Tonto

Arbeloa left back, Riise left mid, Plessis in the Masch role and Yossi in the Gerrard role?

Who would you like in Gerrard's current role if he drops back? I'd like to see how Yossi does in there, with Kuyt staying on the right, but this is probably not the game to experiment in.

Since the first half hour Babel hasn't shown much threat anyway so.....

I think it's a situation where mentality matters most. We needed a change in the wide positions and Kuyt has shown he has the temperament for big games.

Depending on what he said, its under Law 12 'dissent by word or action'. We don't know what Masch said.

Consistently our own worst enemies against this lot.

Great bit of play there ending up with a corner. They're worried about Babel.

Loved that....the Mancs started jeering what they thought was a pass going straight out of play until Torres performs some spectacular control while running at full pace and keeps it in.

We've been playing quite a high line so they'll try that all day.

Just saw Ferguson's response to Rafa: 'It's interesting Rafa Benítez has come out saying I've been talking about protecting Cristiano Ronaldo because we're playing Liverpool,' the Manchester United manager said. 'I've been talking about this for two years. I don't think Rafa can be reading the papers. All he's doing is trying to get the referee on his side. I've never heard him talking about referees so much. He must think we're bloody stupid. And you can quote me on that.' Sounds like Rafa wound him up a bit.....

Well they have just shown 2 of my 3 favourite ever Robbie goals :-)

Don't get why people dislike him so much.

I take it from the other replies it was an iffy decision in our favour?

What happened there? Seemed a certain goal for them and then my eSeason stream goes and then they're playing a replay of a goal for Kewell!

Yes, but in the spirit of the Torres-as-Chuck-Norris thread, is that a good enough reason?

You took him out beforehand??!!

I agree. I was trying to answer a question about why we don't go for the likes of McCarthy and Santa Cruz before they make their move to a big club, by pointing out that we have done, and that it has more often than not ended in disappointment. Certainly there are bargains to be found and an astute manager can have a good ratio of success in this area, but you'll also end up with players who have the requisite tools but fail for Liverpool because of the intangibles involved with hacking it at a top club with massive expectations, competition for places and the need to be able to play in different ways in different games. Recruiting players who have played at a higher level obviously mitigates some of this risk. That's not to say we should only be looking at such players of course.

I should have been clearer and said 'in the Premiership or equivalent league'. The players I mentioned came from France, Holland and Germany.

Try Voronin, Leto, Le Tallec, FSP etc. then. The point is about players unproven in the Premieship.

We took a punt and signed Diouf, Cheyrou, Cisse, Traore, Kuyt from lesser leagues and look how that worked out. When we sign unproven players it's a huge risk, frequently ends in disappointment and people on forums like this complain that we need to be signing proven quality.

Yeah not a bad run and cross for a liability eh?

Setanta commentator just said we recently put in a £12 million bid for Kenwyne Jones

Not so good when you have to change the spelling of the guy's name to make it scan though. ;-)

According to Soccernet and the Real Zaragoza official site he's not scored at all this season and scored 5 in the league last season. The Discussion section on his Wiki page includes a post doubting the source for his goalscoring record.

richt71: Aimar's scored 5 in 42 league games since leaving Valencia.