Mascherano To Miss Liege Tie

[El Jefecito]

That’s extremely harsh. If all play has to be orchestrated through Xabi, it’s only natural he’ll lose possession more than most, because he controls the majority of possession. Gerrard was supposed to be playing alongside Xabi, but where was he for 85 minutes? When did you see him take responsibility, come deep, look for the ball and try to make something happen?

Having watched the match first time, I thought Xabi was good in the first half and like you, thought he’d been found out for the second. On second viewing, I noticed that bar Kuyt, not one player was willing to take the ball from the defence and try to pick out the pass. If neither of these two took the ball, we hoofed it aimlessly just for the Boro defence to clean up. Xabi on the other hand kept going, and as I’ve mentioned hit the cross that deflected for Carra’s goal, and hit the cross that was cushioned down for the winner.

I agree but in my mind I see a sequence of games in which Xabi has been pressured and in all he's let us down.

[FatTony]

Quite often we play better as a team when Gerrard isn’t playing, although I’m not denying that we are a much stronger force when he is.

Don't agree, without Gerrard we are normally complete garbage.

[Craig_H]

Mascherano trained normally with the rest of the team, i'm not sure why he cant play for an hour.

[Laz]

He certainly won't be playing because neither he or Lucas were registered for the qualifying rounds due to their participation in the Olympics. Babel was because Rafa must have edged his bets on Holland going out in the earlier rounds.