As Rafa is ever changing the team. A lot of people, myself included would like to see a regular 8 - 10 players who pick themselves, like in the Shankly days. Providing all players are fit - who would be your regular team, starting with Arsenal at the weekend. Pepe Finnan - Jamie - Agger - Arbeloa Babel (questionable) - Alonso - Gerrard - Risse ElNino - Croucher Cant believe Croucher hasnt been given a few more starts with ElNino - Even though they are untested as a partnership, I think they could be very well suited in their style of play. Crouch winning a ball/holding up the play and ElNino with his pace running into space ....
I am going to move this to the Next Match/Last Match forum.You will not get a spanking seems as your new....
welcome aboard mate. As regards the Arsenal game..its tough to call. Depends on how we perform in turkey imo. Hopefully alonso will be back. would like to see yossi gerrard alonso babel kuyt torres No point picking a backline as its pretty much set in stone atm.
Welcome to the boards Bren!!! As redeagle said backline will pretty much pick itself depending on Agger been fit. The lineup above would be the preferred if Alonso is fit otherwise Masche in there. As i mentioned in the striking partnerships thread i would like to see Babel and Torres given a go together up front, Babel played there in the U-21 championships last summer and was lethal
agree with backline call - picks itself at the moment ideally id love to see a midfield like this gerrard xabi masch babel with torres and voronin up front lets just hope there are no more injuries in the champ league...
i think xabi should be eased back in. If he starts there will be alot of pressure on him to produce the goods after a long lay off which is so hard to do, so i wouldnt start him.
Last year when we spanked them 4-1 at home, we went 5 in midfield > with Gerrard playing off Crouch(lone striker) who scored a hatrick. We played two wide men in Pennant and Gonzalez and Alonso and Mascherano in centre midfield. Assume he set up like that so as to stop them passing through us in midfield and the wide men to stop their fullbacks getting forward all the time, Will be interesting to see what he does and if Torres and Alonso are fully fit. Crouch is due a start,but guess we will know a bit more after the Besiktas match.
Where was Arboloa on Saturday? Everyone seems to think back four picks itself but who gets picked at LB then, him or Riise? I'd have Arboloa every time but surprised he wasn't even on the bench against the bitters, seeing as though we didn't have another defender in case of emergency - perhaps he's injured?
I can only assume he was injured, wouldn't have been involved in internationals so if fit he would have been a cast iron cert for starting as he would be fresh as a result of not playing or travelling. If he was given a few days off would have made more sense to do so when everyone else was away from Melwood also I would have thought
Lets hope thats all there scoring done, i believe if we keep fabregas and hleb quite it should be alright
Crouch has to play against Arsenal, they really struggle with high balls remember last season. That jones lad of Sunderland gave them a torrid time against them a few weeks back. Next 2 games are big for Arsenal they have had a really easy run of fixtures until now. They also have without doubt the toughest run of games in December of any of the big teams, if there still top come January I reckon they could be still there in May.
think we certainly need torres up front would like to see him along side either voronin or kuyt, at the moment voronin is dropping back alot and chasing after balls but at times he needs to push up forward a bit more but the pair work well. fingers crossed we see alsono being introduced back into the game tonight and on form for sat, Arsenal's game last night was top we need to match this play and make sure we dont give them the points.
Three points off the arse on sun, draw between them and the mancs the following weekend and we'll see if they have the bottle to match their style. Walk On!!!