dl2009

Enter Roy Hodgeson. Thoroughly decent man who will form an instant connection with the fans. However, Roy doesn't like to rock the boat and goes about his business quietly.

I do know that Rafa and Pako's relationship had been on a downward spiral for about a year prior to Ayesteran leaving the club. A certain Xabi Alonso knocked on the managers door the same day Pako told the players he was leaving and expressed his dismay at the removal of a popular figure...

As you know, for all the likelihood of Wallace & Gromit investing in the squad, we may as well invent a time machine and bring back Barnes, Molby and Kennedy. I absolutely agree that an aggressively pressing team with a high back line is a risk, but a bigger risk is to keep things the same. I'm positive that Johnson, Aurelio, Carra and Agger/Skrtel can maintain a high line with Pepe acting as a sweeper-keeper, as long as the gap between midfield and attack is not as wide as the Mersey and we keep hold of the ball. That for me, means dropping Kuyt, pulling Stevie back and either playing N'gog just off Torres or someone like Pacheco. Of course, the probability of Rafa changing things so radically (or even dropping Dirk) is about the same as Bill & Ted providing January transfer funds.

There's something about Milan Baros in that statement, but I can't find it.

Absolutely, any potential short term benefits (if any?!), must be weighted up against the long term effects of blooding a youngster into the current team. In terms of risk/reward, we're probably at the stage where a fresh face in the team, someone with raw youthful, nervous energy could possibly reignite the flame in some of our senior players.

All it takes is for the existing manager to have a 'new' outlook (or Thunderbird or whatever), rather than getting a new manager. Instead of insisting upon a containment game, he should probably go on the offensive with a high pressing, high back lined, aggressive set up. To achieve this, we may need to draft in one or two of our most promising youngsters to supplant some of our more established, underperforming stars. Does anyone else think that Kacaniklic is ready to be blooded? Pacheco goes without saying.

Playing with effectively 8 primarily defensive players is certainly not helping. I can only assume that the likes of Riera, Babel, Benayoun et al are still carrying injuries.

I think it's widely known at Melwood that there isn't a single member of staff who will offer a dissenting/differing viewpoint once Rafa has decided upon a matter. This is a manifestation of the control Rafa craved exerted when he sacked roughly 11 members of staff last summer.

Rafa?

I see. In that case, sell Sammy Lee and play Owen Brown wide right.

Since the departure of Alonso, one of the biggest problems I've seen (apart from us being s****, like) is the gaps between defence and midfield and midfield and attack. Xabi used to knit everything together very nicely, his work and impact often going unnoticed by the media (until he left...surprise, surprise) and even those within our fan base. I think the only way to remedy that particular problem is to play a 4-1-4-1. That way, we retain the general shape of the team, allow Torres to lead the line - he doesn't play particularly well with partners.. see Aguero and Villa - have a player like Masch sitting in front of our defence to cut out the space between the lines and also have the flexibility to allow both of our fullbacks to push on at the same time when we're in attack. Our wider midfielders could then cut in or make a run into the box with the fullbacks providing width. ----------------Reina Johnson - Carra - Agger - Aurelio -------------- Masch Benyoun/Babel Gerrard - Aquilani - Riera --------------- Torres

Blooding Pacheco, Kacaniklic and Amoo/Ecclestone.

We'd already lost one of our CM's to a red card (and a four match ban) and Lucas had picked up a yellow. Now I'm not his biggest fan, but we couldn't risk him being suspended too, so it was actually a logical substitution to make.