Manu broke a Premier League record last night for the most consecutive number of minutes played without conceding a goal. Pretty impressive when you consider their defence and midfield. Ferdinand has been missing a fair few games, and although they have Vidic, i'd hardly class Evans or O'Shea as world class. Evra is better going forward than he is at getting back and they don't really play with an out and out defensive midfielder ala Mascherano. Carrick can does a similar job there, but he's a very important distributor of the ball, whereas Mash is there for us purely to defend. Van der Sar is a god keeper, but not as good as Reina. So how do they have such a good defensive record when they seem to focus so much on attacking? Well, isn't that the answer? To attack more? Isn't offence the best form of defence, as they say? It's hard to score against an opponent who is relentlessly knocking at your door. You constantly have one eye on defending in sheer fear of conceding a goal.
We have a more defensive attitude and line up than Manu, and certainly a more defensive and cautious coach in Rafa. We have a solid back four (apart from LB) and we almost always have a purely defensive mid or two sat in front of the back four helping them out. Kuyt gets a lot of game time as he is just as good running backwards as he is forwards. Even Babel seems more defensively minded now, in that he seems more aware of tracking back. Gerrard is great at playing AM but he can also do some very valuable defending, as can and does Alonso. It's all very well having **** loads of possession if you actually do something with it, but we constantly seem to fanny about and take numerous passes sideways or backwards before we manage to get to a genuinely threatening position. How many out and out attacking players do we have? Do we really need to be that defensively minded? It's difficult to get our wide men to really attack, as they are hardly world class. Riera has done a good job, but will never really set the world alight. Kuyt is average at best, so he may as well spend more time tracking back. With more attacking and skillful wide players, it would be easier to attack and more fruitful too. It makes me wonder whether Rafa knows this and so rather than really committing to attacking, he tends to err on the side of caution as Kuyt and Riera, well, they can't really attack that well. But then he shouldn't have bought them.
With regards to Babel, I feel he was a better player last season than this, as Rafa has more than likely worked on his defensive responsibilities. He seems to be that type of coach. He just loves hard working players who will die for the cause and run their hearts out to prevent us conceding a goal, and hopefully somewhere along the line, maybe just possibly score one. Our defence seems to have always been the priority with Rafa, and he has always had it pretty much sorted, but the final third has always seemed to have eluded him. I actually thought after the battering of Bolton and Newcastle that maybe Rafa had finally got us to click in the final third, but after the last few displays against an admittedly well organised side, it would appear that he has not. We created very little. Apart from the telepathic link between Gerrard and Torres, there is little cutting edge, creativity, guile and few players who can really make that one killer pass or take a couple of men on and score or set up a sitter. The players that tend to give you these qualities are often more of a liability defensively, which Rafa does not like.
Whether it's down to Rafa buying the wrong sort of players (Kuyt, Riera) or the fact that he simply can't coach them to have the same sort of style of play or understanding that the Manu or Arsenal players have is up for debate. Personally, I think it's both. As long as we remain this way, it will always be a struggle to win the league. I'm not saying we won't, but it would be much easier if we had more balance. Attack, attack, attack attack attack...
We have a more defensive attitude and line up than Manu, and certainly a more defensive and cautious coach in Rafa. We have a solid back four (apart from LB) and we almost always have a purely defensive mid or two sat in front of the back four helping them out. Kuyt gets a lot of game time as he is just as good running backwards as he is forwards. Even Babel seems more defensively minded now, in that he seems more aware of tracking back. Gerrard is great at playing AM but he can also do some very valuable defending, as can and does Alonso. It's all very well having **** loads of possession if you actually do something with it, but we constantly seem to fanny about and take numerous passes sideways or backwards before we manage to get to a genuinely threatening position. How many out and out attacking players do we have? Do we really need to be that defensively minded? It's difficult to get our wide men to really attack, as they are hardly world class. Riera has done a good job, but will never really set the world alight. Kuyt is average at best, so he may as well spend more time tracking back. With more attacking and skillful wide players, it would be easier to attack and more fruitful too. It makes me wonder whether Rafa knows this and so rather than really committing to attacking, he tends to err on the side of caution as Kuyt and Riera, well, they can't really attack that well. But then he shouldn't have bought them.
With regards to Babel, I feel he was a better player last season than this, as Rafa has more than likely worked on his defensive responsibilities. He seems to be that type of coach. He just loves hard working players who will die for the cause and run their hearts out to prevent us conceding a goal, and hopefully somewhere along the line, maybe just possibly score one. Our defence seems to have always been the priority with Rafa, and he has always had it pretty much sorted, but the final third has always seemed to have eluded him. I actually thought after the battering of Bolton and Newcastle that maybe Rafa had finally got us to click in the final third, but after the last few displays against an admittedly well organised side, it would appear that he has not. We created very little. Apart from the telepathic link between Gerrard and Torres, there is little cutting edge, creativity, guile and few players who can really make that one killer pass or take a couple of men on and score or set up a sitter. The players that tend to give you these qualities are often more of a liability defensively, which Rafa does not like.
Whether it's down to Rafa buying the wrong sort of players (Kuyt, Riera) or the fact that he simply can't coach them to have the same sort of style of play or understanding that the Manu or Arsenal players have is up for debate. Personally, I think it's both. As long as we remain this way, it will always be a struggle to win the league. I'm not saying we won't, but it would be much easier if we had more balance. Attack, attack, attack attack attack...
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