There was a very notable absence on Monday night because – in case you hadn’t noticed last week – one of our more important players suffered an injury that’ll keep him out until the end of the season. Changes were made for Monday night at Craven Cottage, the side was tinkered with and we started against Fulham with a midfield and attack that has potential but clearly isn’t working at the moment.
Looking at Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll (who age 21, 27 and 22 respectively), we have a lot of years yet out of these three and by insisting on playing them when they’re clearly struggling is helping neither us nor them. They will come good, all three, of that I’m sure. Before we signed them, Stewart Downing was Aston Villa’s most dangerous player, despite what people might tell you about Ashley Young. Jordan Henderson was making it into the England squad despite playing for Sunderland and Andy Carroll was actually, genuinely, one of the most feared strikers in the Premier League.
But, at the moment, they are just not clicking and – in particular – playing Carroll week after week is seriously affecting our ability to play the game we saw toward the end of last season and that we’ve seen in glimpses this season. Without Andy Carroll Liverpool just play a more cohesive, faster-paced, intelligent game. I have to admit that, with Jamie Carragher being resigned to the bench, I thought we might see the end of long balls being lumped up the field but even players that you’d expect more of get lazy and resort to attempting to knock the ball long. This is not Carroll’s fault as he is a pretty good footballer technically; with the ball at his feet he appears surprisingly comfortable. The only problem with that is that while he has ability his mind isn’t as quick as Suarez’s and so that big-man/little-man partnership we’ve all been praying for just isn’t coming. Suarez is often several moves ahead in his mind while Carroll is still trying to position himself for a flick on.
With that in mind, we need to look at our best team and use that as the core. Instead of changing our style or line up every week to reflect our opposition, I think that we’d do far better by using our best side and forcing the opposition to adapt to us. If we had a bigger, more talented squad (and don’t get me wrong, we have a pretty decent squad) then I could agree with the ‘tinkering’ more. Under Rafa Benitez, we had a very good squad and his grasp of tactics and the fact his whole squad was so well-drilled meant that the changes he insisted on rarely negatively affected the side but things aren’t quite the same with the current squad.
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This all falls down if Carroll is concerned in proceedings. He has neither the talent nor application to make it in any Liverpool team.
carroll and henderson were just too poor to be a liverpool player..good for bench warmer only..
if that team had been playing most games since the biginning of the league, we would be in 1st or 2nd position in the league for sure.
zone6 you only watch Match of the Day son, Carroll is crap agreed but Henderson has improved massively the last few games, how can you not notice that.
Dirk Kuyt as a holding midfielder? Rubbish. Yes, he tracks back when playing wide, but that doesn’t mean he’s good at defending, just that he’s willing to help the defence.
I actually agree with you on most of what you say though, and the team you picked would be my 11 for the game v QPR, but with Johnson at right back.