MFletcher

I managed to miss this for the Villa game, but I'm registered now. I've gone with Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Riise, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Benayoun, Crouch, Torres for the Toulouse game.

Ideal situation: - Sell Crouch to Man City for extortionate fee. - Realise that Valencia have signed Arizmendi, Zigic and have (apparently) bid for Adriano - thus giving us a window of opportunity to sign David Villa. - Sign Villa for anything-but-extortionate fee. In all seriousness, I'd be very, very surprised if Crouch went anywhere this window. Of course, if we get a huge offer from a team like City then it might be hard to turn down. You never know sometimes.

Most likely due to a woefully inept Bellamy up front, a left back playing on the left wing and Stevie G abandoning the right wing during play. Alonso is a superb player, but to consider him more important to the team than Carragher or Gerrard is folly. We wouldn't have won the game on Saturday without Gerrard, nor would we have been able to comeback from losing positions in the CL and Fa Cup without Stevie in the team. I doubt we'd even have reached the finals of those competitions without Carragher hurling himself at the ball and organising the defence. To lose Carragher or Gerrard would be devastating. Mascherano could fill the gap left by Alonso if he moved on (it's a joy to have three genuinely world class central midfield players to call upon).

Crouch frustrates me. Sometimes he looks a world beater (Arsenal) and other times he is barely passable as a Premiership player (Blackburn). However, he offers us a different option and "has a good touch for a big man". As it stands though, I'd much rather see a Torres/Kuyt partnership develop properly. I think they'll offer more than Crouch this season.

I'm pretty sure it's Bruno's brother Benoit Cheyrou who plays for Marseille. Bruno is at Rennes.

As far as I'm aware, Terry is definitely out next week. They're nowhere near as good defensively as they have been in recent years. As someone else said, the only reason they beat Birmingham was because their goalkeeper let Pizarro and Essien's shots go through his hands. If they had played the legend that is Maik Taylor, then Chelsea could have been looking at a loss there. With Arsenal also scraping through and the Mancs drawing and losing Rooney, we have the rare opportunity to set the pace. If we beat Chelsea, we have a series of winnable games coming up. Beating them would also give the team a real sense of belief that we can push on and do something this year. We have to play the other members of the "Big Four" at home in the first half of the season, which is positive for us because it will give us a better chance of taking points off them and building our tally. I'm confident we'll win anyway, but I'd really like to see Kewell/Babel down the left against them. Johnson was torn apart at times by Kapo yesterday. You can imagine what Kewell or Babel would do to him if they were on form. I wouldn't be surprised to see a midfield of Babel/Gerrard/Mascherano/Benyoun (maybe with Alonso replacing Benayoun and Stevie moving right). Either way, we need to attack them and exploit their weaknesses. A win against them would really set us up for the next couple of months. A good start is absolutely crucial to our chances of success this season.

There really is some rubbish in this thread. Xabi's defensive game has drastically improved since he came here and he's a much more solid and complete midfield player now. People seem to think Xabi is playing poorly when he's not spraying 60 yard through balls (eg. Cisse v West Brom). They simply fail to see how Xabi keeps us ticking over whilst doing an excellent defensive job. If our wingers' had proper movement, we would see Xabi spraying balls out to them all-game, but we had Riise and Pennant out wide. Pennant doesn't really look for space on the right and Riise is turd (in keeping with the tradition of JAR as the forum scapegoat). Also, if Crouch plays then Xabi is hardly able to play a through ball for him to run on to. With Torres, Babel, Benayoun, Voronin and Kewell's return from injury, we should see Xabi's passing range on show again because we'll have the necessary movement and pace in attack this season.

Gerrard in the middle won us the game. He had an incredible game and I was very surprised at how easily both he and Xabi controlled the Villa midfield. I felt that Kuyt and Torres had a fantastic game up front as a partnership and although Fernando didn't score, he played a key part in the first goal and got a number of shots off from his own good work. I felt Dirk had one of his best games for us today. As I said, he linked up exceptionally with Torres and setup the first goal. He should have had two more assists as well, because both Gerrard and Babel should have scored from his passes. However, I felt that both Pennant and Riise had poor games. Riise - again - demonstrated that he doesn't have the skill necessary to play left wing effectively - one good cross across the face of the goal apart. Pennant did lay it back for Gerrard - which produced a good save by the goalkeeper - but he'd been booked and still got up to confront Bouma... At the end of the day, we've won the game, we've won away from home against a good Villa side and we seemed to have them under control for vast junks of the game.

