Thiago Alcantara

[Slinky Skills]

I think we're capable of scoring some long rangers but you never see our midfielders **** the ball at all, with any conviction anyway.

[Big-Red-Ed]

Lampard was more a late run into the box finisher. Scholes was the man for a shot from distance.

YNWA

[banditos]

Fab scored a couple belters from well outside the box last season. Take him out of midfield and agree, very little threat fro distance.

[Peter_Griffin]

You’d expect Thiago to have a good shot on him but he normally looks for the pass

[Big-Red-Ed]

There does seem to be a trend to almost walk it into the net at times. Not just by us by every team. I wonder why?

YNWA

[Tribute]

There does seem to be a trend to almost walk it into the net at times. Not just by us by every team. I wonder why?

YNWA

If I'm facing Pickford or Schmeichel I'm having a pop early doors from 25 yards to sting his hands... see if he's up for it or not. That was always the way my footballing coach told us to play...

Might be too old school for these tika-taka passing teams today, but a good thunderbolt straight at the keeper in the first 5 mins tends to wake up the whole team...

I'd tell Fab to let rip from 30 yards at the first opportunity, imagine what a bolt from the blue goal would do for confidence early doors tonight.

[kubrickscube]

We miss the sheer number of outside the box goals Coutinho gave us.

[BG1973]

Think his stunning long range ability was replaced with goals from elsewhere though.

We do miss his free kicks though. We're pretty ****e in that dept now.

[Frog83]

When was the last goal we scored from a free kick? and by scored I'm referring to the free kick taker not via head/foot of another player.

We definitely seem piss poor in that department. Trent appears to be the main man for free kicks but I'm not sure he's any good. Would prefer to let someone like Shaqiri/Thiago/Jota have a go instead.

[Myo]

We miss the sheer number of outside the box goals Coutinho gave us.

[Exiled_red]

It seems quite telling that Thiago didn't start either of the quarter final games, you would think that these are the type of games that we would have expected him to shine in.

[danperkins]

Yeah was talking about this earlier. Two of the biggest games of the seasons and he is on the bench & when he does come on, much like this season... he has little or no effect.

[Buzzo]

He definitely gets away with more average games than anyone else.

I’d like to see Ox given a run, and more than one game because he looks to make things happen and more importantly looks to take a shot on. It must be very frustrating to be watching am I creative midfield when you know you could contribute.

But he needs more than ten minutes and then being written off as ****.

[Mark79]

Is Ox even physically capable of a run of games? Even last season he always needed subbed off around the hour mark and he’s had another knee injury since then.

[Buzzo]

Is Ox even physically capable of a run of games? Even last season he always needed subbed off around the hour mark and he’s had another knee injury since then.

No idea, I hope so. It would be great to see if he could contribute a bit more, just because he has some unique attributes and scored, I think 8 times last season. I thought he looked lively last night. I think he is so starved of playing time that he perhaps looks to force things too much when he does get on. Giving him a start would be a vote of confidence.