Liverpool 08-09, some analysis

Well.......what I expect from Liverpool in this 08-09 season is something what every single fan expects, the 19th title. Honestly, how far or how close are we on it? I don't think that it is logical to think we are close. I will discuss it afterwards.

But let me clear you first why “Liverpool”....it is not about trophies and wining rather it is something called "Passion" that they put in display while playing matches. I still can remember last year Champions League Group stage run. They needed to win all 3 /4 matches to reach knock out stage and they just did it. It inspired me so much that I forgot about "Loosing" in semi- finals. Again, about the same game, away match at Stamford Bridge, the Reds had shown that they can fight till the end. Reds can challenge, fight and show their character.......also fight back.

Let us discuss some problems that Liverpool is currently facing.
1. Lack of Natural “Wide man” / “Winger”
2. Lack of Attacking Player on “Right Back”.
3. Players not in Natural Position: Wrong interpretation of "Versatility"
4. Owners’ misery in Transfer Window.
5. Problem with right strategy/ formation

1. Lack of Natural “Wide man” / “Winger”:

When there is not enough space in mid, team need to play with Wings or Wide man. Let us count the Wings involved in action at Liverpool.

1. Jermaine Pennant:

He is only an average player, not pacy or tricky to overcome the defense and pull the ball forward.

2. Yossi Benayoun:

He is a CAM rather than RM or a “Wide man”, he loves to play from right to inside or left to inside.

3. Dirk Kuyt

He is a very industrious player with an excellent work rate; still, he is a striker in an experimental Wing adaptation scenario.

4. Ryan Babel:

He is also a talented striker bought from Ajax and adopted in "Left Wing" position. He rarely uses his left foot to cross from wide left. Still, he is quite a decent “Wide man” solution for Liverpool. In fact, in Champions league qualifier at Anfield, 118th minute goal from Kuyt was assisted by him from wide left corner flank.

5. Nabil El Zhar:

He is not still a proven quality, Rafa sees him as a bright future. Actually, he was only substituted for few minutes. So, I am not sure of him as a solution to Wide man problem.

6. Albert Riera:

Every body hopes that he is a solution to "Winger/ LM" problem. Is it? I don't think so. He is not so because

a. He was an average Man City player in his 1 year loan spell (15 app and only 1 goal). If he was so good, Man City would have made his deal permanent.

b. He is only an average winger (8m pound purchase) not a top class player like Silva or Ribery. If you compare with Wingers of other Big Four clubs i.e. C. Ronaldo of Manchester United, you will see we are not even close in comparison to quality. Probably, he is going to be next Pennant and another failure case as a Wide man.

2. Lack of attacking player on Right Back:

Liverpool have a problem in Right side defense too. Right Back is usually a mixed place where pace and stamina is the most important qualities. This position needs pace, good crossing capability and defensive attributes as well. Player in this position covers the whole right side from the opposition corner flag to own side corner. In comparison to other Big Four clubs, we are not even close in quality of this position. Bosingwa of Chelsea or Gary Neville of Manchester United always places their impact on the game result. They have good attacking qualities; they cross and defend as well. But, we don't find much attacking action from that position. First of all,

ALVARO ARBELOA:

He does not go forward so much. He don't have enough pace or agility to go forward and attack. But, defensively he is quite all right.

PHILIPP DEGEN:

He came to Liverpool in a "Free Transfer". I don't think that he is the solution. He has defensive problems too, identified in pre-season friendly matches. He is only an option, but not a solution.

RAFINHA:

I think manager Rafa will concentrate to fill out this weakness by transfer activity in January. I think Rafinha from Shcalke 04 will be a fine solution. This player is young and pacy and very attacking. Rafa short listed him from the beginning of this summer.

Jakub Błaszczykowski (KUBA):



Rafael Benitez enlisted Polish International Jakub Błaszczykowski who plays for Borussia Dortmund. He usually plays on the wing where his dribbling and pace come in handy but Borussia have also played him at right-wing back a few occasions.

3. Players not in "Natural Position": Wrong interpretation of "Versatility":

We have seen Rafa always asks versatility from a player. He used to mention it as a quality i.e. "He is a very good player" and "he can play in different positions", while describing Gareth Barry and some other players. If this is a case of Gerrard, then it is alright. But in most cases it is a waste of talent. We can see a striker is straggling to be a winger in case of Kuyt. Babel is also not at his best on left wing. Keane on right........nothing would be worse than that. Also we saw Jamie Carragher playing awfully on right back last season. My question is "why". Versatility is something Gerrard showed at front with Torres, not Kuyt struggling on right.

Examples:

a. Kuyt (ST) struggling on right wing
b. Babel (ST) does not make too many crosses from left wide
c. Keane (ST) plays at left or right wing or chasing ball from mid fielders
d. Jamie (CB) plays at right back.
e. Lucas (CDM) plays up front or at LM.

