fred milne

Me too.

I have a season ticket in the Upper Centenary and go to all league games/most Cup games at Anfield.

Does anyone have a link that shows the goals we conceded?

To be honest, if anyone is out of form and in need of a rest its Stevie. I'm glad Pennant did well last night. I don't think too many have questioned his ability, just his temperament.

A poster on TLW has gone to the trouble of analysing the goals: I think Chelsea away should read Chelsea at home.

I think that's right - at least during the two runs we went on.

Absolutely.

Even for the tougher away matches? I like that idea. It works as an orthodox 4-4-2 (Gerrard RM, Gonzalez LM) and can morph into a 4-3-3 if we are struggling to get Gerrard involved in the game.

That's a good point about the stamina you need for the wing-back role but otherwise Aurelio seems better suited to that position than any other I can think of for him. At full-back, he has played in some decent balls on the overlap but his defending makes Riise look like Baresi in comparison. When he plays at left-mid, he looks a bit lost to me. Carra probably could do with a rest but we also need a settled defence and his organisation skills if we are ever going to tighten up at the back again. I've not really seen anything of Anderson to be honest.

There's nowt defensive about Aurelio!

Based on the current squad, I had Finnan and Aurelio in mind for the wing-backs. Someone like Alves would probably be a more natural fit for the right-hand side role than Finnan, though.

I'd go along with that. You can make a comparison with someone like Scholes, who is a great judge of when to hit the box.

I wasn't suggesting having Gerrard out wide - he'd play through the middle ahead of Momo and Xabi.

Agree with that - particularly the use of Crouch away from home. The other thing I've noticed is that we don't seem to be catching other teams offside as much this season. Last season, we had the offside trap down to a fine art. I got the impression that after the first 10 minutes on Sunday we defended quite deep. If that's the case then that's only going to contribute to the strikers getting isolated.

I don't buy that.

In an ideal world, I'd play Alonso and Gerrard in centre-mid. However, to do that I think you need to have wide midfielders who can help Alonso out defensively when Gerrard goes forward (i.e. modern day equivalents of Case/Kennedy or Lee/Whelan) and/or more pace in the back line. The compromise based on the players we currently have is to play 4-4-2 with Gerrard starting from the right and Sissoko given a purely destructive role. That works for most games but against better teams Alonso and Sissoko struggle to get Gerrard involved enough. Perhaps when this happens one idea might be to switch to 3-5-2, which we've used quite successfully at times (away to Juve, in Istanbul, away to Newcastle) and which would enable Gerrard to play through the middle without leaving the centre-backs exposed. As a rule, I'm not a fan of 3-5-2 or switching between formations but we have try something - our Premiership away record against the better sides under Rafa is nothing short of woeful: - 3 games at Bolton, 2 defeats and 1 draw - 3 games at Utd, 3 defeats - 3 games at Chelsea, 3 defeats - 2 games at Arsenal, 2 defeats I guess the alternative is to try 4-3-3 with Gerrard as one of the midfield three but, in contrast to Chelsea, I'm not sure we have wingers with sufficient goal threat to make this work.

I've always thought the same way.

That's a daft statement from Hansen, unless he doesn't count Arsenal as a top club.

He only says nice things about us when he knows we are not a threat.

Except when you are playing a top side and are a few goals down....

I think 3-5-2 suits the players we have better. With 4-5-1 you need the wide midfielders to be be genuine goalthreats. Gonzalez might turn out to be one but Pennant looks about as likely as Henchoz ever did to score.

If we are going to play with 2 centre-mids who don't go anywhere near the opposition box then we need much more from the wide-midfielders AND the full-backs. Alternatively, we go for 3-5-2 and play Gerrard behind the two strikers. (You know things are getting desparate when 3-5-2 rears its head!)

If we are counting all five trophies then two of the them were in 2001-2 season but I take your point. Let's say I think we were a better side in the season after Bergues left, which was evidenced by our points tally and league placing.

That's open to debate.

We did no better in these kind of games when Herrera was about. IIRC Bergues left in the summer of 2001 - i.e. before we went on to have our best season in the league under GH.