yellow jumper

poor game, but in this day and age it was nice to see him stay on his feet after the head-butt. wonder what robben would have made of it?

fabregas doesn't play in a 2 man midfield. v.persie has been starting left. with fabregas, silva, hleb, rosicky the other four.

no. we scraped fourth in 03/04, the only notable victory in the latter period of that season was the 1-0 over united at old trafford, and we effectively played a 4-5-1 that day. the 3-0 at birmingham was good too. we also lost to charlton and drew with fulham at home in the same period, were thumped by arsenal away. went out of uefa and fa cups relatively early at the hands of marseille and pompey. gerrard might have looked brilliant, but generally speaking the team didn't. i think it's best to judge our (and, for that matter, his) progress at the end of the season. he hit the post yesterday after arriving from the left wing, and was involved in the third goal bursting through the middle. he's hardly ever stuck out on the right wing, and has largely been playing exceptionally from that starting position.

came on as a sub in the 2nd half.

don't think it's the strongest part of his game. when he comes up against that sort of defending he should just look to hug the touchline and cross it. he's got the talent to be as good as beckham in that regard. it's when he comes infield, or constantly tries to skin his man that he gets in trouble (although he did it very well last night). sure benitez will want to work on his upper body strength too.

agreed. it's clear he has talent. it's just his confidence/consistency that need work. mind you, he's not the only one.

pretty football requires confidence as much as talent. we've scored some great team goals already this season, particularly at home. the worry is our confidence seems very easily dented away from anfield.

is that before or after mourinho makes youth players dance naked in front of the first team?

he scored against bolton at the reebok last year.

how many times did he play in the centre in a 4-4-2? and how many in a 4-5-1?

i was. he'll do it if you ask him to. i think benitez gives him license to come inside from the right, i just think he some times picks the wrong occasions to do it. i think he'll sit in midfield too if you ask him to, although i don't think it's the best way to use him by far. some times i think his decision making in terms of when to go and when to stay is poor. which is why i don't think you can put him in the middle and get the very best out of him without two holding midfielders. i'd be happy to see him in a straight up and down wing-back role. i think he'd be exceptional.

gerrard isn't like roy keane and he shouldn't try to be. it's one of the laziest comparisons around. gerrard's at his best when he's leading by example, keane was at his best when he was bullying a game as much by force of his personality as any great talent. he was closer to sissoko than gerrard in terms of the type of work he got through, although better in and around the penalty area. the best way to let gerrard effect his team mates positively is to give him license to run and effect the game in a dynamic way. there's no point putting him in the middle when your entire strategy is about controlling the centre of the park. keane was an articulate, agressive b*****d with license and personaluty to be his manager's 'haridryer' on the pitch. he was also a very good player, but not in the same league to gerrard when it comes to an ability to effect a game in an attacking sense. when gerrard gives a b******ing he just looks like a whinger.

agree with much of what you have said here and elsewhere. i do think that we played well against Chelsea (as well as we have at Stamford Bridge in the league in recent seasons), Everton and Bolton until the first goal went against us. in fact in patches we looked okay after we went behind. but facts remain we're struggling to score away (whether because of luck or lack of inventiveness) and we're leaking silly goals at the other end. not a good combination. sunday was worrying because confidence looked shot for some, and others just didn't look bothered. agree benitez needs to keep his conviction, but there is also an onus on the players to show that they believe in a manager who has guided them to a couple of big trophies in two seasons. even if they are forced to sit out the odd game. mentality needs to be spot on from them and i'm not sure it is right now.

if you played agger, hyppia, carragher with one of riise/finnan/aurelio and a genuine wide man or even steven gerrard on the other side in a 3-5-2 or even a 5-3-2 with agger asked to bring it out (allowing the midfield 3 to push higher), it would give you a certain amount of flexibility to change it defensively since carra could go to a full-back position in a 4. i'll admit that currenltly we don't look secure enough to even consider it. but i do think we need to find a way to make ourselves more compact without isolating our striker(s). don't understand why crouch hasn't been used more in the league, for this reason.

personally think there is a combination of factors. all of which have been covered to some extent or another. wouldn't be surprised if there is some tension behind scenes over rotation, long season followed by world cup, change to more attacking style and new crop of players leading to inconsistencies. think carragher and gerrard should be allowed their slumps. they've been outstanding for 18 months. i do get pissed off with SG's demeanour at times though. not only does it bring him a whole lot of grief (and unneccesary speculation), it also does his teammates no favours. alonso has always been susceptible to dips in form. he was always streaky at sociedad. he's only 24. i've advocated garcia's inclusion, and the game on sunday was a massive opportunity for him to prove he deserves to start every game as the link man. he f***ed it up. he's been better as a substitute for too long and can't expect to be anything more than that unless he begins to show consistency game in, game out. pennant needs to show he has the confidence to succeed at a big club. i think he has the talent. bellamy will do what crouch did over the coming weeks. we'll improve.

you work to a point though. last season our results against sides outside the top four were considerably improved on those same fixtures the year before, but also on the last years of houllier (he had an exceptional record against the top sides, by the way). obviously the start we've made this year is a concern, and i think benitez's biggest mistake is under-estimating the toughness of our opening fixtures when preparing the team pre-season. i do think we'll finish strongly, as long as he can keep the fans and the players believing.

he was poor before that.

love hamman, sad to see him go, think it´s too easy to say his absence is anything like a major reason for our inconsistencies at the moment though. hard to see that he would have played many games from the start. think his major role last season was to come on and kill games when we had the lead, and since we´ve struggled to do that nearly enough i´m not sure he could have altered much of what has gone. do think we have look overworked in the middle at times this season, and would like to see a place for garcia in a 4-5-1 or even a 3-5-2 at times. if only to occupy the destructive midfielders that are deployed against us so often. whatever, confident benitez´ll get it right. his way or working demands time on the training pitch i think. may be our weakness as well as our strength, particularily on the back of a world cup, and busy early season schedule. once he´s drilled exactly what he wants into them i think we´ll look a good side again. the new signings should, and will be given time to sink or swim.

we do struggle more than the other top sides when we go behind, to be fair. think it's a question of finding that balance as we look to play a more expansive game. defensively we've dropped a level and that eases pressure on an opposition (even if they're not seeing much of the ball), and also on our forward players who are then always looking to do that little bit extra. in all the away games we've lost i'd say we looked the better side for the most part. if you edited the goals out of those games and watched a tape back you'd see we were playing the more dominant football.

arsenal, chelsea, spurs were all after him before he signed his new contract. think he'll become a centre-back ultimately; it's where he played for their youth outfit. he also played in central midfield for their reserves.

it would have been interesting to see how benitez used alves. think it's most likely that at home he'd have been a fullback option, with gerrard ahead of him. the pace, trickery and crossing ability of a winger coming from a deeper position would definitely add to out attacking options. this isn't intended as a slight on finnan, who i agree has been consistently excellent. he uses the ball well generally and is very solid defensively, but is a completely different entity to alves. in offensive terms he is compartively pedestrain. can't see gerrard being put in a central position with any more regularity whatever happens.

if nothing else gonzalez looks like he can take a quality corner. aurelio's a top class footballer. hopefully he's just one of those that's going to take a little time to settle into the Premiership, rather than one who simply isn't cut out for it.

if you don't think body language matters in professional sport or in the role of captain of lfc, you're wrong.

the left wing-back is playing out of position.

barnes, redknapp, can't get the third midfielder.