Our defensive options: A review

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Daniel Agger’s latest injury certainly won’t help and neither will Martin Skrtel causing the fans to have their hearts in their collective mouth every time the ball comes near him. At half-time on Saturday, a win against Wolves looked a formality. Liverpool were 2 goals up and deservedly cruising. Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez were starting to click and all was well. Not for long. A Steven Fletcher goal in the 49th minute made for a nervy second-half for Liverpool. We did manage to get the win, but on another day we might not have.

So, what could Kenny do to tighten it up at the back? Steve Clarke is one of the best coaches around and was part of Mourinho’s Chelsea who were known for their rigid unit, so the training methods are unlikely to be the root of the problem. It must be something else. Now, this is just a shot in the dark but I think there might be something in this: The likes of Skrtel are not good enough to play the amount of games they do.

Controversial? No, I didn’t think so.

“But what about Jamie Carragher?” I see you tweet. “He’s too old, too slow and just hoofs it” What would you do? Drop him and play Skrtel and Seba Coates together for a month? Disaster waiting to happen. Carragher has forgotten more about defending than Skrtel has ever known. He is the leader in that defence, he hates conceding and demands concentration at all times from whoever else plays alongside him, you only have to watch his reaction to Spearing after his mistake lead to the penalty in Brighton. That was a Carling Cup match that we looked to have wrapped up. The man HATES deficiency in his back-line, so much so that his anger warrants capital letters.

Lets imagine Agger is out injured until the end of the season, because as classy a defender as he is, he can’t string 10 matches together without breaking, tearing, bruising or stretching something. Is Carragher alongside Skrtel, Coates or Danny Wilson going to be enough? No.

In my humble opinion, Kenny needs to invest in January. Skrtel just isn’t good enough and should be sold. We need another leader in that defence to keep some authority at the back when Carragher does eventually start to get phased out. I know this name gets banded around a lot but I genuinely believe he would be perfect for the situation, and that man is: Christopher Samba. He’s a leader; he’s 27 so he is at a good age and hardly long term so he won’t halt Coates and Wilson’s progression.

I don’t think Coates is ready to be thrown in as a regular starter yet. He’s in a similar situation to Lucas, coming straight from South America having made a bit of a name for himself as one of the brightest talents in that that part of the world. Seba’s performances in the Copa America earned him rave reviews; one journalist went as far as saying he is “twice the player of Phil Jones”.  High praise indeed. But I think he needs to be eased in to European and more specifically, English football. Next season he may well be a regular starter, and a darn good one at that. But it’s only early days for him yet.

Danny Wilson is in more or less the same boat albeit with more experience of European football. Arriving from Rangers last season with a pedigree as one of the brightest talents in the UK, he seems to have slipped under the radar. I personally think he will be a very good player but he just doesn’t get any games. Bit of a funny one, Danny Wilson.

Anyway. That’s about enough of me playing Football Manager. Over to you; what do you think? IS Carragher too old? Should Kenny persist with Skrtel? Let me know in the comments or Twit me @DanRobinson23.

By Daniel Robinson  http://releasethekrakenlfc.blogspot.com/ 

17 Comments

  1. Please God Shake Don’t include him in starting 11. He is a real Donkey. Whenever, He is chasing the ball everyone start fearing any stupid foul and plenty. He is the weakest part of Liverpool team. A real donkey. Brainless player. Don’t know about his positioning and flow of game. Try quote instead. He is far better to him.

  2. Agree with most of this article, Agger is injury prone and for me, Wilson and Skrtel are never going to be top notch although i applaud Skrtel’s effort and commitment. Coates will hopefully come good but i don’t expect it to happen overnight. My one other idea is maybe play Enrique as a makeshift centreback, it may be a solution that works. Anyway the defence needs addressing asap.

  3. I think Samba and Cahill would make an ideal partnership then once Samba goes Coates can take his place. The problem with wilson is he is not quick he is smallish and skinny not an ideal Premier league cb at all

  4. we can not play Enrique as a centre back we have gone seasons without a genuine healthy lb now would not be a good time to move him. if anyone was to play cb it would have to be Kelly he is after all naturally a cb and in a few years if we do not buy one he will be our cb

  5. I think we should go for Andy Carroll in central defence for a couple of Carling Cup games. No really, I’m serious. He’s big strong, doesn’t have great movement that ideally you’d needs as a striker. He may even be the kind of Daniel Agger “bring the ball out from the back” kind of centre back we need. Carragher and Carroll this year, Coates and Carroll for years in the future. I think there is some merit to that

    1. That’s actually not a bad shout!
      He’s got the height and aerial dominance, maybe he will play better with the play in front of him but has he got the pace against nippy, tricky little players?

    2. Would you believe if i told you that i was actually willing to write an article on that..but backed out because i thought id get a lot of stick for it.
      But its a bit unrealistic too..Kenny would also come under scrutiny for playing a 35m forward at CB.
      Its really not that simple.

