We all know the problem that Alberto Aquilani had with his injury at the start of the season. Out longer than expected after transferring from Roma last summer, Aquilani could only make his debut for the first team against Arsenal in the Carling Cup back in November. Since though, Aquilani hasn’t established himself in the team as many expected him to. Certainly much of this is down to the difficulty of settling into a new club and a new league mid season, no pre-season and most importantly coming into a team which wasn’t performing well anyway. You can’t expect a player, no matter of what quality, to come into the team after 6 months out and play at his best instantly after moving to a new league where a completely different brand of football is played.
That is why the speculation that Aquilani will be moved on in the summer seems so ridiculous to me. I know Rafa Benitez has not always been patient with players, especially in the case of Robbie Keane, but the soundings coming from the manager on the Italian definitely are more positive they were with the Irish striker. Even today, Rafa indicated how important Aquilani could be in the run-in:
“It was a shame he was sick because he had been good for the performance (against Portsmouth). You can see he wants to improve and it is important for us to have another player pushing. We need players with quality to help us improve until the end of the season. Alberto has got desire and he is working very hard. When we have him available, he can give us a different approach on the pitch in different games.”
There certainly seems no lack of encouragement coming from the manager, but I think the real question marks over Rafa’s handling of the Aquilani situation is the way he has used the Italian in matches. There is a case that early on after his return from injury that Rafa wanted to protect his expensive acquisition from physically competitive matches such as Blackburn and Stoke, but it is now March and he returned to action back in November, and he hasn’t really been given a fair run in the team. Out of the 12 appearances for Liverpool, he is only started one away match, against Aston Villa in late December. It is a stunning statistic really and one that leads us to the question as to why such an approach has been taken with the Italian. What maybe a concern for Rafa and his coaching staff, is that Aquilani may struggle physically with the exertions of away encounters in the Premier League. Certainly the style of football is different, faster and more physical than Serie A but if you are going to buy such an expensive player, don’t you first consider his abilities to cope physically with the rough and tumble of English football? Certainly, Rafa is still concerned by his physical fitness at this stage of the season:
“Physically you could see he coped with a lot of running last time and it was much better. It is a question of time. It is disappointing that he was ill and missed out against Lille but we are hopeful he will continue to improve and play more games before the end of the season.”
In away games, Rafa feels he needs blanket protection for the back four, something he feels he can get with Lucas but not with Aquilani at the moment. It could be said that Aquilani, despite his height at 6ft 1, is a slender figure and some bulk might be needed so he doesn’t get out muscled during encounters against physical sides. He was bought specifically for his passing ability and his runs forward, he is a mixture of Xabi Alonso and Steven Gerrard. He will never be a good tackler so don’t expect him to turn into a Javier Mascherano any time soon but his role may evolve during his time at Anfield. I would actually advocate swapping Gerrard and Aquilani, and putting Stevie in central midfield while Aquilani plays in a more offensive position to get the best out of both of them at the moment. It is something that might work in the short term to get as many attacking players on the pitch as possible. In the last seven games of the season, we need as many points as we can get. The lack of threat going forward in away matches especially has been clear for all to see, and any 0-0 draws such as the ones against Wolves and Man City, and the 1-0 defeats to Wigan and Arsenal, will not be acceptable in the chase for fourth spot. In these, you need passing players who can break opposition defences down and put in a killer ball. That is what is needed now, and it was something which was needed two months ago when Benitez consistently omitted Aquilani from the starting eleven in away games.
In the long term for Aquilani, I think a full pre-season is what Benitez believes he needs to be ready for consistent first team selection. They will want to get him in tip-top physical condition in the summer so he cannot only last the pace for 90 minutes but can play at the pace of the best league in the world. Next season will indicate to us whether he has been a good signing, but for now we must hope he can help us dig ourselves out of a hole from now until the end of the season. We need all the help we can get.
david tully, you write such total rubbish, you really do, you have my email i tell you whats what, your posts are a joke,
Gerrard has played in centre midfield recently and been shocking. I’ll make a point here that if Lucas had played half as bad the baying to have him kicked out of the team from ‘fans’ would be deafening.
part of the problem of having Gerrard in centre midfield or as a holding role, is he will invariably have to pick a man up…man mark !! how is that utilising Gerrards immense attacking prowess having to man mark the likes of Andrews at Blackburn ?! surely it makes more sense to have Gerrard in the final 3rd of the pitch to do what hes proven to be very successful at under Rafa…score goals and importnant ones at that.
Aqualani can only prove his critics wrong by playing games and coming back from serious injuries too soon was his downfall at Roma, so no wonder Rafa wishes to protect him and get 4 years plus good service from him, rather than a stop start career that will end up in the scrapheap. have a little patience.
Rafa is a shrewd manager. some may say thats cautious. i say its making the most of what you’ve got and until we can afford to spend £80-£100mil in a summer transfer spree and not sell our players to get there, we will always be fighting for the scraps.