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Liverpool's win tonight did nothing but highlight for me Roy Hodgson's problem and the extent of the dilemma at my beloved club. Roy started the game with first team squad members Torres, Cole, Rodriguez and increasingly marginalized Ryan Babel sitting in the stands and first team regulars Gerrard, Skrtel and Lucas on the bench. All understandable considering their clash with Chel$kum on Sunday.
The starting lineup included 5 "regulars" - the indomitable Pepe Reina (one of those fantastic signings Rafa never gets credit for), Carragher, Konchesky, Johnson, and Mierles. Regular first team subs Kyrgiakos, Jovanovich, Poulsen and Ngog also started along with fringe players Spearling (21 y.o.) and Shelvey (18 y.o.).
Also on the bench - 20 year olds Martin Hansen (GK), Nathan Eccleston (S), Martin Kelly(D) and 19 year old Danny Wilson (D) - all with a combined total appearances for Liverpool this year of 5...wow, talk about reinforcements!!
This is the first of our problems - no depth. By contrast, City, in their loss to Lech today, started with Given, Lescott, Bridge, Richards, Zabaleta, boyata, SWP, Viera, Milner, A. Johnson and Adebayor with Hart, Kompany, Kolarov, Barry, Silva, Jo and Balotelli on the bench. What!!?? Yep - that was their bench. Throw Gerrard out of the mix and Silva alone is worth more than the rest of our reinforcements. Granted, their next game is against WBA, but you get my point.
To say that Napoli schooled our Reds in the first half was an understatement, taking a well deserved 1-0 lead in the 28' which held up at halftime. Ngog, Mierles and Jovanovich all had decent chances that went wasting.
This is the second problem - none of our first string midfielders are goal scorers. Even Ngog (our top goal scorer this year) couldn't buy his way into a top flight team in any of Europe's major leagues. None of the today's starters looked likely to score. It makes you wonder why we allowed Benayoun to leave for 6M pounds (Rafa's decision). We could have still gotten Cole for free, but I suspect the wage bill was problematic.
Roy had no choice but to call on skipper Steven Gerrard at half time as Liverpool looked like a team without purpose. And it worked. Gerrard's presence immediately upped the Liverpool tempo, embarrassing his team mates to a point where I could only put my head in my hands and ask "why can't they all play with his desire?".
This is our third problem - No on-field leadership without Gerrard. After a determined run by Shelvey that forced a horribly weak back pass from former Liverpool man Andres Dossena, the skipper's lunge barely beat Napoli goalie DeSanctis to put Liverpool level in the 75'.
As stated in Soccernet "Salvatore Aronica's 88th-minute trip on Johnson presented the captain with a penalty to double his tally and he duly obliged. In the directors' box Henry punched the air but he had barely sat down before Gerrard completed his hat-trick and sealed the victory, cleverly dinking the ball over De Sanctis from substitute Lucas Leiva's through-ball."
Great win. It puts Liverpool at the top of Group K. However, the Liverpool faithful should be well and truly worried about the task in front of Roy and newly appointed Director of Football Strategy Damien Comolli. Without Gerrard, the team is completely deplete of purpose. There is no desire, no winning mentality, no aggression, no tempo whatsoever. One has to wonder how Roy will fix this.
I worry that the Chelsea's visit on Sunday will lay bare for the world to see the gulf in talent that exists between Roy's squad and the table toppers. Unless and until Liverpool bring in some seriously determined and experienced players who have a will to win, goal scoring ability and hearts as big as their bank accounts, we're in deep dire straits.
We can only call on Super Skipper Gerrard for so long and hope that Roy is up to the task.
YNWA.
The starting lineup included 5 "regulars" - the indomitable Pepe Reina (one of those fantastic signings Rafa never gets credit for), Carragher, Konchesky, Johnson, and Mierles. Regular first team subs Kyrgiakos, Jovanovich, Poulsen and Ngog also started along with fringe players Spearling (21 y.o.) and Shelvey (18 y.o.).
Also on the bench - 20 year olds Martin Hansen (GK), Nathan Eccleston (S), Martin Kelly(D) and 19 year old Danny Wilson (D) - all with a combined total appearances for Liverpool this year of 5...wow, talk about reinforcements!!
This is the first of our problems - no depth. By contrast, City, in their loss to Lech today, started with Given, Lescott, Bridge, Richards, Zabaleta, boyata, SWP, Viera, Milner, A. Johnson and Adebayor with Hart, Kompany, Kolarov, Barry, Silva, Jo and Balotelli on the bench. What!!?? Yep - that was their bench. Throw Gerrard out of the mix and Silva alone is worth more than the rest of our reinforcements. Granted, their next game is against WBA, but you get my point.
To say that Napoli schooled our Reds in the first half was an understatement, taking a well deserved 1-0 lead in the 28' which held up at halftime. Ngog, Mierles and Jovanovich all had decent chances that went wasting.
This is the second problem - none of our first string midfielders are goal scorers. Even Ngog (our top goal scorer this year) couldn't buy his way into a top flight team in any of Europe's major leagues. None of the today's starters looked likely to score. It makes you wonder why we allowed Benayoun to leave for 6M pounds (Rafa's decision). We could have still gotten Cole for free, but I suspect the wage bill was problematic.
Roy had no choice but to call on skipper Steven Gerrard at half time as Liverpool looked like a team without purpose. And it worked. Gerrard's presence immediately upped the Liverpool tempo, embarrassing his team mates to a point where I could only put my head in my hands and ask "why can't they all play with his desire?".
This is our third problem - No on-field leadership without Gerrard. After a determined run by Shelvey that forced a horribly weak back pass from former Liverpool man Andres Dossena, the skipper's lunge barely beat Napoli goalie DeSanctis to put Liverpool level in the 75'.
As stated in Soccernet "Salvatore Aronica's 88th-minute trip on Johnson presented the captain with a penalty to double his tally and he duly obliged. In the directors' box Henry punched the air but he had barely sat down before Gerrard completed his hat-trick and sealed the victory, cleverly dinking the ball over De Sanctis from substitute Lucas Leiva's through-ball."
Great win. It puts Liverpool at the top of Group K. However, the Liverpool faithful should be well and truly worried about the task in front of Roy and newly appointed Director of Football Strategy Damien Comolli. Without Gerrard, the team is completely deplete of purpose. There is no desire, no winning mentality, no aggression, no tempo whatsoever. One has to wonder how Roy will fix this.
I worry that the Chelsea's visit on Sunday will lay bare for the world to see the gulf in talent that exists between Roy's squad and the table toppers. Unless and until Liverpool bring in some seriously determined and experienced players who have a will to win, goal scoring ability and hearts as big as their bank accounts, we're in deep dire straits.
We can only call on Super Skipper Gerrard for so long and hope that Roy is up to the task.
YNWA.
, if not 
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