4. Owners’ misery in transfer window:

What do you expect from an owner? Let us talk about Chelsea's tycoon owner, Roman Abramovich. Most people think the "Roman Abramovich" move to Chelsea, made English Football more business and money driven. But I don’t see any problem there. Roman loved football and for his passion, he spent lots of money on transfer market to win trophies. He did not try to make money out of his club and he said “I have many much less risky ways of making money than this (buying Chelsea football club), though don't ask me which ones for I won't tell". So, I tell you it is not the money rather the passion and devotion of the owner to the club that does matter.

Now, if you compare this with the owner of Liverpool Hicks and Gillette, they have more priorities than Liverpool even in sports. They can fly back to US to watch Base Ball Game on an important match day of Liverpool. Manager Rafa also claimed that they don’t even understand football. Let us see how much Money owners let Liverpool spent on transfer market with comparison to other club.

FULHAM - approx net spend: £17m
LIVERPOOL - approx net spend: £18.25m

Manchester United -approx net spend: £28.5

ASTON VILLA - approx net spend: £40.8m

MANCHESTER CITY - approx net spend: £55.7m.

You can ask where Chelsea is. Their net spent amount is £4m, as they sold or offloaded players. But, they have the most powerful and balanced squad in premiership. They purchased Deco for £ 8.o m pound and Bowsingwa for 16.3m pound.

We needed a potential winger as well as a right back. We had both at the end, but are they good enough? I think clearly you know the answer. What role then those "Owners" played?

I am giving you the clear picture of transfer activities. I hope you will not disagree with me about the “top buy” that Liverpool performed. It is only the purchase of Robbie Keane, though some people says Liverpool over spent few millions.


PLAYERS IN:

Albert Riera
Left Winger, Spanish
Undisclosed (reported £8m) from Espanyol

Robbie Keane
Striker, Irish
£19m from Tottenham Hotspur

Phillip Degen
Right Back, Swiss
Free Transfer from Borussia Dortmund

Andrea Dossena
Left Back, Italian
Undisclosed (reported £8m) from Udinese

Diego Cavalieri
Goalkeeper, Brazilian
Undisclosed (reported £3m) from Palmeiras

David Ngog
Forward, French
Undisclosed (reported £1.5m) from PSG
.

PLAYERS OUT:

Harry Kewell (Free Transfer, Galatasaray)
Anthony Le Tallec (Free Transfer, Le Mans)
John Arne Riise (£4m, AS Roma)

Peter Crouch (£11m, Portsmouth)
Danny Guthrie (£2.5m, Newcastle)
Scott Carson (£3.25m, West Brom)
Steve Finnan (Undisclosed, Espanyol)

LOANED OUT:

Andriv Voronin (season loan to Hertha Berlin)
Sebastien Leto (season loan to Olympiakos)
David Martin (Leicester City, 6 months)
Adam Hammill (Blackpool, 6 months)
Robbie Threlfall (Hereford United, 6 months)
Craig Lindfield (Bournemouth, until Jan 1st 2009)
Paul Anderson (Nottingham Forest, full season)
Nikolay Mihaylov (FC Twente, full season)
Jack Hobbs (Leicester City, full season)
Godwin Antwi (Tranmere Rovers, full season)

Miki Roque (FC Cartagena, full season)

a. Why purchase of Gareth Barry was so important?

Rafael Benitez's had given the highest priority on this player "Gareth Barry" in the transfer market, but the long waited transfer saga ended unsuccessful due to the "High Price Tag" and that imminent transfer was stopped by the owner's. What a pity! Martin O’Neil, a tricky manager, raised the price tag of his captain to 18m. Still, Benitez continued to his effort to buy out this versatile player. Do you think he was insane? Even, Rafa tried to sell Alonso for the extra cash needed to buy Barry.

It should be the manager who should decide who is perfect for his team, not the owners. And now, I am explaining why Gareth Barry was so important for Liverpool.

1st of all, He is an English player and played England for more than 11 years.
2nd, He has a good Leadership quality as he was the captain of Aston Villa.
3rd, He is a perfect versatile player (LB, LM, CM).
4th, compare the case of 13th September match vs. Manchester United, Gerrard is injured and Barry is a player who could play like Gerrard and fill his absence.
5th, I saw him playing on the wing, he can play in wide left and he can go inside.

So, in any way, he was worth of 18 m. And Sunderland Manager Roy Keane rightly said "Buy Barry and Liverpool wins Premier League". Barry was the perfect player with respect to the playing style of Liverpool.

And I don't see any future in Alonso. He is a slow player and I don’t think his playing style is not suitable for Liverpool, may be he is good for Italy or Spain. I don't say that he is a bad player; he is great player, but not perfect for Liverpool. So, manager tried to do right thing (to sell Alonso and buy Barry), but it's the crappy owners who destroyed the whole plan.

b. Is DIC going to be the Next Liverpool Owner?

