Well it would be a bit harsh to insinuate that we had fluked our way to three straight victories before today's game but nothing seemed to go right for us at Villa Park today and there was no late drama to secure another win.
The loss of Fernando Torres after 15 or so first half minutes to a hamstring strain (and we hope it's nothing more) forced Rafa to change his game plan which had already been altered pre match by the loss of Steve Gerrard.
Young David Ngog was thrown in at the deep end, given his first competitive outing for the club.
The 19 year old Frenchman acquitted himself well enough and could have scored a spectacular debut goal late in the first half after nice work by Robbie Keane.
Keano himself seemed to play better once moved inside from an unfamiliar left wing position and should have scored in the second half. He was again substituted late on and is still without a goal for the club, it will be playing on his mind now but hopefully it won't be too long.
But aside from Ngog and Keane chances were few and far between and this was yet another below par performance from Liverpool.
Villa we're pretty poor too and it made for a fairly awful game but then none of our games to date this season have been particularly enthralling affairs, save for the late drama against Boro last weekend.
It's clear that the lack of width has become a major issue. Ryan Babel needs to play more. If Javier Mascherano and Lucas could be expected to play 90 minutes today then I don't see why Babel, whose been back from the Olympics longer, couldn't. Instead Lucas was playing left wing after Keane moved inside and looked very uncomfortable.
The idea of full backs bombing foward is nice but Arbeloa and Dossena seem reluctant to do so on a regular basis. They did get forward now and again throughout the game and Dossena put in one or two decent crosses.
But all too often today and in recent games when an opportunity for an overlapping run was on they were stationary and instead the ball was moved inside to a crowded midfield and the attack broke down.
The sooner Albert Riera signs the better but we would be foolish to believe he will answer all our problems.
If we start playing Babel again regularly and maybe go with the formation we finished last season with, sacrificing Keane for the time being, perhaps we will return to the kind of form we showed back then to finish strongly.
I know plenty will disagree with the idea of shoving a £20m forward on to the bench for a few games but I think it's something Rafa should consider so as that the rest of the team can start playing the football we know they can.
The good thing is that unlike last season we haven't raised expectations by playing out of our skins and going top just before the September international break. Instead there are huge questions marks over our ability to challenge for the title when our play seems so limited at present.
Now that does sound a bit mad but Rafa knows the problems we have and he will look to sort them out while the international players go away. When we return, expectations won't be as high in the press as they were after our superb start to last season.
All that said. It's not been a bad start to this campaign by any means. We are second in the league and in to the group stages of the Champions League. So there is an awful lot to be positive about when the Reds return after the World Cup qualifiers.
No comments:
Post a Comment