It’s that time of the season again where all the money is spent and raked in. It can only be the transfer window. So I’m going to be assessing how Liverpool have been doing in terms of buying and selling along with interest in players.
First Topic Here: The Henderson Buy
I’m personally (still) very split over this transfer that Kenny Dalglish made just around a week ago now. What strikes me as puzzling is the player in which he is buying is in fact a central midfielder, a department that we perhaps need the least amount of backing up/replacing this summer.
Put it this way, come the new season, we’ll have our captain Gerrard back in the squad, we’ll have Raul Meireles, whom is currently still with us, we have the ever improving Lucas Leiva, though he might miss the first one or two games thanks to International Duties, we have Aquilani coming back from a rather impressive loan spell with Juventus and we even have Jay Spearing pulling the strings should injuries become a huge problem.
I personally think that that is definitely more than enough central midfielders, along with more than enough quality to get Liverpool FC through the season pretty well. There are other areas that should be invested more in other areas which require more quality, the left wing and left back being clear examples of this.
Second Topic: Charlie Adam, Do we seriously need him?
Now that we have Henderson with us, I personally still wonder why we are chasing Charlie Adam right now, to me, I even think that signing Connor Wickham as understudy to Carroll and Suarez would be a better deal than this.
As I said before, we have more than enough quality and quantity in the center of the ball park. I am very sure that Kenny Dalglish recognizes it as a very significant role and a huge game changer, but I don’t think that so much weight should be put on the center midfielder postion.
Adam would cost Liverpool FC a minimum of at least 10 million pounds. What he is good at is free kicks (which we don’t need because with have Gerrard and now Suarez taking beautiful free-kicks), passing the ball well (which we have more than enough players whom are more than capable of doing) and that he’s good with the penalty (Kuyt and Gerrard, anyone?).
Third Topic: Addressing the leftback problem
I personally think that the left back spot is definitely the spot which requires the most strengthening. We have Fabio ‘Broken’ Aurelio and Jack Robinson whom are natural leftbacks, with Glen Johnson sometimes swapping to play on the left should there be an injury crisis/issue.
In terms of transfer activity, Liverpool have been interested, however, I think that they haven’t really done anything of too much importance. Sure, they made a bid for Clichy, but may I point out that Arsenal will never sell at that price.
Along with Clichy, they have also been interested in Leighton Baines and Jose Enrique. In my opinion, all decent options, and I don’t mind any of them arriving at Anfield in the summer, simply because they are quality full-backs, all great modern day leftbacks, all being great with moving forward with the ball.
Fourth Topic: Addressing the Wingers problem
Liverpool have Rodriguez, Kuyt and the flops in Joe Cole and Milan Jovanovic as wingers, that’s why I say we definitely need a winger whom can deliver quality crosses and be a livewire throughout the game, someone who doesn’t simply cut in all the time, but one whom can also drag defenders out wide and to deliver a cross for Andy Carroll to head in.
If we don’t get this one player, bringing in Carroll in the first place would have been a huge mistake. Yeah, he’s good with the driven shot, but we need to make use of his biggest asset, and that is DEFINITELY his physical presence along with his heading ability.
Liverpool have been fixated in signing Stewart Downing in the summer, and I personally think that that is in fact a mistake if they indeed do go ahead and sign him over the coming weeks. I’ve seen him play on several occasions and I notice one recurrent thing that he does, which is to ALWAYS knock it past the opponent and to try and get to the ball first. That seems to be the only way he gets past his man.
I think Liverpool need someone more livewire, someone more dangerous, I think that the two best men for the job would be Juan Mata or Adam Johnson. Mata showed his class in the U21 European Championships and it was a joy to watch him go down the wings. Johnson, well, Liverpool fans should know what he’s capable of. He absolutely ripped out defence to shreds last season when we headed down to Eastlands. Although dubbed inconsistent, he could certainly get that consistency through getting more gametime.
Submitted by Two Liverpool Fans
