Peter hopes that Liverpool and Rafa Benitez do follow some of Chelsea’s lead.
For every Xabi Alonso, Dirk Kuyt or Luis Garcia that Rafa Benitez has brought to Liverpool there seems to be a Josemi, Antonio Nunez or Boudewijn Zenden.
Admittedly, managers have differing success in the transfer market and it’s always more dangerous bringing players from abroad who are not acclimatised to the pace of the Premiership so it’s expected that there’ll be an element of hit and miss. But come on Rafa, sort it out. Now it appears that Zenden’s time at Liverpool is coming to an end, another player of his “caliber” is coming to fill his boots. Benitez does like a bargain, and Voronin is coming on a free, much like Zenden 2 seasons ago but I really don’t see where he will play, if he plays at all that is.
With Liverpool’s new, sizable, transfer kitty on the way I’m sure we’ll invest in a striker of the quality of a David Villa or Fernando Torres which will leave Crouch , Kuyt and Bellamy to complete the 4 striker quota that all big teams have. So where does that leave Voronin? I’ve seen the guy play and to be frank he’s distinctly average, as is his goalscoring record.
Do we really have to fill our squad with average players just because they’re free?
The result at Stamford Bridge showed that some of our squad players lack the quality needed to achieve the success a club like Liverpool should expect. It was so disappointing to see such a limp performance by Liverpool on Wednesday that by the end of it I was happy we had only lost 1-0. This was the same team that fought and scrapped against Barcelona, the reigning Champions, to get through to the next round. And now that they’re within touching distance they decide to play like a bunch of idiots who have hardly kicked a ball before.
The simple fact is that while, admittedly, Zenden for free isn’t bad but there’s no way we should be looking to him as an option for the starting eleven in possibly the most important game of the season. Watford, a home, then sure. I understand that Steve Finnan is injured and that had he been fit Zenden would not have started the match but I don’t understand why someone else wasn’t deployed. We spent 8 million for Jermaine Pennant in the summer to have a winger, and even though Zenden was on the left, Benitez could have put Gerrard on the left like he did for the league game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. He could have played Hyypia at centre back and Agger at left back if he wanted to keep it tight at the back. He could have played Gonzalez who, while a bit of a risk defensively, is infinitely better than Zenden going forward. I also don’t see the point of playing two holding midfielders if you’re not going to be a little more adventurous on the wings.
I know, I know, I haven’t won any Champions League medals as a manager and neither have I won any La Liga titles but I can tell when I see an under performing team, especially in probably our most important game of the season. If we’d gotten battered at Stamford Bridge, which almost happened, we would not have anything left to play for. I don’t fancy our chances of beating Chelsea by two clear goals, there’s only so much the Anfield crowd can do.