by aCe' » Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:50 pm
im not saying 4-4-2 would be the answer to our problems or anything but with Torres out Rafa should have surely realized that playing 2 men upfront would be better suited against the so-called smaller sides..
Playing the 4-5-1 we never look dangerous going forward as a team..our only danger (and lets be realistic about this for a change) is Torres and his pace and ability on the ball.. hes a great player and while he's been brilliant playing alone upfront i think its a little too much to expect for the lad...
Rafa brought in Keane, and quite honestly i wish he didnt.. While i'd agree that with Crouch bound to leave and voronin and Kuyt being the limited players they are we needed another striker upfront.. it was always clear that Keane at 20mill was overpriced and would most probably not live up to his price tag... hes dissapointed so far but Rafa has surely paved the way for him to do so..
The atletico game, and before that the Tottenham game were both examples of bad tactics and management by Benitez that cost us points... very similar to the previous seasons where Benitez had effectively strangled any chance of us playing any sort of attractive or even attacking football by setting up the team the way he did...
Number 9 and GYBS you both obviously know fck all about football so basically ill say the next part simple and clear so both of you can understand it with little trouble..hopefully
against Chelsea and Manutd, we werent expected to play attacking football and both games were aways likely to have very few goals in them... the 3 goals we scored were LUCKY and while we clearly outplayed both sides in the respective games, it wasnt because of our attacking football or great play upfront, it was because we setup better than they did in both games and all credit to the manager and players for a job well done in the day...
Against Tottenham we let a lead slip and we did so in embarrasing fashion.. we took off Keane when we shouldnt have and it clearly backfired because soon thereafter Tottnham dominated the game and we did very little to resist an inevitable failure in the day...
Same story against Atletico.. Never looked likely to come up with something going forward, and as soon as we were 1-0 down it was fairly clear to most that unless changes were made, we wouldnt be coming out of that fixture with anything... Indeed Rafa did make some changes but they were -YET AGAIN- to the detriment of the team, and even the players (Keane).. you go on about missed chances from setpieces and a shot from the edge of the area that was closed down by the defender standing infront of the player about to shoot ?! thats bullsht ! we were poor going forward and the only positive we got from that game was the point we eventually came out with because of an undeserved penalty.. the whole world knows we didnt desere anything..you might aswell accept it !
back to the 4-4-2 issue im not saying that 4-4-2 is the answer but atleast it offers us more options to pick out going forward... with Mascherano and Alonso playing in that 4-5-1 that leaves us with very little options going forward besides an out of position gerrard, an out of poistion kuyt and Riera and Torres..
When the whole thing was brought up it was a response to the Keane alone upfront issue and many have go on to say that he isnt the player to be played alone upfront and i totally agree with that... neither is kuyt, same with Babel and same with N'gog... Why did we still play 1 upfront when we were trailing to Tottenham, same with Atletico ?!
Should have gone for a 4-4-2 with Keane and Kuyt upfront and 2 proper wingers with Gerrard and Alonso in the middle because let's face it... Anything else with Torres out of the side was always going to be a little too conervative and negative against most sides..
Would you like to explain exactly what he did wrong, he went for the ball got to it first and then there was contact and he went down, does that just about sum it up ?
by 