oh dear, afro is going to be fuming

He shouldn't be. So what, he doesn't have a sexy name like Juan Mata, but he is exactly what we need - a winger who will provide both excellent width and delivery.

Fixed.

I'm really not convinced about the signings so far in the off season. We have spent nearly 50 million pounds on three British players, all midfielders.

Henderson is just a box to box midfielder, hard worker, but nothing special. Adam looks like a good buy, especially due to the low price of transfer fee. Downing is a good crosser of the ball, but he hasn't got any pace.

So now our midfielders are Meireles, Gerrard, Cole, Maxi, Henderson, Spearing, Lucas, Adam, Poulsen, Shelvey and now Downing. 11 midfielders? Why?

And Aquilani....for now.

Edited by Pr1mo: 14/7/2011 03:09:23 PM

True, although judging by his performance in the friendly, I wouldn't be surprised if he does leave. His body language was poor and he looked totally uninterested.

Phillp Degen is back from loan to Stuttgart this season. Caus' i Swiss i want him to stay but he's probably going to the Bundesliga for good. Only got 5 games at Stuttgart last season, so they didn't really give him a chance. Hopefully we do, he's acually a half-decent good right back instead of injury prone Johnson.

seems like you have a bit of bias for Degan....

he has been nothing but very average in a liverpool shirt, cant understand how he would get in front of Johnson & Kelly, then someone like Flanagan would have the wood on him i reckon....

Fabregas, Nasri, Wilshere, Ramsey, Song, Diaby, Rosicky, Denilson, Emmanuel-Thomas
Essien, Ramires, Lampard, Benayoun, Mikel, Zhirkov, Mccheacran (Modric?)

I'm not counting their wingers, just like you shouldnt count Downing and Cole. And Poulsen, cause he's not staying :P

We need depth. We haven't had it for a long time and it's been our downfall for a long time.

I can understand you being a little worried but I think it's unfounded. Henderson is a buy for the future more than now, but I still expect him to play a part this season. Downing is the first real winger we've had since Riera left (and he is much better) - and I don't know where you get the idea he has no pace. Adam is a good option for middle, and like you say a good fee.

-------------Carroll---------
Downing------Suarez------???
---------Gerrard--Lucas-------
???---Agger/Skrtel/Carra/??--GJ

Dunno who will start on the right, could be Meireles, Henderson or Kuyt. Suarez in a free role. Left back depends on who we sign and I'm not sure who we'll play at the back in the middle. Either way, leaves us with perhaps Kuyt, Henderson, Adam, Aquilani, Agger, Kelly as possible options off the bench. Could maybe do with another ST but it's still good options.

Re: Degen - I hope we get rid of him. LOL @ you calling Johnson injury prone when Degen has a horrible past with injuries. No use keeping Degen when you have Kelly, Flanno and Robinson all good young potential kids who will be on a fraction of the wages.

Then why count Emmanuel Thomas who's a winger and Nasri who plays on the wing, and Denilson since he won't be staying.

The funny thing about Downing is people go on and on about how many chances he creates, but he's actually better on the right :lol:

The hell he is, not for the purpose of what we want. We have enough players who cut inside, we want one to hug the line.

I thought JET was a CM :S. Nasri isn't a winger :lol: Maybe in the sense Maxi is, or Henderson.

Nasri may not naturally be a winger, but that's where he plays for us, that's why I wouldn't include him in a list of our midfielders. If he'd played in midfield more often than not it'd be a different story.

He is, he can just play as equally well as a defensive midfielder, a centre back, a right full back, a left full back, a left midfielder, a right midfielder, a right winger, a left winger, an attacking midfielder or a striker :p :lol:

20m for Downing is a fucking joke. What are the board thinking?

Interesting to see that you struggled to name the starting 11, for I do too. The abundance of midfielders (in particular cm) makes it hard. It's good in a way, because the players now have to fight for their spot in the team. Here's my pick

------------------Reina------------------
Kelly-----Agger-------Skrtel-----Johnson
-----------------Lucas--------------------
-------Gerrard-----------Adam------------
Suarez---------------------------Downing
-----------------Carroll--------------------

I think it's time for Carra to warm the bench, he just doesn't have the pace anymore. Lucas has to play, he controls the midfield. DM is where he plays best. Suarez on the wing is a bit different, but his pace and ability to beat players should allow him to adapt to the position. He loves to cut in as well and is a descent crosser of the ball

Given that Insua is staying, I think he'll be in first team plans, possibly in preference to Johnson now that Downing is arriving (#-o).

