'Praise for Mascherano' thread

[Redlife]

I actually feel better knowing that.


Bloody hell, that's good business. Even if it doesn't work out, I'm sure his selling-on price will be higher than that.

[Joe Le Toff]

You can't use the fact he's not played much football since September as an excuse. Remember when Xabi broke his ankle and was out for a few months, his first match back was against Juventus - and he was the best man on the pitch even though he'd not played for a few months and was returning from a serious injury.

Yes he put in some good tackles today, but his performance today was on par with the few performances he put in at West Ham. He is not as good as people think. He can't dictate games like Gerrard and Alonso do. His performances weren't even that great in the World Cup either. But given time, he may become a better a player. But at the age of 22, Alonso was a far better player than him.

No offence mate, but thats garbage.
I would seriously doubt that Rafa signed Mascherano to dictate games as you say, like Gerrard or Alonso.
He's been bought as a holding player, to break up attacks and generally upset our opponents rythmn. The fact that he does that and has more about him in terms of general play looks at this early stage that we may have quite a player on our hands.
We seem to finally have a successor to Didi, which IMO we should be shouting from the rooftops about. I never saw Didi or Makalele who plays a similar role, dictate a game from the areas of the pitch where they operate, and if Mascherano was bought for that purpose then i'll eat my hat.

[k-kopite]

After a rusty start he got better, and in the second half he was class. There's more to come from him. The one thing he should change from his game though, is the blue shoes.

[einar]

Just to make it clear.

Rafa has talked about Xabi and Mascherano as holding midfielders and Momo playing further up the field.
So Momo is not under threat from Mascherano and we should see them play together just as we have Xabi and Momo.

And IMO we are being linked with someone like Kallström so we have an option instead of Momo and we never have to play Steve in the middle again.

[Morph]

Rumour is that we either paid 1.8m or 10m and have signed him on an 18month contract. Somewhere in the middle is for sure. He IS ours though.

We paid 1.5mil for the 18 month contract, and then we have the option of paying a sum in the region of 10mil if we want to keep him after that time.

[Joe Le Toff]

Just to make it clear.

Rafa has talked about Xabi and Mascherano as holding midfielders and Momo playing further up the field.
So Momo is not under threat from Mascherano and we should see them play together just as we have Xabi and Momo.

And IMO we are being linked with someone like Kallström so we have an option instead of Momo and we never have to play Steve in the middle again.

[Diego]

on the contrary i think mash can give momo and xabi competition for places, as when we are playing only with 2 midfielders i recon mash and gerrard will be the best pair, we all know how the gerrard alonso partnership is, and as well when gerrard and sissoko play to gether gerrard doesn't attack enough. mash looks like hamman and allows gerrard to play his game, he sits back tackles wins the ball and gets it to gerrard and he doesn't push upfield that much like sissoko...

having said that, i want to see a game where thay all play at once

[BrooklynRed]

on the contrary i think mash can give momo and xabi competition for places, as when we are playing only with 2 midfielders i recon mash and gerrard will be the best pair, we all know how the gerrard alonso partnership is, and as well when gerrard and sissoko play to gether gerrard doesn't attack enough. mash looks like hamman and allows gerrard to play his game, he sits back tackles wins the ball and gets it to gerrard and he doesn't push upfield that much like sissoko...

having said that, i want to see a game where thay all play at once

[einar]

on the contrary i think mash can give momo and xabi competition for places, as when we are playing only with 2 midfielders i recon mash and gerrard will be the best pair, we all know how the gerrard alonso partnership is, and as well when gerrard and sissoko play to gether gerrard doesn't attack enough. mash looks like hamman and allows gerrard to play his game, he sits back tackles wins the ball and gets it to gerrard and he doesn't push upfield that much like sissoko...

having said that, i want to see a game where thay all play at once

Well, this really brings the question: will Gerrard play in a two man midfield?

I dont think that is Rafas plan for him and if so IMHO Xabi and Mascherano are holding and Momo and a new one ( Kallström perhaps ) break up play further up the pitch. If however Gerrard is gonna be one of our four midfield players we will IMO see allot of Gerrard and Mascherano together and almost never Mascherano and Xabi.

[rushscored4]

I thought Mascherano was superb yesterday. He took 10 - 15 minutes to get involved but once he'd adjusted to the pace he was excellent and allowed Gerrard to power forward more. Stevie once again got the MOM award but he should have given the champagne to Javier because he covered the back four and mopped up everything.

To me he's a more mobile version of Makelele and can distribute the ball better. Once he's adapted fully to the demands of the Premiership I think he will be a superb signing and I can honestly see him displacing Alonso from the team. Is it just a coincidence that the stories in the papers about Barca and Real being interested in Xabi started after Javier got his clearance to play for us?