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I felt the referee was woeful tonight. That penalty decision was ridiculous. A pretty "unfriendly" friendly, but I'm not overly worried about the result. Kuyt should have had a goal - but it wasn't given. Riise was at fault for the goal and I maintain that he's a liability. No real flashes from anyone other than Stevie. I felt Pennant/Kewell looked slow and disinterested and Babel looked sharp when he came on. All in, I'm not too fussed. We had a good work-out and it'll be interesting to see what team Rafa plays next week against Villa.

She said "supposedly". Francis and Gary Mac didn't half stick the boot into Quaresma after the game. They basically branded him a show pony, claimed his "performance" would have put clubs off and said sarcastically "all three goals came when Quaresma wasn't on the pitch". I didn't actually watch the game, so I've no idea if these comments were justified or not.

Improved away performances. At home, I'm confident we can beat anyone comfortably. It's away from home where we have to improve and Rafa has to get his team selection right. We also have to improve our performances away to Chelsea/Utd/Arsenal. If we do that, we'll be in contention.

Torres - I think he's an excellent signing. We actually have a player up front who can beat his man, play off the shoulder and attack the ball effectively in the air. Not only that, he's happy running the channels, has creativity, awareness, game intelligence and a high work rate. I'm happy with the fee we paid for him as well. Voronin - I don't know much about him bar a few pre-season games. He looks a tidy little player and he's cost us nothing, so we can't really lose. Again, I'm happy with the player and the fee paid. Benayoun - If you watch Benayoun's interviews, he comes across as the sort of bloke who knows what people think of the transfer and is determined to prove them wrong. His interview tonight made me like him even more. Given the fee, I think we've done extremely well to acquire a technically accomplished, Premiership proven player. He has creativity, although we'll miss Luis' goal contributions. Again, I'm pretty satisfied with the fee we paid because I think he's an excellent little player who is criminally under-rated. Babel - At £11.5M it's a lot of money. He's only 20 and can play in any of three attacking positions. He obviously has a lot of talent, but he's a raw player and chances are it'll take him a while to bed in. We're relying on Kewell to stay fit and I was hoping for a world class winger in the mould of a Mancini - or even a very good winger in the mould of Simao. I'm worried that, if Kewell gets injured and Babel doesn't settle immediately, then we could be in the same position as last season left-wing wise. However, Rafa commented that he has been following the player for a number of years and he obviously felt that now was the right time to nip in and sign him up. I expect big things from him in the future, but not this year. I really hope I'm wrong though. Lucas - The best player in Brazil at the age of 19, viewed as the future of the Brazilian midfield, led his team from the second division to the latter stages of the Copa Libertadores, has only cost £5M, turned down the Mancs etc. etc. I have great hopes for this guy, I really do. Leto - I'm going off one pre-season performance against a pretty poor team, but he did well today. At £2M, we're not exactly gambling a lot on him. I hope to see another left back/centre back come in, because I feel we could have problems if Carra/Agger went down. Sami needs more recovery time between games and Paletta isn't good enough (in my view) to step in and player an important role. I'm not a big fan of Heinze and would rather see Chiellini come in, but whether that happens is another question entirely.

I think Pennant is a perfectly decent player who was dire for the first half of last season and picked up significantly in the second half of the season. Unfortunately, he still doesn't do basic things that a winger should. He doesn't get to the byline anywhere near as much as he should, he tends to cut in instead of taking on his man and his crossing is erratic at best. He can play some great crosses in, but he also seems to just hoof it into the box and hope at other times. Take the CL final - people point him out as being one of our better players on the night. That's true. He was on the ball a lot, but he did very little with it. His final ball was lacking. He's not a Beckham who can cross the ball with more accuracy that anyone in world football - he must work on his delivery and goal threat or he will never cement his place in the side. As it is, he's shown enough potential at the back-end of last season and in pre-season to justify another season at the club. If his delivery is still erratic, he only scores one goal (no matter how spectacular) etc. then I'm not sure he'll improve with another season. He needs to step up - and the competition will be even fiercer with the arrivals of Lucas (further increasing our quality central midfield options and pushing Gerrard onto the right) and Benayoun. He'll need to work hard and impress whenever he gets his chance.

