yellow jumper

xanthi?

kewell's a far more intelligent footballer than the vast majority of style over substance wingers. the issue is his fitness. since when did stepovers become a more important facet of attacking football than movement of the ball and players?

according to the supplement in the guardian today we scored the second largest percentage of our goals from set pieces last season along with arsenal and spurs, chelsea inevitably top. surprised me.

babel looks like he's got a cannon in his right boot. so should be even more possibilities on that front. keepers always seem to pull off a fantastic save when alonso shoots. seen that corner where pennant hits alonso on the edge of the box a few times. xabi usually hits the target, keeper invariably pulls of a blinder.

top quality talent, but you still get the sense they might lose a few battles on the road. i remember everton absolutely battering that midfield pairing last season, wasn't pretty, but they won the game. there's a huge onus on van persie to take on henry's mantle. and while he has the talent i wonder about his personality. seems very quick to lose the plot.

agree that there is a clear pattern that our games away from home seem to follow. thought we looked sharp and dangerous during the first twenty, but lost that incisiveness as it progressed, and became impatient with too many long balls from the back towards the end of the half. despite our domination a silly mistake cost us a goal. ordinarily we'd have lost that game. but at least benitez had better options to change it and went with a more progrssive shape in the last half an hour to find an equaliser. it was telling that when gerrard got more license to go forward we looked a better attacking outfit, but feyenoord also looked more dangerous breaking. we seemed to be playing a 4-1-3-2 at that point, but i wonder if we might see a flexible 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation at times, as it allows gerrard to attack from the middle but also offers defensive cover, width when needed and hopefully more goal threat. i thought that was alonso's worse performance of pre-season, babel's best, and was also a reminder of what a quality keeper reina is becoming. our defence for me is still a concern, with at least two of our back four looking capable of a howler that could cost us a game. the way most teams defend against us even at home, and feyenoord did it last night to some extent (thought that vlaar looked a great prospect) it's always going to be a real challenge to break down. unless we begin to move the ball quicker against this type of defence i can't see us creating many more clear cut chances. you could have the best wingers in the world on your flanks, but if you move the ball that ponderously across the pitch they aren't going to get the genuine space they need. the fact that we like to defend so high up the pitch doesn't help in that regard. we either need to play at a higher tempo, with short quick passes and lots of movement, and commit more men forward, as we do at anfield. or defend deeper, suck the opposition on, and play more counter-attack so we can get space for the likes of pennant, babel, and torres to operate. i don't think those are weight belts, by the way, just devices that measure distances run, heart rates and all that s****. may be wrong though.

think just as important as set piece delivery is getting someone to attack the ball like drogba, terry or vidic when it comes into the box.

chelsea and united have five or more years of signing £20 + million talent on us. several of those signings have made the difference to them, but just as many have failed. they can afford to take the financial blow of splashing out on a dud. we're only now in that position. there's a long list of players who may or may not improve us for that kind of money. with quaresma, mancini or alves we might be better right now. it's not impossible that we'd be no better off, or even worse. i expect a challenge this season, but don't think it's possible to bridge that gap in just one summer. more relistically i see a concerted improvement this year, and another 40 million summer next time around to put us in with an even better chance.

appears he's going to newcastle. a good signing.

we're being linked with argentine "wonder kid" franco di santo in the mirror. along with chelsea, united, arsenal and a few others.

we don't have giggs and ronaldo, but then who does? arsenal won the league with a right-footer on the left and ljungberg on the right. pennant's a natural winger, albeit one who lacks goals. kewell offers genuine quality and know how when fit. babel is obviously player comfortable out wide. torres regularly runs channels and has played on the left for atletico. gerrard crosses as well as anyone in the english game and offers a direct running threat too. which wingers would you have us sign?

think that's a pretty divisive way of looking at things. who's celebrating? there are those who recognise a club record signing, two exciting U-21 internationals, and a couple of experienced international squad players as a decent summer as it stands. don't think anyone's shouting our title credentials from the rooftops. in all likelihood work will still need to be done, whether this summer or next. building a team's an organic process too. and something those intent on just impatiently naming names don't seem to see.

any of our rivals would have looked stronger for signing torres. babel and lucas are in the same envelope as anderson and nani, and a host of other unproven young foreigners. ridiculous to make judgments before a ball's been kicked in anger. who's summer signings would people take before ours?

