Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson expressed his dismay about the lack of strikers currently on the books at the Anfield Club:
“In January we should be really looking to solve one or two situations. We are desperately short of players. Front players. Having three front players at the club, and that’s if you include Ryan Babel, is nowhere near good enough.”
Before the Bolton match he even stated he didn’t have enough to play proper practice matches on the training field:
“A club like Liverpool shouldn’t have to rely on non-specialists like Dirk Kuyt or Ryan Babel “doing a job” up front when they are primarily wide players. We have the same problem with the reserves. We don’t have any strikers and a winger called Nathan Eccleston has to play up front. In training, I can’t have practice games where each team plays a 4-4-2 because I don’t have the front players to do that.”
I have one very big problem with these comments made by Roy. They show a complete lack of knowledge of the players currently plying their trade at the club. Although I agree with Roy that reinforcements are needed in the striker position come January, to say that we effectively have only three strikers, if we include Ryan Babel, is completely incorrect. While it is fair enough to believe that Ryan Babel is not suited to playing as a striker and is “doing a job,” it cannot be the case with Dirk Kuyt. The Dutchman is not “primarily” a wide player in any stretch of the imagination.
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If Roy did make these comments then it worries me. If so then he appears to have forgotten one of our brightest prospects, Danny Pacheco. I see Pacheco as a player who can play ‘in the hole’ although for some unknown (& annoying) reason Roy played him out wide against Northampton. To me Roy appears to know nothing about our young reserve players (even though he has attened several matches). Maybe he needs to speak to John Mcmahon & Rudolfo Borrell a bit?
Hosgson plays Everyone out wide!
If Pachecco was good enough he would play. Clearly he is too lightweight for the premiership
hello guys,did u remember of pacheco.why isn t roy using that youngster.instead he plays kuyt,he either loose possestion or give the to the player write behind more,no more no less.pls NESV send roy and kuyt away as far as they can be from our team.
He isn’t good enough what evidence does anyone have that pacheco is a good player at a high MENS level
I f you aren’t playing well then changes must be made Jova could at least have a go up front a he is good finisher.
Pacheco needs to have a run i am not convinced about Maxi even though he scored.
Basically they need a clean out and Babel Maxi Poulsen and Cole can all go.
woy does not understand our players at all. he does not make the effort to know the players, not to mention he is unable to motivate or bring the best out of each player. what is worse, as a lousy people-manager, he is buying old rejects which he can’t use and blames rafa for the team’s poor performance, when he has only ONE tactic in this book, which is DEFEND. woy is at most a low table coach.
Agger has better technique than skrtel however skrtel is by far the better defender. He can head a ball and can make a tackle, agger’s defensive heading is shocking and its quite obvious that martin is much better in the tackle. He’salso quicker than agger.THATS why he gets the nod over dan. I agree that Roy makes lots of mistakes, however, choosing skrtel over agger is not one of them
Is Roy on a mission to get rid of all our decent players, first Aquilani, then it will be Agger, Jova and prob even Pacheco….if he stays beyond Jan I wouldnt be surprised if Torres and Gerrard were next, thanks Roy, now F.O.
Roy i promise you Pepe Reina scored the goal against Bolton.He is so fast that you are not able to count him as another striker.Let’s see he started the move and lo and behold he quickly asked Maxi for his shirt so that he could receive the back heel from Torres and toe punt it into the net.Honest.You were asleep maybe in a daze surprised even that a draw was in the pipeline.Ask Sammy.Roy we can do magic.We are LIVERPOOL get it?YNWA
what strange comments
i thought Babel and Kuyt were strikers playing on the wing because we dont have wingers? and Ecclestone is a striker too…
i dont know, i think the quotes have been misquoted.
Excellent article David. Benitez used strikers like Kyut and Babel on the wing because of the formation he favoured, namely 4-2-3-1. Moreover, there is little doubt Jovanovic was signed as a second striker.
Now Hodgson claims he cannot play 4-4-2 because he does not have the players. He is right in saying that he does not have the quality of striker to replace Torres, but it is not credible that he cannot play 4-4-2 with the current squad.
Im fed up ranting about Roy for another day on the trot.
He is not good enough for the club. His Tactics are pre-historic & his press conferences get more and more bizarre every week.
