Is Pace the Key?

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By Karam Raj

I think it’s pretty clear that our main objective is to find a couple of proper wingers(its about time) who could whip those balls in for the likes of Carroll & Suarez to feed upon.
But then i hear the names of Stewart downing & Florent Malouda being associated with our club and i feel a little betrayed.

Going through the squads of some top sides in world football at this moment,i don’t think we could go against the fact that Pace & Speed on the flanks is a must.Yes,pace isn’t everything,but it does give you a massive edge.

-Barcelona,arguably the best football side in the world right now,possess Messi,Villa & Pedro..do i need to say anything more?
-Man utd. Have Nani & Valencia.
-Real Madrid got Di maria,Ronaldo etc
-Chelsea play the diamond system,their strikers usually  take up the advance positions on the flanks,namely Anelka,Kalou/Drogba,Torres.
-Even Spurs got Bale & Lennon but they miss out due to their misfiring strikers.
Coming back to our club,with the current crop of players that we have,none of them are fit to be termed as proper wingers..We were all talking & raving about how Babel would succeed 3 years ago because he did have the electric Pace as well as the Trickery to go with it..Now that’s what you call a winger..Its just sad it didnt work out for him.

Stewart Downing & Florent Malouda may have godly left foots,but i think we need more than just that..You got it,Pace.

I’ll say it again,pace alone cannot do the trick..Take Mark Gonzalez for instance,He used to go off like a cannon,but could he succeed at our club? No,because speed was the only weapon he had in his armory.
Milan Jovanovic is another example.

To be honest id rather have the likes of Arda turan,Gervinho,Hazard,Young or Johnson.
A couple of such wingers are bound to have a bigger impact than players like Downing & Malouda.

 

14 Comments

  1. King Kenny is a better judge of a player than you or me or 90% of the football community .. put together.

    Please dis-regard rumours and keep faith in our king

  2. I beg to differ. While barca’s attacking trio are deadly, they are not the fastest players in the league. Messi isn’t pacey but he can dribble, villa works very hard kinda like kuyt does for us. We saw last season that suarez, while not so fast can get by his marker with ease. I’d go for hard working, creative right/left midfielders than pacey wingers any day. Barca don’t put in a lot of crosses yet they are the best team in the world. I think henderson and charlie adams on the flanks will be better than pacey wingers who ONLY put in crosses. The liverpool way is not about the number of crosses but passing accurately and opening the opposition’s defense like barca does. YNWA

    1. I know where you’re coming from..but i think ive written it twice that pace is only one attribute that i would love to have in a player because quite frankly,we really dont have much pace in our squad do we? Apart from Suarez,i dont think there is who can sprint that fast.
      Just think about it this way..Suarez has been performing exceptionally well whenever hes on the flank going one-on-one with a defender..we usually see him winning the battle because of his trickery and pace,if one such player can make such a huge impact over the fortunes of a club,just imagine what we could achieve with some more certified talent like this!

    2. Barca has 3 people attacking the goal Messi,Pedro n Villa. They but they down have wingers that run on the wings and sole purpose is to put in crosses they use their full backs for that ie Dani Alves. I think we should play like that since we have a very good attacking fullback in Glen Johnson who can also put in crosses all we need is a Left back who can cross and isnt afraid to go foward…. then we can play 4-3-3 like Barca

      GJ====Agger===Carra===New LB
      ===========Lucas============
      ======Gerrad====Raul/Hendo==
      ===Suarez===Carroll===Kyut==

      tho i feel that carroll would’nt really suit this formation… This would be the cheapest option as we only need 1 new LB and maybe another CB but compared to buying 2 new wingers(15m-25m each) this would be way cheaper…

  3. Go back to the 80s and see if we had any pacey wings like Ronaldo/Messi etc. Kennedy, houghton, Barnes had decent pace but much more that to their game.
    I do believe like Q that we must trust in KK’s judgement and try not to be the experts here.

  4. King Kenny brought in Barnes, Beardsley and Aldridge, Hughton and even brought back Rush. These players were all fast when they had a smell of the goal and could put the ball in the back of the net quicker than it took me to write this post. KK knows that you need the instinct of winners to be successful. I think we can trust to buy players with this basic criteria. I agree with the first post and also agree we shouldn’t listen to too much tabloid speculation.

  5. Downing is fast. Why don’t you watch some football for a change? I’m sick of people thinking they know it all after watching a player play once a few years ago. Downing is the best left sided player in the prem imo.

  6. The word is we just agreed fee and terms with N’Zogbia so that should be a good singing when he returns from holiday :)

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