The most frustrating thing about watching Liverpool in recent years, even before the financial problems, was that even though the spine of the team was incredibly strong, the wide areas always seemed to lack quality. Sometimes it was a deliberate to ensure defensive solidity (in the conversion of Dirk Kuyt to right midfield), and other times it was the failure to buy the right player (Mark Gonzalez, Jermaine Pennant, Albert Riera etc). What has happened over the last couple of years is that we have become more reliant on the full backs to provide any width at all and the arrival of attacking full backs such as Glen Johnson and the hapless Andrea Dossena indicated this approach. Consequently it was a contributing factor in my view in our loss of a solid backline last season. So why haven’t we invested in a decent expensive winger like Chelsea, Manchester United and others, who have spent countless millions on them?
Fundamentally in recent years, there hasn’t been enough money. We have been too busy replacing players in other positions in central midfield and up front. Of course it wasn’t solely down to finances before then, but if we consider we paid £6m for Pennant and £8m for Riera while teams such as Manchester United paid £20m+ for Antonio Valencia and Chelsea £15m for Florent Malouda you kind of get the picture. In fact it was revealed by Malouda only last week that there was interest from Liverpool before he moved to Chelsea a few years ago. Whatever the reasons, financial or the manager’s failure to prioritise them in summer transfers; the question of width has again reared its ugly head this season.
The lack of natural width has been serious problem for Liverpool in the first few games with Dirk Kuyt and Milan Jovanovic, neither natural wingers, playing in the position, while Maxi failed to impress against Birmingham City last week. Pace seems to be the fundamental problem as although Jovanovic has the most out of the three, he generally cuts in field to run at goal, rather than to stretch the opposition defence out wide. Stretching the opposition with pace and width is crucial to any team, and it is especially useful when playing lower class opponents at home, a calibre of team we have struggled to break down in recent years.
With no money then, how doe we address the issue? In such circumstances you have to look at players in your own set up. One suggestion would be to push Glen Johnson forward with Martin Kelly playing a full back; an interesting option although I am uncertain whether Glen would be as effective as when overlapping with our right side midfielder. He would have to make his own space playing on the right wing while Kuyt and Maxi’s runs infield tend to open gaps for him currently. For pace, Ryan Babel would be the other obvious suggestion, but both the player and Roy Hodgson have said that the Dutchman will be playing as a striker from now on.
In my mind, it could be the chance to blood one of our youngsters into the team, especially if Maxi continues to be ineffective while Kuyt is out injured. A player who springs to mind when you mention pace is David Amoo; after all he was a sprinter in his youth. Amoo is much more than an athlete though, and was previously a striker at Millwall before being converted to a winger at Liverpool. Impressing in the Liverpool U18 team that made it to the FA Youth Cup final in 2009, he began last season in the reserves and has progressed very well. A good crosser of the ball, as well as having strength, pace and dribbling ability, he also knows where the goal is. He scored both goals against Wolves in a reserve match on Tuesday night, using his goalscoring instincts from when he was a forward. Reserve coach John McMahon has been working with Amoo to get an end product, and he certainly looks like he is progressing. He started in Roy Hodgson’s first competitive match against FK Rabotnicki back in July and although his selection was somewhat enforced in that match, what harm would there be in selecting him in more Europa League ties? It would give us all a chance to see what he is capable of and see whether he could actually make an impact in the Premier League.
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It wasn’t only ‘revealed by Malouda last week’. Anybody who follows Liverpool closely will remember at the time we came very close to getting Malouda, but the fact that they had Drogba and showed more close interest swayed him. It’s hardly new news!
We also tried to buy dani Alves from Sevilla but parry would not authorise the £8m required. Instead rafa used his £6m budget on pennant! So like malouda we identified the right player, but had to accept second best. Ahh it’s all rafa’s fault (not).
Rafa has done the mistake and not hudgson is doing the same mistake by improving the other areas neglecting what we really need is to buy 2 top quality wingers there is no point giving ryal babel chance after chance (alberto aqualani was given only 1 month to show that he is able to play for this club) we cannot deny the fact that kuyt is just a squad player he is not a threat neither as a winger nor as a striker same for babel he is not performing as a winger and we can’t afford to lose matches by giving him chance after chance as forward player. We have been lacking 2 wide players for the last 8-10 years i just want mr hudgson to buy 2 wingers or we will be lying midtable at the end of the season
The problem is and always has been money, it just became more obvious and tighter in recent years – don’t forget the main cash flow problems began at the start of the financial crisis. The money that Rafa spent in his early years he earned himself by taking us to 2 CL finals. He normally had to settle for his 3rd or 4th choice transfer targets except in just a few cases, like Torres. For example, Riera was Rafa’s 3rd choice target for left wing at that time.
We have to sell babel and kuyt or we will be lying midtable at the end of the season I know that many fans will disagree that kuyt is important and he gives the balance. He gives nothing just stops the move and don’t score enough goals he has niether the speed nor the delivery. Torres is frustated many times because he doesn’t get the delivery from the wide areas . I watching europa league yesterday and the goal percentage for the last 12games which was played in champions and europa league 42% goals were from wide areas when did we see the last time a goal provided by wide area. We need Wingers was waw
Dani Pacheo came on last night and pinged a great ball we could play him on the right! I think we need to play Babel on the right not the left, when he is not being the striker, Cole on the left. Maxi really has no pace and works better inside than on the wing, same for Jova even though he is getting stronger and faster! Oh and hey, was that OUR Lucas??? Go on Lucas do more of that!!!!
Really we need two quality wingers Turan is one, Juan Mata could be the other!!!!
I’m not sure what the answer is, Liverpool may have to look at an emerging market such as South America, the Far East or Africa and try and unearth a talented youngster and hope to bring him through over the next couple of years as we all now Liverpool now don’t have the finacial might to pick up top players.
Stevie B – Malouda was rubbish for a couple of years even playing for Chelsea before suddenly springing into life last year. So with our reputation for developing wingers in recent years(!)there is no reason to believe that he would’ve ever become a success for us and it’s much more likely that he’d be on the scrapheap by now if he had joined us, than being the player that he’s eventually become