Liverpool FC Forum

by **Toffeehater** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:12 am

JoeTerp wrote:I am sure that Mascherano, as Argentina's captain, is under some tremendous pressure. Lets not forget that he was used to playing with Alonso and has to adjust as well, he didn't start that great last season and I can't remember about the season before. Mascherano is someone who is going to shine in the bigger games. Lets see how his partnership with AQUILANI forms before we make any judgments on if we should have sold him this summer.

He started off poorly for west ham as well thus alan pardew didn't give him much further chances .

by **Greavesie** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:00 am

All I say for now is if I could choose now whether to sell Masch to Barca or Alonso to Real, Masch would have been my choice to go. But anyways I'm off to bed now. Will expand more when I get up

by **Owzat** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:14 am

Sabre wrote:It's been awkward enough to have lost Alonso, we don't need to reconfigure the part of the pitch that IMHO has been the strongest one at Liverpool Football club.

I think we have already "reconfigured the part of the pitch" when we sold Alonso. Alonso was a principle reason the system worked, now it's devoid of creativity.

I have said before that I think Mascherano is too limited in what he does and we need to be more attack minded than defence minded, having a DM is nice if there is enough attacking and creativity in the rest of the side, but I think our centre looks rather too weak and that's why we're (talking of) taking Gerrard out of arguably his best role and dropping him back.

I think we should have sold while his price was at a premium, as I've said before do we REALLY need a DM against teams like Hull, Stoke, Wigan, Wolves, Burnley, Brum, Fulham, Bolton etc at home OR away? We should be looking to win those games home and away, play attacking football and our defence and a more all-round CM should be able to deal with their threat. We've leaked a few goals with him in the side for ages, set pieces is our weakness and Mascherano isn't going to stop that. For the money we could have got for him, we might have managed to get a more complete CM or more attacking one at least. Between Alonso and Mascherano I'd take Alonso, I'm not sure we'd miss Mascherano any more than we did last night most of the time.

With him in the side we leak 0.85 goals per game, without him in the side we leak 0.81 goals per game. Some games we'll pick up a clean sheet with him in the side without him having done much defensive work at all, same goes for without him but if there isn't that much threat from the opposition then why play him?

I think we need to rethink the centre of midfield, what worked with a trio of Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano may not work so well with someone else in for Alonso. We can either try to make it work, or quickly accept it won't and rethink the strategy.

by **RedBlood** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:53 am

bigmick wrote:
fivecups wrote:

Bit early in the season for a public flogging Mick!

Even looks a bit like em as well mate

That probally why he choose the picture mate :suspect:

Its not about his ability for me hes the best defensive midfielder in the world & will be for another 5 years atleast

Its the fact he would rather play for another club that has got me. Its all the little comments he was coming out with in the summer basically spunking over Barca & saying he would love to join them (reading between the lines)

by **redbeergoggles** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:02 am

I think once Mascherano hears the crowd getting behind him ,it will inspire him to raise his level of application ,I also think Mascherano's football is predominantly built on his passion for the game ,and I will reserve judgement until he can be paired with a more inventive partner .

by **Reg** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:05 am

JoeTerp wrote:I am sure that Mascherano, as Argentina's captain, is under some tremendous pressure. .

I see that Maradona has booked himself into 'another' clinic for compulsive eating and stress related problems such are the pressures of Argentina's current poor world cup qualifiying form. I'm sure at least 50% of that rubs off on Masher.

by **Ola Mr Benitez** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:26 pm

My concern is it looks to me like he is a bit pi$$ed at not being allowed to leave. Let not forget the reason why he wanted to go.. his family. His wife and kids (??) do not live in England because they cant settle.. I think most blokes would want to keep their family together, so for Benitez to block that must have really hurt him. (and probably angered him)

I think Mascha is a top player but if he is not happy off the pitch it is unlikely he is going to provide us with too many MOM performances on it. I reckon this is his last season as a red

by **JC_81** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:56 pm

We simply couldn't sell both Mascherano and Alonso in the same transfer window, bottom line. Alonso was definitely going and he was the one we'd get the bigger fee for in a summer where we needed to raise some cash. I reckon Mascherano will leave next summer, it must be difficult enough for the lad with the family situation and I'm sure Benitez and him have come to some sort of agreement about him staying on for one season and then letting him go if a good offer comes in. People can change their minds of course and if Mascherano has a good season and we win trophies he might end up staying, you never know.

