Arbeloa - Most popular for 2007
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Great team work. Torres won the foul, Finnan took the kick, Hyypia got the header assist, and Kuyt
headed it home. It's Kuyt's third CL goal this season and fourth for his career. Cheers.
Liverpool vs. Birmingham Premier League 3pm (10am EST) Saturday, September 22 The Lowdown: After
two consecutive draws and the unfortunate news of Agger and Alonso's injuries (yet another reason
to hate international friendlies), Liverpool look to get back on track against the lowly Blues at
Anfield. Birmingham currently sit 12th, having most recently edged out bottom-dwelling Bolton 1-0
at home.
And the envelop reads...
Reina
Arbeloa
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Riise
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Voronin
Torres
Bench:
Itandje
Kuyt
Benayoun
Babel
Lucas
Still no Babel starting and Lucas on the bench. Interesting. As long as there's no Crouch.
Well, before I get to the actual match, once again Fox Soccer makes themselves look like a bunch of
donkeys. Apparently Torres' extra-time header was the 'game-winner'. I wish, but at least it gave
me a little chuckle, something I need after that pathetic display.
I don't know where to start. Our whole side played pretty poor and the worse part is if we hadn't
been distracted by the stadium intercom announcer, (btw, what was that about?
- Well, at least we'll have Carra. With the Agger injury and Hyypia coming off two full matches in
five days, it was unclear what we were going to do for centre backs come Saturday, but it looks
like Jamie Carragher will definitely start. I assume that Arbeloa will be there along with him. As
for the full backs, it would be great if Aurelio was declared fit and ready, but I doubt it, and I
haven't heard anything in regards to Finnan's condition.
As I sat around with some friends this past Sunday watching some NFL and patiently awaiting the
US-Brazil friendly in Chicago, I got to thinking how Javier Mascherano would make a bad ass
American football player, particularly at running back. He seems to have the perfect low-gravity,
wide, muscular build with powerful tree trunk like legs to propel him forward while carrying a
couple of players with him.
Where to begin? Well, first, that was the worse match I've ever seen Mascherano play. From the
beginning it looked as if he was somewhere else. I'm not sure it was because he rarely plays for us
these days, but his decisions on the ball were atrocious. I was actually surprised to not see him
collect a few yellow cards (Yes, a few).
Pennant was also a joke.
Here it is:
Reina
Aurelio
Hyypia
Carragher
Arbeloa
Riise
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Kuyt
Torres
Subs:
Itandje
Benayoun
Sissoko
Finnan
Voronin
Once again, Rafa isn't messing around. I wonder how Voronin feels about the rotation now and really
don't care how Crouch feels.
I wonder if we'll hear any nonsense about Yossi not starting today as to why we barely pulled this
one off. Probably not, I figure the memory vacuum will take care of all the Rafa rotation bashing.
Anyhow, on to the match.
Wigan should be commended for a well-played, well-executed game plan. We were really lucky to come
away with three points as they were the better side and missed a couple of relatively easy
opportunities in front of the net.
Screw Rafa. He'll probably put out the usual boring, recycled line-up that he usually does, same
players, different names. This post is about what I would do. So here we go.
Let's start up front where I would pair Babel with Kuyt. Babel hasn't played in the last three
games and I'm sure is itching to get back on the pitch. He says he wants the opportunity to play
forward, so let's see what he can do.
Here it is:
Reina
Arbeloa
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Babel
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Kuyt
Torres
Bench:
Itandje
Lucas
Voronin
Benayoun
Aurelio
Agger
Crouch
Looks scarily familiar. Just as a heads up, there's little to no chance I'll be doing a halftime
thoughts post because I'll be at the pub.
Rafa looks to be taking this match quite seriously.
Here's the line-up:
Itandje
Aurelio
Carragher
Arbeloa
Finnan
Leto
Sissoko
Lucas
Benayoun
Crouch
Torres
Subs:
Martin
Gerrard
Riise
Hobbs
Putterill
I'm pretty pumped to see Leto there as well as Lucas and Torres on the same pitch with him.
Well, I missed the first ten minutes of the match, but from what I've seen we're dangerous to
score, well, at least Torres is. If he doesn't score in the second half or at least set up a goal,
I'll be surprised.
As a team we seem to play well in brief stretches, but for the most part look like a bunch of
unfocused eight-year-olds waiting for ice cream.
Here's Yossi phenomenal goal earlier today. The Israeli saved us from another embarassing draw. If
this doesn't work, I'll post another later, because I'm having trouble with this site. Cheers.
Voronin's put-back.
Torres' 'game-winner'. ha.
Before I begin to criticize other's reactions to the match, let me make it clear that with our
horrid performance and the fact that it was away, we really had no right taking a point yesterday.
If it weren't for the performances of Carra, Kuyt, and Finnan, we probably wouldn't have. Babel and
Torres weren't bad either, but other than those five, those were some of the worst efforts I have
ever witnessed from our side.
Whoa, were my fellow Liverpool fans watching the same match I was? I just checked out the Fan's Man
of the Match over at the official site and it had Dirk Kuyt voted first by the fans followed by
Sami Hyypia and Mascherano?! Holy shit on a stick! Are you serious? Do I have unrealistic
expectations of our Argentine midfielder or were you all drunk?
Well, we went from arguably the easiest match to predict so far this season, to quite possibly the
hardest league fixture so far. Wait until our Cup ties start, then it gets next to impossible to
guess what Rafa the Mad Tinkerer will come up with.
There are a lot of outside factors to consider this week, especially at right midfield. It's Yom
Kippur so that may rule out Benayoun.