I think Lucas will be dropped in preference to a Gerrard-Meireles-Adam midfield. I'm still trying to figure out where Henderson fits into the mix. We still need another defender as well, but we've got depth in boat loads now.

There's no way Lucas will be dropped, he was our star man last season. He holds the midfield together, without him last season we would have really struggled. He made 125 tackles last season, more than anyone else in the premier league.

I think you underestimate the impact that Meireles had in bringing out the best in Lucas tbh.

I am big fan of Meireles, he's a great attacking player. However, he offers the team nothing in defense. He is very weak and can't tackle. He gets pushed of the ball way too easily. And with Gerrard and Adam getting forward any chance they can, Lucas will need to play in order to balance it out and help the defence.

I think Adam will be used defensively as a deep lying playmaker.

Poulsen's agent has asid that his client has no intention of leaving Liverpool and will be seeing out his contract at Liverpool. Read: He's getting paid way too much to want to think about leaving.

Not a chance in high hell that Lucas will be dropped. He'll be one of the first names on the team sheet, and rightly so. If he goes into a bad spell of form we'll bring somebody else in. Gerrard-Meireles-Adam doesn't provide any sort of cover in the midfield and is too risky for most games.

And Insua wont be our starting LB, highly doubt it. Give it a month or so tops and we'll have signed Enrique or Cissokho.



Agreed on the lineup, and that wouldn't surprised me at all for some games. Suarez needs to be given a free role, and with Gerrard in the midfield he can move across to cover when Luis drifts centrally or to the left.

Hyypia was slow too but he was still one of our best defenders in recent history - Carra was great at the back end of last season and he deserves to keep his place, just like Skrtel. If one of them drops out of form then bring in Kelly or Agger or Wilson.


Read Copenhagen were gonna bid for Poulsen - hope so.

Re: Meireles - I'm sick of this notion that he can't tackle. I've watched him many times for Portugal and he played the enforcer type role in the middle perfectly. He ducked out of ONE tackle v Rafael v the mancs and everyone started getting on his back. He's certainly not a DM and no replacement for Lucas, but he can tackle. And I don't think he had much to do with getting the best out of Lucas. The fact that Gerrard was out had an impact because Lucas became the man that we looked to in the middle.

Meireles' reputation suffered further because of his ankle injury forcing him to be ginger in tackles too.

There's a reason Insua flew out to meet the players in Malaysia, that's all I'm saying. And I think that with Downing arriving he's the kind of LB we wnat, one who can play the overlap and defend solidly. One who reads the play really well.

While Lucas was good, I think that was largely from Meireles holding the team up, he made the whole team look good last season. I'm not convinced that he can maintain his form, or whether it was just a temporary impressive run.

The other problem that we have here is that we have too many attacking midfielders and not enough players who are defensively capable.

Yes, he may have played that role at international level, but the premier league is a different story. Much more physical. And yes, he's not a defensive mid, he's a centre mid, but there's no way he will get picked over Gerrard and Adam in that role

Yeah, I'm not saying he'll be picked over Gerrard.

Different player to Adam, much different. Adam will play more of a Xabi role, sitting in the middle of the park and spraying balls around, while Meireles is extremely dynamic and mobile. He'll be more likely to be a part of the 3 that sit behind Carroll in the formation i posted as opposed to the two CMs, which will be Gerrard/Lucas/Adam/Aqua.

So your saying Lucas and Adam will be the two holding midfielders. That makes sense. But how will Raul get ahead of gerrard, Suarez and downing in the attacking roles?

He probably wont - but that's why they invented a bench :P He'd be a fantastic player to come on with his mobility and attacking threat if we need something after the hour.

And I think it's more likely Gerrard will sit with Lucas or Adam, dependent on form/injuries/fatigue. But again, there's many different options

I agree, he's a great player to have on the bench. The squad has much more depth now, although I would like a descent backup striker, so we don't have to play that knob ngog

When you consider that Kuyt might not always be a starter he's a quality back up striker - but I would like us to sign some up and coming lad with a bit of pace and creativity to inject into games.

But then this all raises the question of where Henderson fits into the picture.