Christian Benteke

[Vermilion]

I would change any player with someone better.

[gratziani]

I am very happy hes at the club .. I don't get why hes not getting much love I think its because he played for Villa so he cant be any good .. he is perfect for games like last night and he is not always going to play ... I dont think he is our Number 1 striker at this moment in time, but he easily could be or just a very good option.

All that said I will bow down to Carra's superior knowledge .. still if he was to go I would not let him for for a penny less than 25 million all up front otherwise I would be very happy for him to stay at the club for at least 3 years

Same for me i am glad we have something different to rely on.

A proper penalty box striker who scores headers , tap ins , sliders in the corners.

[Nicey]

Same for me i am glad we have something different to rely on.

A proper penalty box striker who scores headers , tap ins , sliders in the corners.

This

[Boogs]

Same for me i am glad we have something different to rely on.

A proper penalty box striker who scores headers , tap ins , sliders in the corners.

A striker should be able to do all of those things as well as scoring one on ones with a keeper or take a defender on and beat them. As I've said Torres, Suarez and Sturridge could do all these things and he should be able to as well.

[gratziani]

Well considering last year we had three strikers that could not do any of them things.

Benteke is an upgrade with six league goals already while our four strikers got 8 between them the whole of last season.

If Sturridge gets fit and takes his place i am happy as Larry with that as well.

[dww]

Overall, I think long term he is a bench option. However, I do think he cold play better for us.

My feeling is that he is missing the easier chances because of a lack of confidence. Part of that comes from being asked to play against his natural game. He does need to move more but at present he is doing the dumb option of that - what is the point of him being on the left wing, middle of the pitch. IMO he should work like Henry in terms of movement - always looking for space but always for space in close to the opposition back line and within the width of the 18 yard box.

I tend to agree with Mattshark that he is useless in buildup play/passing. Unlike him though I think it is the flip side of a strength we are not exploiting. For me Benteke is a player whose natural pass is the 'short assist' - i.e. looking to get a goal scoring chance even if the pass is not a high percentage. This is a rubbish trait deep in the pitch but a good one near the box with a high press. We need him to stay in those positions and have people close. For me one of the things we haven't been doing well is getting any of the attacking midfielders to make the run off Benteke to get his knock downs (at the start of the season Coutinho seemed to be doing this).

[Gray]

can he really be an impact bench player though? I'm not sure.

[Exiled_red]

I think we will be relying on him hugely in the next month or so as it is unlikely that any of the other strikers will be available for a significant period in that time, and we have 7 games in 24 days and he is our only goalscoring threat.

[Rowan]

He gave away the ball rather cheaply a couple of times yesterday and missed another absolute sitter but in the grand scheme of things there was more about his overall game to be satisfied with than not. Some good one touch link up and he created a couple of decent chances for others. Not sure that was exactly the game to provoke getting the knives out

[dww]

can he really be an impact bench player though? I'm not sure.

I think he's been good from the bench for us.

[Vermilion]

Problem is with other players at the mo imo, the lack of goals from elsewhere is strangling us.

[vlahka]

If we had more strikers I'd choose to play him against the lower teams only. The bigger teams have generally better defenders who can absolutely stifle a striker who doesnt move much. This is why teams find players like suarez and sturridge tricky to play. They move, they pull defenders away, their whole purpose is to run with the ball. Benteke most of the times just stays in one area, 2 defenders near him cancelling out anything he does. Plus I dont get the point of having a big strong target man whos supposed to win the ball in the air and pass it back to midfield when he falls over at every push from behind and his ball control is erratic. He's in the area with carrol, balotelli, etc. You dont score lots of goals with players like this. At best you grind out results. But if all you need is 1 goal then thats great. But its extremely hard to keep a score at 1-0.

[Bender]

For all his faults he does know how to score goals
[ame]https://twitter.com/LFCVine/status/682597285386162177[/ame]

[Buzzo]

Feed Big Chris and he will score.

[labourRed]

can he really be an impact bench player though? I'm not sure.

He offers a fine option when going direct. Also, he's a far better finisher than he's been credited with (when being instinctive anyway). He's holding his own better than Carroll and Crouch did when they first came.