alias75

Great performance, could have easily scored another 3 or 4 more. Once again though we play some of our best stuff without Carroll im starting to think he shouldn't start too many games at home although away from home he will be a very good outlet. If we could get another quick technical forward to play with Suarez we'd be a hell of a team although Kuyt once again was good he lacks that technical cutting edge. Suarez is so good its silly, as someone else said i just can't imagine him having a bad game at the moment. Henderson's best game by far and hopefully that gives him the confidence boost he needs, Adam was good too and once again got better as the game went on. Even though its been a fantastic transfer window id love it if the owners could find the money for 1 more top quality attacking player because at the moment we're really close.

Think if you get the balance right you can get your right back bombing on and Suarez likes to work the channels too, so you have Gerrard tucked in on the right side with good width on the left from Downing and Enrique.

Henderson probably...

I think its horses for courses, a team like Arsenal struggles with the physicality of someone like Carroll, but to be be honest most PL defenders would probably mark someone like that than a forward with lots of clever movement. When Carroll doesn't play we do seem to play some really good stuff with lots of movement someone like Zach Knight will struggle with that more than someone like Carroll. Lots of emphasis on Henderson though to support them as well as Downing, Henderson in particular really needs to step it up because at the moment he shouldn't be in the team ahead of someone like Maxi who finished really strongly last season.

I thought Carroll did alright, its never easy to play that position away from home up front on your own, but he held the ball up well, linked the play well and did work hard for the team. As others have said Vermaelen was really good. People are always going to judge him based on his transfer fee which is unfair he needs players around him but won more than his fair share of headers today.

Pretty happy with the way we played today, it wasn't spectacular but i thought we controlled most of the game. Was really happy to see both fullbacks much more involved further up the pitch, Enrique is going to a great player for us and Kelly had another good game. Once again Downing was our most influential attacking player (until Suarez came on) id prefer him to play more on the left and combine with Enrique more but at the moment the balance on the right needs improving, i think when Gerrard gets back we'll see Downing primarily on the left as the balance down the right side should be much better. Thought Henderson looked much better centrally, he worked really hard, but he shouldn't be starting games ahead of Meireles at the moment whose just an overall better player. Adam grew into the game but he needs to get fitter and i do wonder if he'll more effective coming on as a sub in the last 30min. Thought Carroll did well too, he held the ball up well, linked the play and worked really hard for the team. Lots of positives and some really promising signs from Downing and Enrique

We need to let our fullbacks off the leash they were clearly under instructions last week because they hardly crossed the halfway line. Im a little worried about the midfield at the moment there are too many new players in there at the same time. Ok start Downing because he gives us something we've been lacking but whatever happened to earning your place in the team?? Meireles and Maxi did very well at the end of last season, im not sure why we had to throw all 3 new midfielders in there at the same time.

Not sure who we'd play on the left if Downing plays on the right.

They still have good attacking options, but the middle of midfield isn't the strongest so we need to dominate there, also the inexperienced left back we have to try to get at him but im not sure how we do that with the players we've selected. Think it'll be the same as usual, they'll dominate possession and we'll have to work hard and try to press at a high tempo.

Hope its more like this.... .........................Reina........................... Kelly........Carra......Agger.........Enrique .......Henderson..Lucas...Adam........... Kuyt.................Carroll.............Downing Think that will help Adam and Henderson.

to be fair to Suarez he's had no rest, it is a worry though that our style of play is very dependent on him being there. Hopefully we're still in the game around the hour mark and we can bring him on.

In hindsight it was a mistake to play Henderson and Flannagan down the right, our left side is looking as good as anyone with 3 great left footers in Adam, Enrique and Downing giving us great balance but there wasn't the same threat down the right. Flannagan probably could have done with a more experienced player in front of him like Kuyt or if you're going to start Henderson we should have picked Kelly who is a bit more experienced and wouldn't need as much looking after as Flannagan did especially after the mistake when his head dropped. Think Henderson looked a bit nervous and he kept things simple but im sure as he gets more comfortable he'll be a good player for us.

definitely some questions about how we're going to line up this season... Downing spent far too much time on the right for my liking and we struggled to get him in the game when we did he looked a threat. If you're wide players are going to play on the wrong side you need your fullbacks to get forward and once again they hardly went over the half way line which must be under instruction which doesn't make sense. Ive had worries about Adam in a midfield 2 since we bought him, so many times for Blackpool i saw people just run straight past him and it happened towards the end of the game today, im worried we're going to be wide open through the middle because defensively he gets caught out too often. Carragher is a big worry if we want to play a high tempo pressing game, you can't defend deep because as we saw today you will run out of steam because the ground you have to cover is too much. I think he has to be replaced and then we can defend 5-10 yards further up the pitch without being worried about the ball over the top, but im not sure Kenny will make that call to replace him. Plenty of positives in the first half and if we can sustain that level over 90 min we'll be alright. By rights we should have been playing 10 men for 80min and if that had happened im sure we would have won, but maybe its a blessing that, that didn't happen and the players didn't get a false idea about where they are. Im really happy with the players we have at the club but i am a little worried about how certain players are going to be used based on that game.

