Mike S

yeah. if rafa were talking about bellamy (for example) vs kuyt, voronin or crouch then I could see his point as bellamy needed space behind defences to run into. But for torres it's hard to understand becuase he looks as capable of creating chances against a packed defence as he does against a high defensive line.

he can't cross on the basis of last night's performance. What were those outside of the right boot things all about? The most impressive thing for me was when he got back to cut out the chance for Kuyt.

yep. and gerrard generally on the right with alonso+1 in the middle.

I think he made a mistake not picking torres but can't really complain with the other selections. He couldn't hve anticipated that crouch (in particular), benayoun and pennant would be so ineffective. I thought voronin, alonso and sissoko played ok.

all teams drop points at home over the course of the season. I think our home record last season was as good as anyone's

mascherano kuyt arbeloa

Noticed that he'd been standing outside his 6 yard box for any shots beyond 20 yards out in recent games. I think it's because he can't dive so he tries to cut down the angles. Any decent curled shot or even a lob would beat him

Rubbish. He's one of the most consistent players in the squad. I think he's the one player in our midfield who you can rely on to give a steady (at least) performance in run-of-the-mill league games. I think he got 4 last season, with one penalty. How many did gilberto and makalele get? He's had some very good games, particularly against strong opposition (1st leg of CL semi apart) but hasn't really shown much in the league yet. Had a terrible game at home to charlton end of last season. Too hard to tell yet whether he'll be a consistent performer.

this applies to all players. even under pressure he is still our most effective distributor of the ball. However the point is that there's a lot more to Xabi's game than the passing. I still find it amazing how people ignore all the defensive and ball-winning work he does.

alonso

Gerrard Torres Arbeloa

who said he isn't?

just scored vs doncaster

not really. I think there's a quote from Rafa or Pako about how in the 5min after a team concedes they lose their shape and we try to exploit that. we made a couple of good chances just after we scored on saturday

I think he'll start vs chelsea. They couldn't handle him and Kuyt earlier this year at anfield.

I think comparing those two is fair. I don't think the criticism is though, I didn't see Xabi giving their midfield much space at all

This is a really lazy comparison and shows how stupid everton fans are. They're different types of players - arteta would be a pathetic holding midfielder. Alonso would probably stuggle out wide. I find it weird how Alonso's defensive/ball winning contributions are ignored just because he's a great passer. Even when his passing was off last season he still won his one on one battles pretty much every time he stepped on the pitch even against the top teams and the likes of scholes, fabregas, lampard, seedorf

agree with this. bolton at the reebok were the same - setting up as if they were playing at anfield, sitting deep and letting us have all the ball. Possibly if we'd played as if we were at anfield too, being more willing to take risks by pushing fullbacks forward and not having the second striker drop so deep we would have kept possession less well but created more chances

I think most transfers, and pretty much all the big money ones involve staggered payments and are incentive based

don't remember him being anything special in the world cup, only started one game from memory (the one they lost). mascherano was excellent though.

I agree, the only reason we would go for Tevez is if the Torres deal fell through. Winger(s) will be next on the list

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mascherano pennant alonso

Not true at all. Mascherano and alonso are very similar players. They both read the game and break up opposition attacks well. Mascherano is quicker than alonso, while alonso reads the game better going forward (the passing it sideways thing is complete b******s by the way). yeah.. Most of this season alonso and gerrard have been the favoured midfield pairing so I don't know what you mean there. In fact alonso is the only one of our midfielders who has shown the ability to play alongside any of the other three - with sissoko last season, with gerrard through the middle of this season and with mascherano in the big games this season. On the other hand Mascherano and Sissoko together, the couple of times Rafa's tried it has looked pretty horrific. I agree with Fred Milne that our central midfield for most league games should be alonso + gerrard. With mascherano + gerrard or alonso + mascherano a viable option if one needs a rest. I don't know where this leaves Sissoko, even if he rediscovers his form. I also think that talk of a form slump this season is overstated. Terrible at the start of the season and inconsistent since about March but through the middle of the season I thought he was our best player. And talk of him being disinterested is wayyy wide of the mark. At times early this season when we were losing away, even when he was struggling to find form, he was just about the only one who kept his chin up and kept trying.