Mascherano's criticism is OTT this season. Yes he's been below form, but the games he's played have been alongside Lucas. I'm sorry but Lucas isn't good enough and never will be. I hear things about Lucas being asked to do things he can't do when playing alongside Mascherano. For me it's the other way around. Lucas was bought as a box-to-box midfielder - that's what he was in Brazil anyway. We have found out he can do fu.ck all apart from occasionally break up play and give away fouls. It is Mascherano who has to take more responsibility in distributing the ball and driving forward when they play together, and that's clearly not his game. Lucas has had a few games alongside Gerrard now which has made him look half decent again, fu.ck sake I'd probably look half decent playing alongside Gerrard in that team, you've got the best attacking midfielder in the world there.

On top of losing his CM partner in the summer, his young family buggering off because they can't hack England, Rafa telling him he can't leave and being stuck with fu.cking Lucas, he also has the ridiculous situation with the national team. Maradonna is clueless, the team is losing and Mascherano as captain is shouldering some of the responsibility for that. I think he's allowed a dip in form for all that.

Wait until the big games come around. Despite having lost 2 league games we still haven't played any big teams yet and that's when Mascherano will come into his own, he always does. He also always starts the season fairly slowly, so I'm not overly concerned yet.

So, do I think we should have sold him in the summer? No way. Will he be back to his best soon? I think so. Will he be off next summer? Probably.

Another telling development in why I think he'll be off next summer is his contract situation. Apparently he's on 30k per week. A sh.it load of money, but not for an International footballer these days. That makes him one of the lowest paid in the 1st team squad. In a summer where nearly all of our players have signed contract extensions, Mascherano hasn't been offered one. That says to me that Benitez knows he's not here for the long haul, what's the point in paying him double that if he's going to leave next summer anyway?

by **Reg** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:42 pm

Ola Mr Benitez wrote:My concern is it looks to me like he is a bit pi$$ed at not being allowed to leave.

I dont think thats the issue, people get over disappointment when they earn a bucketload of cash and get on with the job. There must be a different reason.

by **DrPepe** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:24 pm

Reg wrote:
Ola Mr Benitez wrote:My concern is it looks to me like he is a bit pi$$ed at not being allowed to leave.

I dont think thats the issue, people get over disappointment when they earn a bucketload of cash and get on with the job. There must be a different reason.

posted above is that his close family don't live in this country.

is this even true?

if so , it's probably a good enough reason for him to want outta here

by **HacksawJimDuggin** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:47 pm

bigmick wrote:I agree it's "nonsensical" to consider selling Mash Jim, not least because the transfer window isn't open. That's one of the reasons why I aren't considering selling him.

Thanks for pointing that out mick :idea

by **Tim LFC** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:21 pm

I think if Aquilani has a great start and becomes a top player for us sell Masch in January then we can bring in someone like VDV or someone english? Who know's but if Masch doesn't want to stay let him go and bring someone else in. Maybe with our bigger transfer kitty we could bring in Silva and someone like VDV! That would shut all the up saying we lack quality. And of course bring another forward in!

by **Penguins** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:55 pm

He we go on a dreamtrip again..

Like Masch will be sold in January? CL tied player for 30 million?
Not happening ever.

And even if we sold masch next summer for 25-30 million we couldn't just spend all that on Silva cause then there would be no more money left.

Time to come down from cloud no. 9 and realize we are skint and have another refinacing to look forward to next summer...

by **bigmick** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 1:50 pm

Penguins wrote:He we go on a dreamtrip again..

Like Masch will be sold in January? CL tied player for 30 million?
Not happening ever.

And even if we sold masch next summer for 25-30 million we couldn't just spend all that on Silva cause then there would be no more money left.

Time to come down from cloud no. 9 and realize we are skint and have another refinacing to look forward to next summer...

Well we still managed to spend plenty of money this Summer didn't we

by **DrPepe** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:12 pm

bigmick wrote:
Penguins wrote:He we go on a dreamtrip again..

Like Masch will be sold in January? CL tied player for 30 million?
Not happening ever.

And even if we sold masch next summer for 25-30 million we couldn't just spend all that on Silva cause then there would be no more money left.

Time to come down from cloud no. 9 and realize we are skint and have another refinacing to look forward to next summer...

Well we still managed to spend plenty of money this Summer didn't we

we only spent squillions this summer cos we "earned" squillions in sales this summer.

I think penguins is saying that we won't maximise our revenue from Mascherano if we sell in the January window, so it would be pointless... (and because we have nothing in the bank to supplement any mascher revenue, so that we could buy someone decent)

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Javier masherano, i know it's early.... - But shoud we have flogged him?

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