Jermaine Pennant

[Sydney Vicious]

its about time Rafa played to our strengths....

Gerrard MUST play in the middle next game, with Xabi.

Nooooooo!!!! Sissoko is invaluable breaking up play, he never stops working, if anyone is to be dropped it probably should be Alonso. He's getting a bit like Redknapp now, bit of a luxury player, spraying his passes around and rewatching them in his head.

Craig

[calvoboy]

Christ - this pennant bashing is all over the various lfc forums. I thought he had a decent game today. He played a cracking cross in for Crouch's knock-down to Kuyt, and played a great ball to Gerrard for his chance at the end of the first half.

We had three or four clear chances today and didn't take one of them - that is why we lost, and it is why we lost the big league games last year. Trying to find scapegoats isn't going to alter that fact.

[thenigemeister]

Would lanyone like to see more of gonzales

[Morph]

Couldn't speak for him myself, why don't you find this lanyone character and ask him?

[kop-al-74]

Worked his socks off.

He was our only outlet for much of the game, ran up and down the line the whole 90 minutes, delivered a peach of a cross for Crouch, and a few others.

Great performance IMO.

No end product.Very frustrating watching him today.

[rnm]

[thenigemeister]

cheeky, aint easy writing, drinkin and lookin after a 2 year old at the same time

[MrMichael]

Would anyone like to see more of gonzales

I would


Personally I though Pennant was quite poor against PSV but wasn't all that bad today (just not great either). TBH I didn't think we were bad today really at all, better luck and finishing and we'd have won that game....

[thenigemeister]

I'd love to see someone actually bust Robben, such a diving little ****!

[blacky]

I would


Personally I though Pennant was quite poor against PSV but wasn't all that bad today (just not great either). TBH I didn't think we were bad today really at all, better luck and finishing and we'd have won that game....

And some better luck and finishing and we could have bet the toffees aswell. Is there a trend here? Great teams make their own luck and have the quality to finish the chances they make

[thenigemeister]

we had better get ourselves sorted out asap, gettin a wee bit embarrasing!

[alunevans]

I thought he was poor today. He's not a player I've ever rated, as anyone I know will tell you, but to be fair he did do well pre season and so I thought maybe I'm wrong about this boy. I'm not sure I was though but time will tell.

Today's performance certainly wasn't one that erases those doubts tho in my view.

[Dhav]

I was worried about signing him as well, but he won me over with his pre-season form. He's gives us something we haven;t had in a very long time, an out-and-out winger who can get to the byline and can get crosses in the box.

Still would love to get Alves in, who having seen him in the EUropean Super CUp looks absolutely awesome, but I'm confident Pennant can do a very good job for us in the meantime.

[The Glove]

He also made one great pass to Stevie in the first half, with Stevie opting to shoot instead of passing to Bellers or Kuyt. That should also have resulted in a goal. Not bad providing two goalscoring opportunities in a match like that isn't it ?

So two half decent balls in 90 mins with 35-40 mins against 10 men is ok? Pennant was terrible today. His performance can not be justified. He had so much time and space for so long and did nothing with it. Infact he probably had so much time and space because Chelsea knew he wasnt going to do **** all with it. He obviously has skill but its no good beating a player if you are going to do **** all with it.

[alunevans]

I think, if Pennant is going to play then Crouch has to play, he doesn't seem to be able to find Kuyt or Bellamy.

Aurelio should only play on the left midfield or as a wingback in a 3-5-2 formation.

Gerrard should play on the right if Crouch is not playing or if we are not playing 3-5-2.

I think 3-5-2 with Kuyt and Bellamy up top is THE way to get our best eleven on the pitch:

Pepe
Agger, Carra, Sami
Finnan, Alonso,Gerrard,Sissoko,Aurelio
Bellamy, Kuyt.

Sadly I think with our current squad then you're probably right with the 3-5-2 thing. But I don't think you'd be saying that if you were convinced by the preseason purchases, given that both Gonzales and Pennant have been bought.

Personally I'm looking at the same flaws in the squad that we had last season. No quality left back cover. No quality left winger. No quality right sided player. And nobody up front who is scoring goals.

I do realise too that its probably too soon to make such judgements but my early feel on the new signings isn't that positive, though I like Kuyt's workrate and we'll see how he goes.

I wonder though whether Rafa's signings may turn out to be his fatal flaw.

Few players he's brought in have really convinced me. Agger and Xabi and Momo but who else so far?