BoyBrumby said:
I'm no fan of Liverpool, God knows, but the Premiership badly needs to have something approaching a serious title race this year. I personally don't see one of the four best teams in the country being all but out of the race after only 9 games as a positive.
That said Liverpool looked very ordinary today, came looking to not get beaten & clearly lacked a plan B when they went behind.
As an Everton fan, I'm full of bias, but I can't help thinking that Benitez is living in ****oo land this season.
Gerrard is indisputably one of the best centre midfielders in the world at the moment, yet he remains stuck out on the right hand side. Benitez seems to think that his versatility (brought about because he is so strong in many different disciplines) means that he can play him out of position (i.e. wide right) to accomodate quite frankly poorer players down the centre of the park. Alonso looks well out of touch at the moment and offers little that Sissoko or Gerrard doesn't. Don't get me wrong - Alonso is a world-class passer of the ball - but surely he isn't good enough to play ahead of Gerrard. You build your side around your best players, not use their quality and adaptability as an excuse to play them elsewhere.
I feel going in with one up front was also a poor move. What sort of impression does that give the opposition. Kuyt is no proven goalscorer as yet either, and I don't think Crouch is really a classic targetman who can play alone.
If Liverpool are to become a world-class side, which they undoubtedly can, they also need to buck a trend that stretches back to the Houllier days in making poor signings. Rather than supplement their core players with some real quality, they instead bought Pennant (who wouldn't make several other Premiership sides' starting elevens), Fabio Aurelio, Gonzalez, Bellamy and Kuyt. Of them, IMO only Gonzalez and Kuyt are anywhere near top quality - Aurelio, Pennant and Bellamy are simply run of the mill. As much as I dislike the two, Wenger and Ferguson (the former in particular) have both made assured, thoughtful buys throughout their career with relatively few slip-ups. Benitez (although he is better than Houllier) appears to be buying two or three duff players for every successful buy.