think his heart was always set on teaming up with ronaldo, kaka, cafu, dida and whoever else makes up the brazilian colony there these days. plus leonardo was probably involved in talks, and as we all know he's one silky f*****.

not sure how you compare a relatively young spanish manager with three years experience in britain with a seventy year old scot who's never managed anywhere else. but still. think it's easy for journalists to talk benitez down in comparison to mourinho. he's less demonstrative and less giving from a press point of view for starters. his record in the league doesn't compare favourbaly either. think there are reasons for that which go beyond his control, such as starting points, finances and quality of players, but from another point of view it is just as easy to point at the things he does differently from everyone else; the rotation, the holding midfielders, the occasionally slow, continental style of play, the preference for hold-up strikers rather than sheer pace. in that sense, and of all the foreign managers he's the one who seems to stand the most resolutely apart from the british game. think he'll continued to be under-estimated and talked down until he challenges for the title in this country. and while it's a pretty parochial viewpoint given his achievements elsewhere that's the way it's bound to be.

don't think we get enough numbers in the box to attack crosses, particularly when it's one of our major offensive strategies. kewell's return to fitness might help this as he's good in the air. gerrard should get more with his head too. crouch might be unreliable heading for goal, but he is capable of getting plenty of knock downs and flick ons for others to feed off. hopefully torres is sharp enough to benefit. we could be a lot better at attacking set pieces as well.

wouldn't mind istanbul either. always a good time, despite it's reputation. circumstances would be different this time around i suppose.

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agree there was a lack of intensity and attacking theat, but not that we were playing on the counter attack. we hold a pretty high line and try to control possession with alonso et al. as you say city and villa were the ones who were just happy to sit back and draw us in, while we passed the ball interminably through midfield without getting anywhere, always susceptible to the counter ourselves.

i was at the game against leeds when he came on to make his debut (i think), and he struck the crossbar from about 35 yards. downhill from there on in.

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perhaps against the bigger teams, but generally i've had the feeling that we've dominated games in terms of territory and possesion of the ball but not come away with a result. blackburn and villa come to mind from last year. even at arsenal we were the better side at half time. and against the mancs we looked positive on the ball for 20 minutes until we conceded. to my eyes there's certainly a big difference between the way benitez seems to want to do it, and the way houllier did.

take your point. it's clear we've started too slowly in the last two seasons. having said that we played chelsea, arsenal, mancs, everton and bolton in the first few weeks last time around. not convinced we'd have faired so much better in those games at any other time in the season, although it's possible we might have conceded a few less goals. hyypia had a shocking time early on and carragher was injured. there is no discernable difference between the way we play at anfield, and how we are set up to play away from home. but there is a change in the conviction with which we do it, and inevatably more belief on the oppositions behalf too. not convinced that comes from the manager. a recent interview by pako suggests there is a huge psychological problem when the players leave anfield. they could just throw the kitchen sink at it in terms of team selection, but the figures suggest the problems go deeper than that and we're in just as much danger of shipping goals as not scoring them. perhaps we'll look to defend deeper and play more counter-attack away from home this season, that would suit torres, babel and benayoun at least.

the use of two midfielders who are adept at holding, and rotation are the two major areas of contention. i've wavered on those issues recently, but basically believe that it's possible to win the league with both of those policies if the squad is of enough quality. not sure it is quite yet, but should that mean benitez abandons two of his basic principles? always thought chelsea tended to turn the screw after half-time, and generally started slowly. what they do have that we don't is a defence that is equally (or close to) impregnable away as it is at home. think they've also had a better pool of attacking options as Glips says. don't think we've had anyone of the attacking quality of robben, cole or drogba over recent seasons, but could do so without losing our holding midfield. on the goals conceded thing i've just looked and we conceded 20 away last season (more than any other top 4 side and everton beside), and 7 at home. chelsea conceded 13 and 11, while united let in 15 and 12.

our fortunes could just as easily be improved by the addition of a world class attacking full back, as a winger. we have a glut of wide midfielders who like to come inside. arsenal are looking to do something similar with rosicky and hleb ahead of clichy and eboue. don't expect us to sign another £20 million player however. not unless we offload someone else.