I was tempted to give you the sunburnt bum. Coutinho had a haircut, Gerrard shaved his beard. Coincidink?
Better performance than Wed, but still improvement needed. What the game showed most to me is our reliance on Coutihno for creativity in midfield and linkup play with the forwards, if he gets injured this season I think we will really struggle. Aspas looks like a handy player with good touch and awareness(good 3rd choice striker), but Borini is useless he just doesn't fit the style of play, if theres any truth in the rumours of a bid he should be sold. We still need another option up front i would go for a conventional one touch then shoot kind of striker. Gerrard is scoring, which is good as i don't think he's fully back to his best yet and some of his linkup play has been poor, hopefully he will be fully match fit when the season starts. Alan and Henderson are offering little in the way of creativity in midfield, they really need to get going before the season starts, hopefully the next couple of games will show an improvement. Without sterling in the team we have no width! No wingers on the team really last night with pretty much nothing down the right wing the whole game. This creates another issue as it means that Johnson cant get forward as much and if he's not gonna get forward we may as well have a more defense minded fullback. Ibe came on later but hes not ready for the first team yet, showed when he nearly gave a goal away. Think we really need to invest in another winger, whether its Eriksen or not. Defense looks fairly solid, although not really been tested yet. Toure seems to have gelled well with the team considering he's only just come in and Mignolet looks very assured in goal. I think that Mignolet has more of a presence than Reina which should give the defense more confidence with crosses and set plays. Finally there's Suarez, for someone trying to engineer a move he's doing little to justify his price tag of 50m. He looks uninterested and unfit, and considering he has to miss the first 6 games of the season there's no way i'd be paying 50m. I think the only way of him moving on now is if real fail to get Bale, but thats looking pretty likely atm. I would actually be happy to sell for 45m as he's not gonna be half as good this season if he cant be bothered playing for us. Overall we look ok for preseason, I think we have improved the squad from last year but we are still short in some areas and some players really need to make a step up from last season.
In other news I just showed the sunburnt arse to the Arsenal fans on their forum. On that bombshell...Goodnight!!!
I agree with the over-reliance on Coutinho. He is a seriously talented player and it's hard to believe that he's only 20 and that we got him for £8m! On 2-3 occasions, he had his back to the defender but a slight drop of the shoulder and he was past them. So simple and elegant, and we need more players like this who can beat their man and create more space. Perhaps Alberto could add more creativity as well? He looks like a calm and composed player on the ball - Rodgers seems to be playing him a lot deeper than I expected.
Perhaps he sees Alberto's controlled composure to be fitting of an Alonso-type role. You know, what Allen is supposed to be doing.
I'm not sure if Alberto has the strength or range of passing that Alonso possessed. Going by Alberto's career thus far, he's been used in a more attacking role and has said himself that his favourite position is as the false 9. Not saying that Alberto cannot play in a deep role but it's just not what I was expecting. Then again, it is pre-season so it's an opportunity to experiment.
Alberto will compete with allen it seems to me. I think having gerrard alberto and lucas as a three might be more balanced... not sure yet though.... preseason tends to see guys in different roles and often deeper than employed when the real football starts. Last year shelvey on the us tour played deep and looked for better for it but was right back to being up top or just running around headlessly. now he's at swansea....
My concern is that trio doesn't look physically strong or mobile to compete with other strong CM partnerships.
How about Alonso aged 20... Dont compare Alberto to much older and highly experienced player. At least not to precisely.
