Personally i see football players in moulds. Basically you have types of players and i think you need to have the right ingredients to win a league and makes certain tactics work. Obviously there are exceptions but i feel you don't always need the best players to acheive success.
The way i see it is to play a flat 4-4-2 you need certain types of players.
For me the best midfield i've ever seen was Manchester Uniteds quartet or Giggs, Keane, Scholes and Beckham. Three world class players, a top class player and the correct mix of players made this the best midfield of at least the last 15 years.
You had a Winger in Ryan Giggs who speciallises in pace, dribbling, close control and creating chances.
A wide midfielder in the shape of Beckham whos game is all about technique, Crossing, passing and work rate.
A box to box ball winner in Roy Keane who had the engine and drive to push the team to its limits.
A creative central midfielder in Scholes who can pass a ball, spot the early through ball, play clever football but also mix it in a physical sense.
For me Liverpool have two of these players. Kewell (in the same mould as Giggs) and Gerrard (similar to Keane). I would put Cheyrou and Murphy in the same mould as Scholes although obviously not of the same quality. In my opinion with the right tactics i think Cheyrou could make that central midfield spot alongside Gerrard his own. I think technically he is superb and in terms of ability he has plenty. He seems to lack alot of confidence though and seems to be in a habbit of trying to hard to impress rather than relaxing into his normal game. I think if he done that the weaknesses in his game would start to iron themselves out. We have Hamann in there at the moment though who is a deep holding midfielder and i don't think the team should play with this kind of player.
In terms of strikers you need a target man and a pacey striker.
The moulds of strikers i would say are a penalty box striker, a pacey striker, a target man and a link man.
Penalty box strikers being Fowler, Shearer, RvN who's main strengths are scoring goals.
Pacey strikers, obviously Owen, Baros, Bellamy, the old Andy Cole.
Target man, Saha, Yorke the Emile Heskey of 2000-2001.
Link man, Bergkamp, Litmanen etc etc.
What united had with Cole and Yorke was a great mix. Yorke was a superb penalty box striker and a very good target man aswell.... he was also a link man... with Cole being the pacey striker. The old Dwight Yorke would have suited this Liverpool side down to the ground and in my opinion he is the sort of player we should be looking for. Thats what i liked about Saha, quite similar, maybe Yorke was a bit more of a poacher and Saha more of a target man but then both had similar strengths in that they are good alround.
The problems arise for Liverpool when we have to pin teams back. We don't have a penalty box striker who gets to the front post and scores poachers goals and headers. We have a target man who stuggles when opponents get physical and we have three pacey strikers, none of which are REAL goal poachers.
Personally defensively i feel Uniteds mix was also very good but i don't think it was as good as the other areas. It was a good defence with the best Goalkeeper ever behind it.
Defensively they had the domminant centre half in Stam. We have that with Hyypia. His partner Johnsen had good pace and was a good alround defender this is something we lack. We could do with a pacey centre half who's good on the ball and who can defend so that Narrows it down to Rio Ferdinand lol. Seriously though we need a player like that to play with Sami i feel. I think at right back they had a good defender who could provide an overlap, i see Finnan being as good as Neville was given time to settle. On the left Irwin, same as Neville but this is the only player imo that didn't fit 100% into the system.
So basically for me Liverpool now lack alot of things.
I personally think with a line-up of
- Code: Select all
Owen ??????
Kewell Cheyrou Gerrard ???? ???
Riise Hyypia ?????? Finnan
Kirkland
We could develope into a side good enough to be where we want it to be but it will take the right players to play in the question marked positions. For now i'd go with Carragher, Murphy and Baros. Which would Mean Hamann would have to play instead of Cheyrou short term as we would not be able to bed players in.
The players i'd pick for those positions are Lee Bowyer on the right (i'd expect the old performances though where he played like he meant it and scored goals), Saha upfront to act as a target man and get on the end of crosses aswell. He'd create goals aswell i would think with his pace and movement. At the back i'd go with Ferdinand. For me that team would then have the correct mix. I think we need to find players as close in style to those mentioned in this list. Obviously it will be really hard finding players of that quality, and the players i mentioned aren't ever going to play for us but players that have similar strengths would be a step forward imo. We need them to be better than the current players in those positions aswell.
Pacey Striker (Owen)
Target Man + Goal-poacher in one (Cisse, would have preffered Saha)
Winger (Kewell)
Box to box ball winner (Gerrard)
Creative player (Cheyrou, if he didn't produce i'd go for someone like David Dunn)
Hard working cultured wide player (Murphy till we find better)
Overlapping left back (Riise)
Commanding Centre half (Hyypia)
Pacey classy centre half (?
?? not Biscan)Overlapping right back (Finnan)
He'll eventually play an attacking player with Stevey i think once we get that quality right sided player.