Emerald Red wrote:Raoul wrote:I've nothing against rotation in essence, but I expected the sort of teamsheet we had today, next week instead. I'm not surprised Gerrard was on the bench, I thought Sissoko and Alonso, with Pennant and Babel (I guess away, playing a team with 5 in the midfield, Benayoun instead of Babel was a good shout) on the flanks would do the job for us - but no Gerrard and no Torres was one to many 'no's IMHO.
However, I can't help asking myself:
Reina
Finnan Carra Agger Arbeloa
Pennant Alonso Sissoko Benayoun
Voronin Crouch
Thats not a bad team, is it? Shouldn't they be good enough?
Guess not - perhaps our strength in depth is a little more shallow than we like to think?
And wasn't Pennant anonymous! Perhaps because a lot of our play came from the back straight to Crouch (sometimes with good effect). It seems to me than when Crouch is on the field we lose the ability to pass short, and rely on the long ball far too much.
It's not a bad team at all, no. But the trouble with this team is the lack of ballance. Alonso sits deep and holds. He can't really create much from there, so it's down to Sissoko to run about like a headless maniac, while trying to find a killer ball (rare for him) to the front two (who were inept to say the least). Not only this, Alonso and Sissoko can't realy be relied upon for digging out goals when needed.
As you pointed out correctly, long balls were applied to Crouch, usually via Alonso sitting deep. Our wide men never got in the game, and so the supply to our front men was even more limited. The ballance was all wrong. I'm no manager. I'm not Rafa. But if you watch the match again, this is exactly what you'll see. Too many defensive players, and barely any width at all.
Yes, I think you are right that not as much attacking drive will come from that midfield pairing, but I felt a bigger problem was that we were too direct too often - I've nothing against a good long ball, but if we don't vary our attack...
None of our wide players did all that much today - FB's included. Why? Because we didn't use the flanks anywhere near as much as we could of. When we did pass, we looked dangerous, when we hoofed it...