For some while now, it has been argued that while Liverpool’s first XI could beat anyone on their day, it has been a lack of any squad depth that has been the undoing of the team, hence leading to the lazily reached conclusion that Liverpool are a “2 man team” in some sections of the media. However, fielding an All-Reserve XI for Liverpool, new manager Roy Hodgson could easily call upon the following team: Cavalieri, Kelly, Skrtel, Kyrgiakos, Insua, Rodriguez, Shelvey, Aquilani, Babel, Pacheco, Ngog. What should be immediately obvious is that there are 6 regular internationals in this squad, 4 of whom featured in the World Cup, players with undoubted skill in Aquilani and Babel, and in Daniel Pacheco, the star of the recent U-19 European Championships.
While much was made last year when Chelsea came to Anfield, and boasted £60M of talent on the bench compared to a home bench with not one £2M+ player, looking at the line-up above, it can conversely be argued that Liverpool are one of the best equipped teams to deal with the gruelling schedule that Europa League Football may bring this year.
For Hodgson this could be interpreted as a win-win situation; between the Europa League and the Carling Cup it is conceivable that fringe players,(and promising youth players such as Darby, Amoo, Eccleston and Dalla Valle among others) will get crucial game time; something essential to their development, and especially important considering they could never be guaranteed match time in the Premier League where points will surely be at a premium this season. This has the added benefit that the first XI – should they stay injury-free, where new club Doctor Peter Bruckner and his team will have a large part to play – could be exclusively played in FA Cup and Premier League games.
With Liverpool’s ownership situation hanging in the balance, it’s likely that after the imminent signing of Christian Poulsen, Hodgson may have little more money to spend this summer. Therefore Hodgson will undoubtedly have to turn his attentions to the fringe players to unearth a few gems. He certainly has a sparkling talent already in Dani Pacheco; a few more of the same ilk could save Liverpool FC millions in transfer fees and set the club in fine stead for future seasons.
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we currently have 3 defensive midfielders in masch, lucas and poulsen. we have gerrard, aquilani and cole as attacking midfielders to play CM or in the hole.
On the left mid we have Babel and Jova. Neither are out and out wingers.
On the right we have Kuyt and Maxi. Neither are out and out wingers.
Insua will be sold so we have 1 left back with a history of injuries
If Torres is injured we have to play NGog.
That suggests to me that we lack squad depth. A new striker and left back are essential. An out an out winger who can cross would also be useful but is less of a priority
There is some validity in your arguement Rob. However please don’t mention Darby as a player yet, I have huge doubts over him, and Masch will probably go so I expect to see one if not two more signings. Al obviously you either ignore how Roy managed Fulham or you’re caught in the trap of a right winger is a right winger. Roy will do what he do in the Europa game and play the left footer on the right and the right footer on the left, he did this at Fulham, they’re not right wing or left wing they’re wide men. It requires the full backs to get forward so it suits Glen Johnson and Fabio Aurelio but we do need another left back (anyone who thinks Fabio will be fit most of the season ignores a decade of injuries) and a striker. The key to the season is avoiding the injury hell we suffered last season.
Maxi is not an out and out winger? That’s news to me. And Joe Cole can play wing as well. Pure ignorance.
the squad depth was just another excuse for rafa!
al, as a liverpool supporter of course you’re gonna study how roy hodgson managed fulham, sometimes it was all i could think about! did you think that up all by yourself or did you read the same article that i read on this site last week?
Andy H
Well I did watch Fulham a lot last season and the season before and I’m not caught in any trap thank you very much. I know that Roy often used inverted wingers, I also said Babel is a left sided player even though he is right footed. But that’s not my point. My point was that of the 4 wide players we have none who are out and out wingers , certainly none in the mould of Damien Duff. It remains to be seen if Roy will play Jova (a left footer) on the right and Kuyt (a right footer) on the left, I suspect in any given game they will swap over during a game.
My overall point that our squad depth is seriously short of a better striker than Ngog and a quality left back remains.
It about adaptability!
Kuyt – can play up front and on the right
Maxi – right, left and central.
Babel – upfront, right and left
Pacheco – upfront, right and left
Gerrard – Right, left, central second forward.
Aquilani – central and second forward.
Kelly – right back, left,back and central defence.
Carragher – right back, left,back and central defence.
The squad is very adaptable. But if I have one reservation it centres around the quality of the others to play up front in Nando’s absence!
Agger – left back and central defence.
Javanovic – Left, right and upfront.
and gouda
I may have a different opinion to you but is certainly isn’t borne of ignorance. Maxi isn’t an out an out winger and neither is Cole. That doesn’t preclude them from playing in wider positions and it also doesn’t preclude them from playing well in those positions. But neither are out an out wingers. It remains to be seen if Roy wants to purchase a winger and if he can get the funds to do so. As Ive said earlier our squad has more pressing requirements
Yes we have some squad depth but not squad variety. Babel is arguably are only really quick player – Joe cole has some speed but he’s getting on a bit, and Torres looked dreadfully slow at the world cup. We also only have one true winger – Maxi – who is too slow to get to the touch line on a consistent basis.
Jovanovic, Kuyt, Babel, and Maxi, are all too similar in my book. Gerrard, Aquilani, and Joe Cole are all fighting for similar CAM positions. Our lack of depth in striker is still a glaring hole in our squad, and Roy knows that he MUST do something about it as soon as Masch leaves.
The article was a great read, though, so keep them coming.
You all seem to be forgetting season before last when Torres was out for best part of the first 13 games. We basically reverted back to a 4-4-2 with Kuyt and Keane up top, and out of the first 13 games we won 10 and drew 3, then when Torres came back he went on a 10 game streak without scoring, thats why we didn’t win the league season before last, Coz of Torres. Torres plays and most of the balls come to him, if he’s out then people actually shoot themselves instead of passing to Torres.
