Think Hodgson is stuck between a rock & hard place at the moment especially playing away from home. He went for it against Man City playing Ngog & Torres up front (trying a bit to shed the Benitez negative image) and Liverpool got battered. He then went back to the old tried and trusted 2 holding midfilders today and they barely created a chance. (Reckon it will definately be 2 holding midfieders next week at Old Trafford.) Doesn't help that Torres obviously still isn't fully fit also.
His cross for Chamkah's goal was better imo. Had far less time and space but delivered it at a perfect height and speed. The guy is seriously still improving. He looks faster and stronger now that he's getting a few games under his belt too. Barca are going to have an incredible incredible footballer turning out for them over the next few years.
Don't understand why Gerrard still takes corners, Jovanovic showed in preseason hes very capable and had a much better delivery from them.
Yep.
Yes, this. Hodgson come into a difficult situation but he's tried to change too many things too early and some of them pretty illogically. He's contradicting himself in the press also which is getting Liverpool fans upset; as the consensus is becoming that he talks a little too much. First he said Poulsen wasn't brought in to replace Mascherano, then he says he was. First he says Aquilani looks good in training and that he can't wait to play him...then he shifts him of to Juve. The fact that he says Aquilani won't get much time yet is constantly playing Poulsen - an inferior player - is grating too. He said the same thing about Insua and he's gone. His going for Konchesky at the cost of giving up Insua and Lauri Dalle Valle has also pissed off people. He's replacing potential future stars for short-term stability with players that frankly shouldn't be wearing a Liverpool shirt. He says he bought Brad Jones to fill in the home-grown quota when we already had Gulacsi.
That kind of point is so silly it's untrue. If anything, Rafa was overly protective of him and even got hell for that. Remember the game when Rafa took Torres off, he shook his head and didn't know why, Gerrard shook his head in disappointment...and the press had a field day saying he wasn't playing Torres properly? Now he played him too much? That didn't happen. In fact, Rafa was probably notorious for being a bit too overcautious - another case in point is Aquilani. However, most of the time, Rafa was proven right. Torres came off, had an ice-pack on, played 60 minutes against Benfica then needed surgery; not playing until the WC IIRC.
Yeah, but the keeper's part of the team too. That explanation could have been used to explain a lottt of Arsenal's fixtures that season. It's not inherently better to have a midfield that dominates and a keeper that lets you down than it is to have a keeper that dominates and a midfield that lets the team down. The result is the same.
Torres was repeatedly picked when he was injured and he needed surgery. It happened throughout the season. Surgery would get delayed and delayed to get one more game out of him, then one more last game. It ****ed up him for the medium term as we all saw in the World Cup and now it's carried on this season for Liverpool.
But IMO, his version of carrying Liverpool (late goals, long range strikes etc.) is a bit too hit and miss and I've had this argument with Ikki before. I'd rather a midfield player enable the whole team to lift their level and I haven't seen Gerrard do that enough even at his peak.
