PL games this season. Other managers have made a point about how tough we are to play against, theres very little space to play in because we are pressing much better now, also we're missing plenty of chances and if that improves that would add gloss to a lot of the performances, its not as if we're not creating the chances. I do think we're very close to clicking, Rafa has instilled the toughness and work ethic into this team that is now very natural and even on a bad day we're not going to fold and get beat 2 or 3 as has happened not so long ago, the next step is being more clinical with the chances we create, and that will in turn make the games easier and create more space later on.

Poor performance but we're getting into this habit of being very tough to beat even when we play poorly. We know we can play better and we have a few key players like Torres and Mascherano that need to get some match sharpness, but the positves are this is a team that is very difficult to beat when we play poorly, and when we play well we know the talent we have. Obviously it would be nicer to play better more often but there is this steely edge in the team now, so even on a bad day we aren't losing many and with players like Gerrard and Torres theres always the chance of nicking the win. It says something for this group of players that we really havent played that well very often this season yet we're through to the next round of the CL with 1 game to go and we're joint top of the PL with our best start ever!

At the moment Benayoun is hardly featuring anyway so we don't really lose anything by swapping him. Elano would give us that creative passing and goal threat we sometimes lack in those home games against tight defences and as others have said his set piece delivery is very good. He wouldn't feature in our strongest 11 but at home when we can sacrifice one of the holding midfielders hes another attacking option that is creative and a goal and assist threat.

Simply hasn't done enough this season, even off the bench he very often loses possession and is lightweight. We should sell Yossi, and Pennant reckon that would give Rafa around £8 million for a replacement. In terms of numbers it doesn't really affect us that much as Pennant has hardly figured this season anyway, and we could always promote someone from the reserves if there was an emergency and we got 2 or 3 injuries to a wide right player. Someone like Paul Anderson could be that 3rd / 4th choice wide right player for no cost, and at least for the time being you'd have a player more likely to settle for a place on the bench than a proven international.

If theres a lack of attacking play from those 2 i think the responsibility falls squarely on Alonso's shoulders to add that. We know what Mascherano does for the team, he sets the tempo when we press and covers the ground defensively so others have more freedom to attack. Alonso is the more creative of the 2 and hes the bigger goal threat of the 2 he needs to get further forward knowing Mascherano is there covering. People knock Lucas but when he plays as a defensive midfielder he manages to get into forward positions much more than Alonso does. Just because we play 2 holding midfielders doesn't mean they can't contribute to the attacking play when we're dominating. But i do think for the balance of the team we're better playing 4-2-3-1 than 4-4-2 simply because i think it suits the wide players we have better and defensively it makes us much tougher to break down and less vulnerable on the counter.

They're job isn't to score goals having the 2 of them in there in theory allows the front 4 players to attack with more freedom and it should also give the fullbacks more licence. We're creating plenty of chance at the moment we just aren't taking enough of them. If the team wasn't creating maybe you could look at the central midfield 2 but all we're lacking at the moment is Torres up front and a bit more clinical finishing.

Valencia under Rafa very rarely won games by 2 or 3 goals but they won La Liga by winning plenty of games 1-0. At the moment we have a very strong unit that is very tough to beat, when Torres is back theres always the possibility of giving someone a hiding especially if we get an early goal and the game gets stretched but i think the team we have is more one that grinds teams down and strangles them to death. At the moment it'd be nice to take an earlyish lead and control the game from there but as long as we keep grinding out results i don't care how we do it.