Please leave and let our team play Football and express thiemselves… Also, congratulations on Konchesky and Poulsen!! Nice one. I think Jesus might need your help to rebuild the Ark, so go and employ your tactics where they belong!!!
Hodgson’s too old, sat there on sunday and hoped for the best and got lucky! Not a flicker of any changes or plan B. Top club needs a top manager, simples. YNWA.
I am gonna have to disagree with this post. I think people are underestimating how good your touch has to be at a high level. I am 24 and just started playing semi-professional football. When I was playing at amature level i was upfront and i would find it very easy to find space and score I scored 43 goals last season. Since I have played semi-pro level I am not good enough to play upfront and i am playing right midfield this year purely because you get closed down much quicker and your touch has to be perfect as the defenders are much better. I am sure that going from the Dutch or Belgian league is similar to the experience I just explained. Put it simply Kuyt, Jova, and Babbel are not good enough to play in a top 4 permiership team and thats where we want to be!
David you are technically speaking not quite up to it but these fellows are highly paid professionals who should cut the mustard.
All of these have proven records in highly competitive leagues as strikers also.
You are missing the point, the belgian and dutch league with all due respect is compleately different to the premier league. The other players are less fit, weaker, and do not have the same tactical knowledge than premiership players do. You get less time on the ball upfront than you do on the wing and the 3 players mentioned above do not have a good enough touch to play upfront at that level
Players out of Holland are technically just about the best in the world, and tactically as clever as the English only they play in a weaker league.
Unfortunately Babel is exceptionally skilled just does not have it up top.
As far as fitness goes there are players in many leagues that could run it out with the EPL boys that is an individual aspect.
Roy hodgson HAS to go before its too late, i think the way we are going we are graduatly becoming more and more like fulham or a blackburn, im just worried we are going to buy more clowns in january and end up near the bottom unless we get a manager of Rijkaard or Pellegrini’s caliber who KNOWS what kind of player to bring in and play attractive one touch football with players interchanging with each other and finding space, and maybe have king Kenny as a assistant or a coach. so Please liverpool board get rid of hogdson real soon or we could end up loosing rijkaard to man city!
Jova is a second striker and a superb player with good technical skill. Kuyt is primarily a wide player NOW, just like Gareth Bale is NOW a wide player. Neither began that way. Did you know Sol Campbell began as a centre forward – he even played there as a Spurs youth player – I should know, I marked him (badly).
My issue with Roy is that we have Pacheco, but are not trusting in him.
hodgson! If players in the dutch league are so good, how comes Ajax and FC twente are both the bottom of their CL groups. The fact is Babbel, Kuyt, and Jova are not good enough to play upfront at a top level premiership club if they were they would be playing there and we would not be having this conversation. You have said my argument yourself anyway you said “Babel is exceptionally skilled just does not have it up top” Why do you think that is i’ll tell you he is not good enough at football to play as a striker for a top EPL team
If you read what i said i did admit the dutch league was a weaker league but they do produce technically sound footballers.
If you doubt this just look see who played in the world cup final.
“if they were good enough they would be playing there and we would not be having this conversation” – unfortunately that is not true.
Just because a manager has a certain idea for a player, that does not mean that that is the best way to use that player.
Agger playing more as a left back than as a centre back does not prove that he is a left back, or that he is inferior to Carragher or Skrtel – that is simply the manager’s preference
Meireles being depoloyed behind the striker or on the right of midfield does not mean that he is better in those positions than in the centre of midfield – it it just the manager’s preference
Pacheco being moulded into a right sided midfielder does not mean that that is his best position, it is just the manager’s preference etc.
Spot on sir
likewise, just because Kuyt and Maxi are given untouchable status on the right wing, that does not mean that they are the best options for the job.
Nor does Lucas being picked for every game mean that he is the best central midfielder at the club etc.
Moreover, just because Hodgson chooses to send the team out in a 4411 formation every week, that doesn’t prove that that is the only formation that our players are suited to using.
Manager’s can have their favourites that they want to shoe-horn into the team at any cost, and they can also make pretty obvious mistakes too. As evidenced by Hodgson’s selections, the simple & logical option isn’t always the option that is taken…