Liverpool's Jay Spearing, foreground right, gets past the tackle of Real Madrid's Rafael van der Vaart, left, during their Champions League second round, second leg, soccer match at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, England, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. AP Photo/Paul Thomas
As further evidenced by their latest result against Villa, a 1-3 home defeat, Liverpool are facing some big problems only two weeks into the 09/10 EPL campaign.
This summer saw the sale of six players, including Xabi Alonso, for all intents and purposes, the heart of their midfield. But they’ve also lost Jermaine Penant and Sami Hypia on free transfers and loaned out two youth players while acquiring only three new faces:
He has tried to go for like-for-like replacements.
Indeed, in Johnson they have a better player filling the right back slot than Arbeloa, but at what cost?
£14,500,000
At least that’s the portion of Rafa’s transfer kitty spent filling the void between Johnson’s price and the fee received from Real for Arbeloa. It’s a ridiculous figure for a Right Back, especially considering the problems they have across the park.
They have no-one to play the wide areas. They use Kuyt to do a job, but he is not a winger, nor a midfielder.
But surely for the £18,000,000 dished out to get Johnson they could have gotten a top-class Right Back and a Right-Mid?
Damien Duff was available from Newcastle, and Tottenham are looking to offload David Bentley, so there were at least two decent options for a Wide-Right player.
At right back, Australia’s own Rhys Williams went down with ‘Boro but he looks a real talent. Admittedly he needs time to develop, but he’s definitely EPL material, maybe even Big 4 calibre.
Time will tell.
Michael Mancienne moved to Wolves but mark my words, he won’t be there long. He is a huge talent and far too good to be battling relegation. Even Lucas Neill on a free transfer could have been an option.
While Johnson probably was the right player, it was the wrong price.
This is the bench they had against Aston Villa in their recent 3-1 loss:
Compared with Man Utd’s bench during their 5-0 slaughtering of Wigan:
Man Utd didn’t even have room for Michael Carrick, Park J.S or Anderson on their bench. That’s the difference between first place and second – strength in depth.
Football is a squad game. It’s no longer Your Best XI vs. My Best XI. Teams play upward of 70 games a season, they’re playing twice a week.
A squad needs to have two players for each position and a few utilities, ala O’Shea, to cover for injuries and suspensions.
Liverpool simply don’t have options on the bench. And if reports are to be believed, a mere £2 million to find replacements.
So in a game when you are 1-3 down, where do the goals come from? They are trying but are unable to offload Voronin, so obviously not from him. Babel is Underachievement personified. N’Gog won’t make the grade either.
There’s no more Peter Crouch or Robbie Keane, so Rafa is left with Torres, Kuyt who is always played out of position and Benayoun, a good bench player but hardly someone you can rely on to score 20 a year.
In midfield they have Gerrard, who is top class, but they’ve sold their playmaker, Xabi Alonso and his replacement comes from Serie A.
It’s a huge transition and one that will take time. That’s not what you want when you’re coming off of a second place finish and looking to break a 20 year barren run.
At the back they have a few decent players: Skrtel, Agger, Carragher and now Johnson, but who else?
Who covers the injuries to those players?
Liverpool will end this season empty handed and maybe we will see a change in manager. Benitez is excellent on the touch line but when it comes to assembling a squad, he’s in the deep end.
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