English Premier League: Detailed Player by Player review for Manchester United versus Liverpool – Part 6
Poulsen, the Danish international midfielder also made the first of his significant starts for Liverpool F.C against Manchester United, in a midfield five, Christian was the least offensive. He was deployed by Roy Hodgson as a
sitter, as a cover for the back four and by the fact that Rooney, Berbatov and Nani got too much time on the ball, you can tell that the former Juventus player was clearly not up to pace. Poulsen was signed earlier on in the summer by Roy when the manager
realized that keeping Javier Mascherano at the club would be impossible.
Poulsen has been seen by Liverpool’s fans as a replacement for the tough tackling Mascherano. The Danish defensive enforcer can be given the benefit of the doubt for his bad performance against Manchester United considering the
fact that these are still early days for him in the English Premier League and admittedly he will take some time to cope with the speed at which games are played at the top level of English football.
Maxi Rodriquez gets the award for being the most atrocious performer of the afternoon, not even Jamie Carragher was as bad as the Argentinean international. Maxi was of little use to the Liverpool side, despite starting 41 games
for Argentina, it still remains unclear as to why Rodriquez is such a flaccid talent when it comes to English football. Maybe he hasn’t got what it takes to succeed with Liverpool but it was hard to even acknowledge his presence on the field in the first half
of the match.
He got no change out of the tough tackling Patrice Evra and failed to track the Frenchman’s runs into his own half. Such a lack of responsiveness was quite upsetting for the Reds, who had expected a much stronger game from Rodriquez.
It would’ve been better if Maxi had stayed home and watched the game on T.V like every football fan because frankly his contribution to the game was zero.
Steen Gerrard played alongside Poulsen and Mereiles in Liverpool’s central midfield, an area where they enjoyed a lot of possession but lacked creativity, creativity which had to come from their captain Steven Gerrard. It wasn’t
a trademark Gerrard performance by any means but recently Steven has been reduced to a shadow of his former self due to the apparent lack of quality that his team mates suffer from.
Roy deployed Gerrard in a traditional midfielder’s role, a position where he was expected to play from box to box but that didn’t happen. In the 2008-2009 season, Benitez used Gerrard in an offensive role just behind Torres. In
that attacking position, both the stars combined to almost give Liverpool their first Premier League title in over 18 years but against Manchester United, out of position and out of form Gerrard still managed to score two goals albeit from set pieces.
He took Liverpool’s penalty kick really well and also showed awareness when he found the gap inside United’s wall to draw his team level. But other than that, he was absent and lacked imagination and ideas to fire up his team.
Putting, Steven Gerrard aside, Liverpool’s attack depended on Joe Cole and Fernando Torres. Both of whom looked like people who played football once upon a time. Body language and movement was all wrong from both of the players,
Joe Cole fell short of the mark with most of his passes, passes which were only short ones for that matter.
Torres on the other hand, looked out of sorts and disinterested in giving a vintage performance. In the 2010-2011 season, Torres has been out of form and after winning the World Cup in South Africa it seemed that the Spanish striker
was ready for a new challenge on foreign shores. However, that didn’t turn out as planned and Torres is still sulking at Merseyside.
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