Momo's qualities will be useful in tough away games in the Premiership and Europe - i.e. any game where we won't dominate possession. However, we're in a position where we'll control possession in the vast majority of games and Momo's destructive qualities are wasted. He can't pick a pass properly and is more likely to give it back to the opposition - thus giving us less scope for meaningful attack. I'd much rather see a central midfield of Alonso/Gerrard or Masch/Gerrard - even Masch/Alonso with Xabi pushing further up in games. What Momo brings is stamina, work rate, an excellent tackle and a determination not to lose. Unfortunately he also brings a bluntless in attack that severely hampers us. Also, given his rather dire positional discipline he requires a holding midfielder behind him who can also pass. That player is Xabi, and we saw last season that Sissoko/Mascherano doesn't seem to work. The way I see it is that if Momo is going to play, then Xabi has to play behind him to make sure we have someone who can hold the midfield and pass for two men. I think we should have cashed in on him this summer, but Rafa must see a role for him. He only got a four year contract in comparison to Xabi's five year contract and he's younger. Maybe we're planning to sell him if he doesn't improve his overall game this season? He was excellent in his first season, but he seems to have suffered since his second long term injury since coming here. He'll probably injure himself again this season, but that's just part of the way he plays and throws himself about. Regarding Pennant, he's looked useful this pre-season and was showing some real glimpses of form towards the end of last season. Hopefully he'll keep it up into the new season.

Give it time. The way the bloke plays I'll be amazed if he doesn't get himself injured again during the season.

I felt we did quite well today. We should've won in normal time, but it's a pre-season game and I'd much rather Torres and Benayoun screw up now rather than when it actually matters. And I really don't understand how anyone can stick the boot into Kuyt. He had a decent season last year, considering it was his first season. He works his socks off for the team and I can refer to a good number of chances last season when he showed excellent technique and reactionary skills to score (Reading, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Arsenal (FA Cup), Milan) or when his play outside the box was pivotal to a victory (Bolton, home - he ran with the ball before playing it to Pennant who crossed for Crouch, he set up Gerrard and then scored himself). I'm a big Kuyt supporter and it disgusts me to see people criticise him for a performance in pre-season. Even in pre-season he's chasing after the ball. Apart from that, I was pleased with overall performance. The game was played at a good tempo and we seemed to be pretty good fitness-wise. Kewell is looking sharp and he'll be like a new signing on the left of midfield. Pennant was getting crosses in - good crosses and Momo was a bundle of injury and was running well with the ball and he played one or two excellent longer range passes - one to Babel (I think it was) sticks in the mind which was a brilliant ball over the defence to him on the edge of the box. It was also good to see Lucas get a run out as well. I have high hopes for him. And while it's disappointing to lose on penalties in pre-season in a meaningless game without three of our key players, a bit of perspective would be nice.

Great goal from Riise. I'd like to see Xabi continue what he's doing here into the new season. He's had a couple of quality shots from the edge of the area that have went just wide. Maybe with the security of Masch behind him he'll have more confidence to come forward and shoot more. Kewell has did quite well as well, as has Voronin. A shocking error by Carson though - even if it is only "pre season". No keeper should be beaten from there.

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=361382 I remember reading an interview where Rafa claimed he liked Bojinov, Iaquinta, Amauri and someone else who's name escapes me. I thought it worth posting anyway, considering that he'd probably be available for much lower than his current value. Not that I expect us to buy him of course.

Consider the following matches: Liverpool 4 - 1 Arsenal Liverpool 1 - 0 Chelsea Liverpool 1 - 2 Milan In all of those games, Mascherano was imperative to our success (well, nearly in the CL final anyway). Against Arsenal, he had their midfield completely under control. There's a piece on YouTube showing his role in the game (I watched the game, so don't think this is a trial by YouTube). But perhaps the best two games he played for us were the final two games of our CL run. Against Chelsea, he didn't have the security of another CM. With Gerrard and Pennant playing to provide a more attacking threat, Masch was there as the sole player to disrupt their attacks. He was one yellow card away from a suspension but that didn't stop him flying into tackles and holding Chelsea at bay. He was incredible that night and against Milan in the final he had Kaka completely under control. The only time Kaka did anything to affect the game was after Masch had been taken off. There was one part I remember where Kaka ran down the wing and Masch chased him all the way back before hitting him with an inch perfect tackle and taking the ball. I really doubt that Rafa would have went to the trouble of going to see him and explaining his role in the team if he didn't anticipate him being here for a while. I also don't believe we'd have negotiated a fee that could have been out of our reach. At the time, Masch was rotting in the West Ham reserves and his career was stagnating. For us to go through all the effort of signing him, picking him in the important matches etc. only to let him go? I can't see it. As good as Alonso is, he'd struggle to hold a midfield together by himself. Masch demonstrated his abilities in the semi against Chelsea and he's only 23. Everything about him shows that he will be the best defensive midfielder in the world and I can only hope that we don't pass up the opportunity to sign him, regardless of price.

I thought I read that Rafa was considering giving Le Tallec one final chance in the first team squad?

Even if he didn't get an Italian passport, we'd still get one based on him being an outstanding young talent. The work permit regulations in this country baffle me sometimes. Quality players aren't allowed in because their countries aren't in the top 70 of the FIFA rankings etc etc etc. Surely there is a legal case for unlawful discrimination somewhere in there?