The CouchExpert

 Mayank Gupta

Football Analyst – The Couch Expert

August 20 2011

With regards to the posts earlier on Charlie Adam in Liverpool midfield, things seem to be coming true that seem to trigger an unpleasant feeling for the future of Liverpool football club this season. Once, we bought Charlie Adam it was evident for him to figure in the plans of Kenny Dalglish.

However, from my observations of him in the last season when he played for Blackpool and my almost non-existent notes of the 2011-2012 season, his best comes out when he can dictate the pace of his team. He makes up for his lack of pace with the long balls fired from the base of the midfield like cannons from the Afghan rebels of the late 90’s. Either they take an assist to crash the net or end up in the background of the net.

For teams with slow forwards or looking only to score from set pieces or against the run of play, it is a great asset to have but when you have Suarez with his dangly feet, Downing with his skills at the left and right, Kuyt working his socks off at the right flank then I do not see the necessity for Adam to hoop the ball to Carroll without these relay players. We have our very own Carragher to hoop the balls. Even Agger likes to take the ball forward.

Now, employing him at Lucas position cannot help the cause of Liverpool as he is slow to tackle and is very familiar to the color yellow. On the contrary, one could feel the impact of Meireles once he came for the last 20 minutes at Emirates.

Consideration of the defenders tiredness at 70 minutes of a game though would make an average performance of a player look stellar, however, the runs Meireles are his natural ability and the tiredness of the defenders only allowed him more space to complement the swashbuckling goal scored Luis Suarez.

With a midfielder like Meireles or Gerrard to complement Lucas, the midfield’s pace dominates the game. The surging runs bring them closer to the forwards in turn allowing the midfielders to score off the drop offs and trickling ball from him. The midfielders in turn are on the shoulders of a giant forward to feed off his drop offs. That is where Carroll would become a huge asset to the team even if he can bamboozle his canon left foot into the back of the net.

These two varied aspects could have been very obvious today for every viewer if Meireles had come on for Adam in place of Carroll.

This is a strange understanding of the King’s game which I will question everytime I watch Adam play alongside Lucas as I have no doubt about it’s limitedness. So far we have played a good Sunderland side and a depleted side and have not been really tested against quick midfielders like the Lampard of old or Yaya Toure.

The limited strength of this duo (Adam and Lucas) would be tested and failed when we come up against players like those. Fortunately, Steven Gerrard would be fit by then and so would be Meireles. It would be amazing to watch either him or Gerrard play off the bench thus enhancing KD’s message of today loud and clear – ‘We have a great squad’. However, as I am not Kenny, only time will tell if Adam was a back up for Lucas or to partner Gerrard in the midfield.

Conclusively, a nice game today but only came to life after the coming of Suarez and Meireles. The movements thereafter looked more like Liverpool and less like Stoke.