So, we all know we have not been so good at the back this season. We have conceded a few to many goals and have made some sloppy mistakes. I stand by a previous statement where I said that Agger and Skrtel are the best central defensive partnership in English football. But what about when they are not there. When Agger and Skrtel are out we have two option. Young with less experience. Or lots of experience, but loosing some pace. Basically our options here are: Young: Coates (22) Kelly (22) - Regular right back until injury. Wilson (20) - Not played this season. Wisdom (18/19) - Looks like a right back. Experience: Carragher (34) Basically, it is one extreme or the other. Although young players have done well in other positions, central defenders tend to break through later a lot of the time. Carragher, though greatly experienced, strong and passionate, can get caught out a bit by fast play. So, do we need a short term options between the ages of 25 and 30 to bridge the gap and ease any pressure on the other defenders? Our young players I listed have bright futures (especially Kelly in my opinion), but how would they do in a long run of league games? I think Kelly would do well. But right now he is injured, and doesn't have the best injury record.
Do we need another center back? No Top three priorities IMO: 1) centre forward 2) centre forward 3) left back
I'd say no Coates has plenty of experience for a young player. I don't think we need a left back either with Johnson my fav for that position Enrique and Robinson as back up. Just a striker imo, spend everything we have on 1 quality striker then plan for the summer.
I did say LB as a third priority, I agree we should blew our load (not intending to link to Walcott there) on a centre forward. Note I keep saying centre forward rather than striker, Rodgers will not buy a goal poacher, he is not interested in players that are not flexible. Anyone we buy will have to be able to drop to the wings or deep to keep attacks fluid Edit: Unless Enrique refinds his form before January, I think we need a left back. Johnson has done well there but he is not a natural left sided player, plus I think expectations are lower for him on that side which is part of the reason why he seems to be playing so well IMO. Get a LB in, move Johnson back to RB and let Wisdom compete with him. On his return, we should consider Kelly as a CB only IMO
I think we do need another left back, but I think it can wait until summer. We definitely need 2 new forwards in January. I think, unless Rodgers decides to put Henderson there, we need another solid DM so that Gerrard and Allen dont have to play there. No one should have to play in an alternative position that limits there effectiveness if we are to move forward. Players must play there strongest position. Some players are effective in multiple roles, like Johnson and Suarez. But Gerrard and Allen have specific roles to play.
I thinkk Johnson has been our best player so far this season. What could be useful is a player like Mascerano and Javi Martinez who both fill both CB and DM for their clubs.
I'm not saying Johnson as not been good, just that I think expectation levels are a little lower for him because he is on the left. Little mistakes get ignored much easier and are forgiven because 'he is out of position'. I can't help but feel that if he had played to the exact same standard on the right people wouldn't have the same high opinion of his performances so far. Just for the record, I am very happy with how Johnson is performing at LB, I just feel we should be aiming to play players in their best positions and I think we lose a little bit of something from Glen when he is on the left Although Mascherano really pissed me off with the way he left, I'd love to see him back in our team. Much like with alonso, it won't ever happen because of age and cost issues Edit: I don't agree with Johnson being our best player so far, he is certainly up there but I don't think we can look beyond Saurez for that accolade
I know what your saying. Johnson holds back a bit when attacking on the left, but that may make his defensive covering better. True Suarez deserves it to. They have both been fantastic. Does any one know of any decent young Mascerano types who can cover both DM and CB? The way Mascerano left was fair as it was family reasons why he left. He had nothing against the club and played great in his final game against Arsenal. Had he stayed, Roys reign would have been better. But Roy made an error including him so largely in his plans when he wanted to leave.
I don't know if we should go down this route. I think our money needs to be wisely on players who are right for us, right for the system, and we all know what position they will be in. We need them to bed in quickly and we need them to know where they are, what roles they are meant to be playing, from the start. Lucas Biglia impressed me the other day in the Anderlecht game against Zenit. Matuidi, Moussa Sissoko would be good players for that role. I agree 100% with Gerrez though, we need to have a look at LB and if we can get a good player in on a decent price we should look at it. Cissokho would have been fantastic but that has gone. Possibly Bastos ( I think he has moved higher up the field now though) or Vargas.
No we don't. As you say we have one of the best pairing, which is much better than what most other teams have, and yes we leak goals, but that happens, what matters is that you score more than them. Our problem being, we don't. We need to be able to give Coates time to make mistakes and learn from them, until he has the same skill level as Agger. Buying a super slick, hot off the shelf alternative, just because we are desperate not to concede anything, because we can't score anything, is negative thinking. We need a team that can win 3-1, not 1-0. So to avoid the danger of losing that one goal, we need to invest in someone who can simply bang them in at the other end, and to hell with this negative bollox of looking to grind out low scores in order to play "keep ball"
It's not a persomnel issue. The squad is better now than it was in the last days of H&G. At this point last season we had F14 A10. Now we have F12 A14. And this is after Rodgers had a chance to get more goalscorers. This shouldn't come as a surprise because it kinda matches Rodgers' overall record, which I know most of you have no concern for, immaterial as it is to how well he'll do if only everybody would just get off his back and give him a few years to hopefully get it right and raise his own career stats. it's probably all Downing's fault, anyway.
If it was for family reasons (and I have no reason to suspect any different) then that is fair enough but IMO there is nothing that should force a player into refusing to play, nothing! He was out of order and that's what I was getting at.
So despite Rodgers completely ****ing up and leaving us with only one recognised striker, we have scored a grand total of two goals less than at the same point last season? Well **** me sideways and call me ginger!!!! Ps - fixture list nicely swept under the carpet too