The Americans took control at Anfield in February 2007 and their reign started brightly enough with the promise of a new stadium and the record purchase of Fernando Torres from Atletico Madrid.

However, things soon turned sour.

The stadium plans have stalled and the investment in the transfer market has plateaued.

Recent situation of the club is not going well as Manager Rafa does not get enough to spend on market to make his side challenge for the 19th title. It is known that Arab invasion began in England. DIC repeatedly placed 400-500m pound bid to buy the shares from Hicks and Gillette.

Now, both the fans and manager want DIC to move on and buy out the shares as Manchester City became a threat to enter inside the Royal "top four".

According to Wikipedia, on 1st September 2008, Abu Dhabi -based Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Limited completed a takeover of Manchester City. The deal, worth a reported 200 million, was announced on the morning of 1st September . It sparked various transfer "deadline-day" rumors and bids such as the club's attempt to gazump Manchester's protracted bid to sign Berbatov from Spurs for a British transfer record fee in excess of 30 million. Also, Robinho became a Man City player on 1st September, just minutes before the summer transfer window closed in a British record transfer fee of 32.5 million. Man City's new-found wealth sparked rumors that City offered a blank check for striker Nistelrooy, however Real refused. City was also believed to make a failed 50m bid for El-Nino.

So, It is expected that Hicks and Gillette are supposedly seeking an escape route due to lack of progress in new Stadium construction and current situation.

Perhaps, the next owner of Liverpool F.C. is going to be Sheikh Mohammed - Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (DIC), seventh richest man in the world.

c. Will Owners back up Rafa on Quality purchase in Wing?



Liverpool badly needs a quality Wing / Wide man. Reira or Kuyt are not the players to fill up this weakness. So, current owners of Liverpool need to support manager financially to purchase a quality wing. I discussed Barry earlier, he can be a nice buy in January Transfer Window. But, a natural winger can be appropriate. Franck Ribéry is a very good option for Liverpool; manager pointed him in this summer. But, it will be really difficult to buy him out from Bayern Munich.



In Euro 2008, Arda Turan from Turkey came to spot light. He is a natural Left-Footed Player. Arda impressed against Liverpool in Champion League but couldn't prevent his team from losing. He is also a solution for Rafa to fill up the Wing.

Also, David Silva is a very good Left footed winger and can be a nice purchase for Liverpool. Unlikely his current team is going to sell him to Liverpool. Still, it should be the owners who should try to buy the Spanish international Silva from Valencia.

5. Problem with right strategy/ formation:

In the last few matches, I mean the start of the 08-09 season; Liverpool really struggled to get their feet. They displayed negative football and almost made themselves out of the Champion's League. Just in a word, they were not playing like "Liverpool". It is all because of previous four reasons and strategic problem too. I am amazed to see Rafa trying to introduce 4-3-3 formation in the match against Aston Villa, which Liverpool held by a goal less away Draw. But, my point of view is to stick to 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 formation which may lead them to victory.

a. Why not 4-4-2:
Let us define key players for Liverpool,

Gerrard (CM),

Torres (ST),

Javier Mascherano (CDM),

Keane (2nd Striker),

Babel (Left wing).

If we make a formation with those “Natural Positions” of the key players, we can employ them by 4-4-2

Bench: Alonso, Cavalieri, Skrtel/Agger, Kuyt/Benayoun, Babel/Riera, NGog

b. why not 4-2-3-1:

At the end of last season, Liverpool had their best wining run when they adopted 4-2-3-1 formation. But, at the current situation, Manager has to be brave enough to do so. Cause it may employ some "Star players" on the bench. But, it is the question of the whole team, not giving “a high purchased buy” a position in starting 11.

You see, there is only scope of 1 striker to play, so be it. It would be harmful for the playing style if manager tries to push his high purchase player in a different role and calling it as a “versatile quality”. I don't see a problem if Keane is on the bench. If u ask “Is 20m purchase is for bench?” I would refer the case of Manchester United; Rooney/Berbatov/Tevez situation. If they can manage, so can we. Again, if u ask “why Keno”? I would refer to "Manu vs. Liverpool at 13th September" and Keno is there to save your back as Torres is injured.

Bench: Alonso/Lucas, Cavalieri, Skrtel/Agger, Kuyt/Benayoun, Riera, and Keane



Are we close to 19th title?

To be honest, still I don’t see it. Lot of works need to be done. Liverpool badly needs to get back to their feet. The pace, the agility and the sweet one touch are missing from their football. Again, it is not about winning trophies, it is all about how they fight on the field and what inspiration they put in display. If Liverpool is in the "form" that they showed at the end of the last season, I am quite sure that they will get the 19th title.

You will never walk alone

References:

1. http://www.goal.com/
2. http://www.thisisanfield.com/
3. http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/
5. http://www.football365.com/
6. http://www.teamtalk.com/