In praise of Skrtel

[rage]

Almost all of out players have been below par so far this season, but Skrtel has stood out to me. He's dominant in the air and brings a lot of Hyypia's arial ability to the back four. Positionally he is very good and he can stick to an attacker like glue. An inspired purchase and whoever scouts our CBs needs a pay rise. We talk so little about him, except in 'comedy' terms but he really is a great asset, up there with the best in the league imo. Obviously you have to give a player time to settle before judging him one way or the other, but it took him 1 or 2 games to settle and he's been top class since. I think now is the time to settle on the fact that we have a potentially great CB in our squad in the shape of the big Slovakian.

The obvious 'problem' we have is having Agger, who is a refined and footballing CB, and Carra competing for places. Rotating at CB is a bad idea imo so we need to settle on 2 asap. For me, it's Skrtel + one other, depending on the opposition.

http://z.about.com/d/worldsoccer/1/0...tin-skrtel.jpg

couldn't agree more. excellent signing and i thought it was telling that dogba scored last year after this lad went off injured.

i think either carra will move to rightback or we'll play a rafa version of 352. a formation that i think suits us better than 442.