Anybody else think they were a good pairing on saterday? With Lucas in the mix too, as a midfield 3 id say it could develop into a top notch trio? Any thoughts?
Yeah I think it worked nicely, have been very impressed with Adam's performances after a pretty average start and Hendo will only get better as the season goes on.
Adam has really grown into the role - collecting the ball nicely, distribution, scored a couple of goals. Surprisingly, I've been more impressed with his dribbling - he has good close control and can really drive into the box (unfortunately he lacks the pace). However, I haven't been impressed with his set pieces.
I was glad we got Adam for that purpose as well! Corners, FK, etc and he has been terrible for a while now with them.
Did well, both have played well in the last month Yeah Adams been sh*te on corners, but I can NEVER remember us bein any good on corners TBH
all i can say is it looked to me like adam had a think to himself about stepping up to the mark as he was putting even more effort in now that lucas is out. 4-3-3, henderson was inexperienced at it v fulham so he left johnson exposed badly by not being good positionally. he'll have to learn that to make it work but thats possible.
I hold my hands up and say I was wrong about Adam. 6 assists and 2 goals in 15 appearances is not a bad return already. His game is markedly better than at Blackpool, and he looks in better physical shape - not blowing so hard. If only he can combine that with better set piece delivery, then we might get better returns from Carroll...
This. I was quick to judge him, I didn't think he would become a better player than last season. I didn't think he was fit to play in a Liverpool shirt until I think it was the Utd game, took me a while to cool down over him after his Spurs red card and constantly giving the ball away vs Stoke (league game). He's a completely different player now and I always look forward to his storming runs towards the opposition defence. I think everyone needs to improve their set pieces although Bellamy has been fairly unlucky on a couple of occasions.
well i'm not going to go that far yet.He definitely showed good character by stepping up this weekend in the absence of lucas... especially with a young guy with him who needed it. However, I will still say positionally he is weak and does either run out chasing down the obviously or ball watches and gets passed round... those are defensive issues he needs to work on. Fitness wise he should be improving though i don't know why he looked unable to play 90 at the start. On the othe rhand his heading ability seems to go unnoticed but he does help a lot there. Finally his stats are clear that he tries to be more adventurous with his passing and to create so not everything works which is ok, if a guy gives it away in his own half he ought to be critised but if he gives a throw or a ball through goes to the keeper when he's in the opponents half once in a while thats ok. I think he needs to play a more all round midfield game in a 4-4-2 and have to say v qpr he did try to go do that. One has to think though a top side could expose us in that centre circle but it seems gerrard is not going to be around so both adam and henderson need to step up even more. oh and before i forget, henderson is 20 and inexperienced, adam is now turned 26 so the critism i give adam can be given to henderson but some accounting of growing into the role has to be given to the inexperienced lad..... then again adam has only one seaon in the prem under the belt. the next big game we play will tell a lot i think.
Once again, I concur with almost all you've said - but I'm not sure that Adam was any less fit at the start of the season than at the end of last season at Blackpool. He was constantly blown by 75 minutes and was forever giving away poor freekicks and at least once a game he lost the ball in dangerous places defensively, often a misplaced pass. His fitness is on another level to last season, it seems to me, and he's cutting out the majority of the dreadful passes in our third that he was misplacing for Blackpool (touchwood) so he's cut away all the things that are 'easily' rectifiable. Now its about improving his overall game, positional awareness and discipline, and I expect those to develop more slowly. Oh, and more practice at corners after training (Carroll can stay behind too, to practice heading the buggers)
