Team for Hull

[Marky]

---------------- Reina --------------------

--- Johnson --- Carragher --- Skrtel --- Aurelio

---------- Lucas --------- Gerrard

---- Kuyt --------- Yossi ---------- Babel

--------------- Torres --------------

Mascherano and Riera can get ****ed after their showing last night.

[Craig_H]

Mascherano and Riera can get ****ed after their showing last night.

I'd go with:

Reina
Johnson Skrtel Carragher Insua
Mascherano

Kuyt....... Benayoun Gerrard .......Riera
Torres

Gerrard to link with Torres and Yossi to have a free role to go where he wants. Would be game over by half time.

Mascher in over Lucas purely because, with only one holding midfielder, his whole role would be one of protection, and Mascherano does that better than Lucas.

Keep Riera in for the width.

Alternative option as a 442:

Reina
Johnson Carragher Skrtel Insua
Babel Mascherano Gerrard Benayoun
Kuyt Torres

Babel and Benayoun given licence to come inside if they want to, with the fullbacks overlapping when the opportunity arises.

[fah-q]

Reina
Johnson Skrtel Carragher Insua
Mascherano

Kuyt....... Benayoun Gerrard .......Riera
Torres

Thats a pretty tasty looking line up

[CincyRed]

I could go for either of the first two XIs suggested here. but no matter the side, we dont need both lucas and macher. and after showing some improvement in his recent matches, id like to see babel in from the start. Kuyt, Gerrard, Yossi, and Babel supporting Nando should get us amongst the goals.

[Scratch]

Absolutely no need for Mascherano at home against a side like Hull, play Lucas in the deeper midfield role.

Reira

Johnson
Carragher
Skrtel
Insua

Lucas
Gerrard
Benya...Benay...Benny

Kuyt
Torres
Riera

Subs: Cavalieri, Agger, Aurelio, Mascherano, Babel, N'Gog, A Youngster.

Don't think Babel is ready for 2 games in a row, fitness wise, so i'd leave him on the bench for this one.

[the rev leeroy brown]

reina

johnson carra skrtel aurelio

mash gerard

babel kyut benni

torres

[Craig_H]

Absolutely no need for Mascherano at home against a side like Hull, play Lucas in the deeper midfield role.

I dont think we need TWO holding midfielders, but i wouldnt dispense with the whole notion of a protective midfielder. I'd have one - and Mascherano's the best at it.

[Scratch]

Not this season he hasn't been...Lucas deserves that role on merit at the moment, and is more than capable at tackling and harrying, and is more assured on the ball.

Besides, with Lucas being rested at the weekend, and Mascher having a stinker, i'm pretty certain Lucas will play...hopefully not with Mascher, cos that doesn't work against teams that sit back.

[Craig_H]

I fear they'll both play

I agree that Mascherano's not been very good so far, but overall he's the better option - more tenacious, more energetic, more aggressive etc. And 'form is temporary'...etc.

Not saying you're wrong, just explaining why i'd pick him.

[JohnDoe]

Mascherano is surplus to requirements at home against an inferior side.

Lucas and Gerrard is a decent central midfield partnership which fares better than Lucas-Masch and Gerrard-Masch.

[dww]

I think we have to look to how we want to play more generally rather the selecting a team for the Hull game per se. If we play well then we should beat Hull easily. If we intend to use Mascherano - Lucas as a pairing for big games we need to get the team to gel with them together and this should be a reasonable opportunity to do that.

I would however expect to see a team similar to Burnley as Rafa appears to be taking a pragmatic approach of picking teams for each game and trying to get confidence in the squad. I guess given the shakey nature of some aspects of our defense that is a sensible route to take.

[-V-]

My team-

......................Reina
Johnson.....Skrtle....Carra....Insua
Babel.....Gerrard....Mascher..Yossi
...............Kuyt........Torres

In my opinion this is the perfect game to give Babel his first premier league start on the right wing. Hull are a shambles and that team out there we should score 5 or 6

[memzey]

Isn't Agger available for this one?

[PTP]

hmm there is so many options

I would love to see us be a bit more adventuress and have a go at some of these sides at home - blow them of the park from the first minute, get a couple of goals kill them off.

I do like that first side craig h posted - there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't try something like that - imo well in fact lets be honest, hull will park the bus and have 10 men deep - i really do think we could bomb at them and having mascher sitting in front of the two centre halves - between the three of them, if we were fully commited going forward, any quick break hull might muster will only be one player chasing a long ball - the three should be capable of dealing with it and mascher's pace and tracking back to break down counters is prob his best attribute.

I suspect though we will go back to 4-2-3-1 - with mascher and lucas in the middle and prob gerrard/kuyt/yossi filling the 3 positions behind torres.

I think an early goal as always is vital when we are at home - it would be nice to get a few goals and keep a clean sheet

[kev776]

----------------------------------Reina

----------------Skittles----------------------------Dagger (if fit)


Babbel--------------Benny------Gerrard----------Aurelio---------Riera


----------------Kuyt---------------------------------Ngog

--------------------------------Torres


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