Football Special Report: Liverpool and Roy Hodgson; Why have they not shined yet? – Part 2
Roy Hodgson was slammed for playing Cole in the left wing position and substituting him for Raul Meireles, particularly because it was the start of the club matches for Cole.
A day before the match ‘The Reds’ boss did say that Raul Meireles is a much better striker than Lucas but then again are there any better second strikers.
What Hodgson meant to say was that Joe Cole was trying his very best at being in all positions on the field, from centre to the defence, at the back, but this was not what Hodgson wanted from him.
So this left the front position on the field open more times than it should have been and this allowed Nani to take advantage of the left side.
The other wing play experiment was when the team was trying to attack from the centre whilst forgetting the wing play method completely and the commentator clearly pointed this out during the match.
The last time this happened in Liverpool was in Rafa Benitez’s regime.
Tough Initial Fixtures
Liverpool wanted an easy start in the Premier League after such a major change in Anfield and wanted to market a campaign that could ease its way into the Premiership.
What Liverpool actually got was a lot of strong clubs if not the best against them; the names that stand out are Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Birmingham City. Plus they had to do all of this away from the calming
grace of their own home ground of Anfield, while the defending League champions were given a comparatively easier set to battle against.
Birmingham City have been unbeaten for sixteen games now before the Liverpool match and this clearly speaks out for this club that they are far more than just another average team.
Birmingham City managed to keep their defence strong whenever the opposing side caught the ball and even tried to go near the box. But they were always intercepted and this turned out to be a very tireless and effective effort
against Liverpool.
Nonetheless, what cannot be excluded in this argument is that ‘The Reds’ started the match in a very promising manner and they were expected to do a lot better than they actually did. Still Mascherano’s brawl did little to help
in this matter.
Experimental Line Ups, Strategies, Player's Forms and Formations
It is a well known and accepted fact that unless the star and senior most players of the club start delivering results, a lot cannot be expected from the team and right now this is exactly what is going on with ‘The Reds.’
None of the players from Liverpool are doing what is expected from them and some are just straight out of shape and have been inconsistent.
Pepe Reina was great against Birmingham City; Steven Gerrard shined in the match against Manchester United, Torres has only had moments of brilliance every now and then. Torres has only scored one goal so far and that was against
West Bromwich and that’s about it.
In the clubs that are delivering results, they all seem to have players that are in form and always seem to stand out in matches against other teams for example, Malouda and Drogba from Chelsea, Berbatov from Manchester United
and a long list of players from Arsenal.
The other point to be noted here is the lack of goals and even goal scoring opportunities that are being made because of the new experimentation going on by Roy Hodgson.
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