Kelly is our only CB on the bench too so that might be why he hasn't started?? Think we'll see a few changes for the Arsenal game, maybe Meireles, Kuyt, Kelly coming in. Squad is looking pretty good though especially given there's no Europe this season, no reason why we can't really attack all these PL games.

Swap Spearing for Lucas and Kuyt for Suarez and its probably pretty close.

Think the point is this isn't even a 2nd string for the most part.

Obviously going for a much stronger team on Monday but i do kind of agree it seems strange that most of the team that we'd hope will start the 1st game has hardly featured in pre season while several players that should have no future here have. I have no problem giving young players experience with the 1st team in pre-season but players like Insua, Degan, Poulson shouldn't be getting game time if we don't want them here, and even if we can't shift them they're nowhere near playing for the 1st team.

Congrats to Luis, he's been superb all tournament. Great bit if business by the club he's a true world class player and gives our attacking play a different dimension. The scary thing is he has lots he can improve on, he still needs to be a bit more relaxed in front of goal and i do think he needs to be careful the way he reacts to getting fouled especially in the PL. But if he gets that right he's going to win us a bunch of free kicks and with Adam in the team thats going to result in a bunch of chances. Last season he was involved in almost every goal we scored after he signed, he's one of those players like Messi or Tevez that combines great ability with an unbelievable work ethic and will to win. Can't wait to see him play with Gerrard, Downing, Adam next season, and if he can strike up an understanding with Carroll it could be very special.

Looking at how other teams line up in these pre-season games they seem to be much closer to their full strength teams than we ever are. I know its all about fitness but we seem to be given games and fitness to players that will be nowhere near our first team while players who would be in our strongest 11 aren't playing. I realise we have 2 players that were on the Copa Amercia and 2 that are coming back from operations but it is a worry that 4 of our most important players have had zero pre-season. Maybe we have too many players at the club but the same seems to have happened for the last few pre-seasons, hopefully as we work towards the last few friendlies especially the Valencia one we'll see something like our strongest team play for most of the match.

According to Kenny on the official the players trained very hard yesterday so it was the equivalent of playing 2 games in 2 days. It always seems to happen in pre-season that many of your first choice players are behind and so the games usually feature players we don't want or fringe players when we really need our best 14-15 players getting match sharp. I know they are only friendly games but i think we've seen how important Lucas is in terms of protecting the back 4 defensively we've looked pretty open in all the games so far. I really hope we don't go in with Adam and Gerrard in the middle cos we will be vulnerable defensively in my opinion Lucas is one of our most important players. On the plus side Downing will be a good signing and Henderson looked good too, with Suarez back in the team our attacking play will be completely different.

and we don't have players as good as them??

First choice midfield.... ........................Lucas......................... .............Gerrard.....Adam................. Suarez...............................Downing Suarez with plenty of license to drift because we have Kelly and GJ that can get forward well from fullback plus Gerrard that can pull into those wide right positions, But you're correct we do have lots of options in midfield. Maybe Kenny is going to be a revolutionary coach ive had this thought for a while now that teams will start using midfielders differently because of the pace of the game now and with teams employing a pressing game you need lots of energy in midfield, so it wouldn't surprise me if it became standard fair to replace 2 maybe even 3 midfielders after around an hour so teams can keep that high intensity pressing for the whole 90 minutes. We could be at the forefront of the next revolution of the game!!!

very clever from Mr Henry bigging up a few we want shot of!!

hes a centre back, been caught out of position a few times at fullback but hes still very young.

Yeah Robinson is the real deal, should have the left back position nailed down in a year or two. I know its only a friendly but this game shows what quality in those wide positions can do, no offence to Kuyt cos he's not a winger but having someone like Gerrard on the right and Downing on the left would make a huge difference, when you have players like Adam that can hit those big diagonal balls you need players out wide that can make the most of it.