by PabloAimar » Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:50 pm
no such thing as a strongest XI these days - need a squad with 2 quality options really in every position (except goalie) as benitez was on course for before H&G turned up. its difficult to keep a squad of 21 genuine first team players happy tho - especially when not in the CL.
if kelly's current form is permanent...
reina
kelly carra agger aurelio
meireles lucas
johnson babel
gerrard
torres
...that's my strongest XI - but we'll never see it while dirk kuyt is at the club 'working hard'
cole, maxi and jovanovic on the bench occasionally coming on for gerrard, babel or johnson but i don't believe we have anybody else at the club other than these 14 players who are currently good enough for the liverpool first team squad.
aquilani should never have been allowed to leave and younger players like shelvey, spearing, insua, wilson, ngog, pacheco and suso (yes, right now) could have been slowly blooded in with cup games instead of somehow becoming first team regulars in the league (see ngog this season under roy and insua last season under rafa)
every other senior player not mentioned should be sold and 4 top bracket players bought to replace them in the first team squad this month (aquilani being one of them [i wish!], a young 'top class' striker/winger [who'd be happy at this stage of his career to play second fiddle to torres], a left back and a centre back). i don't believe we should have players aged over 21 on the books who don't start more than 40% of league games (ie. soto - i like him as a 4th choice CB but is he currently that much better than wilson?)
sell kuyt, poulsen, skrtel and roy's son asap.
disclaimer: i have no agenda against any players/manager. i support lfc so i want lfc to be successful and to be successful they have to win games. to win games you need to field good players and not play poor players. i think these 4 are sh1t - nothing personal. i used to think skrtel was a good 'no-nonsense' defender but now i see his limitations. i would like nothing more than for them to prove me wrong but rather than just not contributing anything to the team (which could be excused by some), i think these 4 have shown they're a detriment to our play regularly. i reserve the right to change my opinion on players based on watching them play.
we've only won it 5 times