by bigmick » Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:11 am
Yeah I agree with those who say we need to approach the game bang on the front foot. None of this seeing how it goes for the first twenty minutes and feeling our way into it, we should be ripping into them from the off. We need to impose ourselves on them from the first whistle, with or without Gerrard. If it's still 0-0 after ten minutes you want the Sunderland players thinking "feck me we'll never hold out for another eighty against this lot".
Selection wise, it's a classic banana skin waiting to happen. It's the first time this season Rafa has had a good excuse for fecking about with the team and I really hope he resists the temptation. If Gerrard isn't going to play (and he probably shouldn't) then that's a big enough change for any team to cope with. I'd play Sissoko for his combative qualities in his place, and I'd find a start for Crouch for one of the two toher strikers. That's it. No Lee Peltiers, Benayouns making his debut, Gabriel Palletta's, Ryan Babbel at right back or other silliness. We desperately need to win this.
This is probably the most important game of the season so far. Win here, and we've made a pretty good start spoiled only by some Chaplinesque refereeing. We'll be well placed in comparison to Man Utd who have another tricky fixture at the weekend, and Chelsea who are our main rivals. Draw, and it's turned into only an average start, all the hard work of the first two games thrown away. Losing is beyond comprehension, it would be a mortal blow in my opinion if we lost here.
Please please please don't feck about with the team too much. My hunch is though that as I've said, the "all the names in a hat" selection policy is a thing of the past. After correctly predicting an unchanged line-up last time, I'm going for two changes, Gerrard for Sissoko and Crouch for Torres.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".