So, i’m not worried one little bit if torres gets injured as we can adapt. We have Kuyt, Ngog and jovanovic who can all play up top. Babel could also do with a run up top as he definitely has the ability to play there.
I agree with the sentiment of the post but think that the lack of a quality winger is a more pressing concern than most seem to think. Aside from Chelsea (who had the best squad by far last season and still needed Malouda to step up his performances considerably), EVERY Premiership winner has had at least one, if not two of the top wide-men in the league. I don’t think that too many would really expect Kuyt, Maxi, Jovanovich & Babel to be the top wingers in the league this season…
We continue to try to fit square pegs into the round holes out wide, or just to make do with a lesser quality option but we should all know by now that this just does not work!
Cole has already acknowledged that he is not best out wide due to his lack of pace, and he is probably a lot quicker (and trickier) than Maxi or Kuyt. I’d say that we need a quality wide-man even more than we need another striker (although a big target man in the Cole/Jones mould IS also required)
There’d also be no point in buying another left-back while we can’t shift Insua, and are stuck to his contract. The squad does have more depth than it is given credit for, but we do need a bit more quality still (or to see the youngsters delivering upon their potential)
would just like to point out that we do in fact have better back up strikers than ngog..we have kuyt, babel and even pacheco.. rafa hose not to play them as strikers when they couldprobably all do a much better job than ngog..fingers crossed that Roy can see this too.
We suffered last two years because of lack of cover at left back and centre forward I can’t believe we haven’t sorted that yet ! Ngog is a good young player but is no where near ready to lead our line and its not fair on him as he isn’t ready.
we still have a lack of depth, er frontman for torres and cover for gerro and a left back back would do, we are at least 3 players light, end off.
I think that you should re ask this question in 6 months time, I agree with some of the blogs about being short of cover at this moment, but with Roy in charge u might well find some of the fringe players develop and solve some of these problems, for example if Roy gets anywhere near as much success with babel as he did with zamora this could well solve our striker problem
Just having players who fill those positions doesn’t give our squad depth. Squad depth is about having at least two quality players in each position. And the big question is how many of these players are firstly good enough for the premier league, and secondly, good enough for a team with at least top four aspirations. How many of our backup players would make it into the squads of Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City or Arsenal? I don’t actually think we have as big a problem in the striker position as people make out. Kuyt should be used as backup for Torres. Sure, he’s not a world beater, but he’s more than capable in that, his natural, position. Remember in his first season he only played as striker and scored 12 premier league goals. N’Gog, Jovanovic and Babel can also fill in there if necessary. I agree with others that our wide men are a real concern… very few natural wingers, and thus very little quality there. We’re also short on both the left and right sides at the back. If Johnson or Aurelio get injured, we either fill the gap with makeshift players or inexperienced ones who simply aren’t up to the standard of the top flight.
HEARD THAT SPURS AND LIVERPOOL HAVE A DEAL DONE FOR DEFOE AND CROUCH 30 MILLION IF SPURS BEAT YOUNG BOYS THEY HAVE 2 NEW STRIKERS COMING IN.
DEFOE WILL NOT BE LEAVING SPURS, AND LFC HAVE NOT GOT 30 MILL, AND LASTLY CROUCH WILL BE AROUND 15 MILLION POUNDS, SO IF WE BUY ANYONE IT WILL BE CROUCH BUT NOT FOR ANYTHING LIKE THAT AMOUNT, LFC WANT CROUCH, ROY LIKES HIM ALOT BUT I TELL YOU AND YOUR MATES WE ARE NOT GETTING THE PAIR OF THEM, DEFOE IS OVER RATED, AND SPURS ARE NOT LETTING HIM GO, ITS KEANE OUT THE DOOR FIRST THEN CROUCH THEN ROMAN, YOUR SAUCE IS WELL OF THE MARK OLD SON…
Can someone name me the 2 quality players Manu, Chelsea and Arsenal have in each position.
Lets take strikers: Manu – Rooney and Berbs are main strikers, who are their quality backups?
Cheleas – Drogba and Anelka, their quality backups are?
Then who are the quality backups for Vidic, Rio, Evra, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Song, Cesc, Scholes etc.
The thing is there is this MYTH that the other teams have this quality backup. If Rio and Vidic don’t play, then midfielders have to drop back. If Anelka and Drogba don’t play, who scores Chelseas goals. Same with Arsenal, no Cesc, RVP and Varmaleen, then who do they have of the same quality.
We have a very good squad of non fashionable names so people and our fans included think they are no good.
Maybe it’s a myth that Liverpool’s starting 11 is so good.
If Drogba and Anelka dont play, Chelsea is missing a quality striker.
For Liverpool is just enaugh for Torres not to play and there is no one better than an averige PL bench warmer to step in.
If Liverpool is missing Lampard they can use Ballack to the same effeckt, again Liverpool has no one.
Aquillani maybe is quality but Liverpool never used his quality in proper way, and I’m not sure he will ever impress in PL becouse of his injuries.
There is also a myth that Cole is improving Liverpool’s team.
I do agree that United and Arsenal are not in much better position when looking at their substitutes, Ferguson made a mistake by favoring Berbatov insted of Tevez, if they had Tevez-Rooney now they would be better off than Chelsea, at least with strikers.
Ballack no longer plays for Chelsea. Kuyt can step in for Torres now that we have Maxi.
He played there against Spurs in Jan and scored 2 goals, One was set up by Aquillani.
So Liverpools squad has plenty of depth.
Cole can be the link between attack and defence as well as being a goal threat himself. Gerrard can play from deep and make is famous late surges into the box.