  6. as long as we have an irresponsible trio who CANNOT defend and will not for whatever reason namely Adam, Henderson and Downing we will continue to concede goals. Sktel is doing just fine. Even messi does defensive shift and duty, also ashley young knows this and does it in his new team, we are pampering new english boys who have yet to improve us significantly. Pity!

  7. Too all those who forgot it was Skrtel who was the mainstay of that tight defence in the last half of the previous season. Carragher is making far too many mistakes and whats worse he shouts at his fellow defenders when they make a mistake but he should look at himself as he is the one that is making the most of late. I believe once Johnson is back he goes to RB move Kelly to partner Skrtel at CB as this is Kelly’s proper position. Coates to fill in for either of those if we have anymore setbacks. Simply put for all the shouting and screaming Carragher does HE is the reason we concede so many goals at the moment. He is too slow and his challenges are just so rash. Time to ease him out and move him on into a coaching position.

  8. Too all those who forgot it was Skrtel who was the mainstay of that tight defence in the last half of the previous season. Carragher is making far too many mistakes and whats worse he shouts at his fellow defenders when they make a mistake but he should look at himself as he is the one that is making the most of late. I believe once Johnson is back he goes to RB move Kelly to partner Skrtel at CB as this is Kelly’s proper position. Coates to fill in for either of those if we have anymore setbacks. Simply put for all the shouting and screaming Carragher does HE is the reason we concede so many goals at the moment. He is too slow and his challenges are just so rash. Time to ease him out and move him on into a coaching position.

    stan u are rite

  9. Yeah we are not as watertight at the back as we used to be in the past. Lets get some proven talent in January and sure it up, also agree with the comment above about Kelly being a good shout for a CB in a few years time. The lad’s just class.

    Also the comment branding Skrtel as a donkey is an absolute disgrace. The lad has played his heart out for us over the years and I respect him for that.

  10. Clearance and misspass that’s our problem, just let skrtel play alongside the juniors like wilson or coates. It will improve his leadership ability. However keen and clarke know the best.

  11. The solutions are already there for us to explore. We need to stop misplaying Kelly and help him develop into the world class CB he’ll be. Neither should we play GJ out of position as that might be contributing to his injury record.

    For Johnson, if we have to keep deploying him on the right, why not use him as a pure right winger and solve that problem position once and for all?

    We need a specialist right back, just like we got Enrique. We also need to start giving the likes of Wilson and Coates good runs to build their confidence. If not, let’s loan them out (I have Wilson, Spearing, Shelvey in mind as they are an integral part of our future).

    I’ve similarly observed Carragher’s famed shouting. While many equate it to passion, I wonder what it does to the egos around him. He’s hardly perfect, having been at fault for at least two unnecessary goals this season (Bolton being the one I readily remember). I’m not talking of perfection, but just more of encouragement. We do need fire in the team, coupled with real leadership, but we also need to do more helping out.

    PS: On a side note, I looked at Man U play Stoke on Saturday and Chelsea play Valencia yesterday. Even despite his goal, Lampard to me, is in the same boat as Carragher, Terry, Rio and a bit of Gerrard in that their respective clubs need to think of gradually replacing these players with younger ones. That doesn’t make a player useless. Hyypia was an impact player at Leverkusen despite being older than Carra. It might be time to start embracing the future now and allow early mistakes for our future XI.

    Skrtel for me should be a backup defender.

  12. Thanks for the comments, guys.

    Maybe I was a bit harsh on Skrtel after my frustration at his performance V Spurs. However, I still maintain my opinion that he is not good enough to play the amount of games he does. Most games he is worrying to watch out of fear that he will make a mistake.

    It’s nice to see different opinions on the matter and a good discussion.

  13. I think wiv Carragher he shouldn’t be playing all matches but at the moment we don’t to have a commanding centre half as him Carragher is old yes that’s why our back four plays too deep and we always allow the opposition to take the game to us and put us under pressure.In my humble opinion he’s the best for now he reads the game well and clears his line but pace has deserted him,if Daniel Agger was fit I would have prefered him starting together wiv Skrtel or Coates but we can’t take such risk for now as Daniel Aggger is too injury prone..Samba would be ideal for us as he possesses the leadership qualities and would organise his back four quite well remember Tottenham almost got him in the summer window maybe we should tender a bid for him in January.Danny Wilson isn’t good enough wiv the financial resources available and the owners quest to back KK we should be splashing the cash on established talents with Samba he’s tall,has a vision for goal,he’s versatile he could play centre forward remember the days of Allarydice Samba was deployed as a Centre Forward and he scores goals although if we acquire him we might be playing him as a Centre Half and for tactical reasons if we need a need in the dieing minutes of the game we can throw him forward watch how Barcelona deploys Gerrad Pique(Centre half) as a striker when they need goals..Imagine our back line of Samba+Coates+Enrique+Glen Johnson we will be invincible.

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