Pardew on Carroll and TFC vs. LFC verdict.

I know this is a tactical comment from Pardew but really!!! common!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/25/liverpool-andy-carroll-alan-pardew

As I have said in previous posts we need to squeeze at least £20-25M out of this deal or keep him. He is young, talented and has some attributes but also some very obvious weaknesses. I think it could be good to keep him and develop him despite maybe not being able to use him to press and run in behind defences mainly due to his well documented lack of mobility.

His movement (however slow) could definitely get better and I think Brendan Rodgers can develop that in him. If you looked at Swansea the movement of their team was always clever. The team knew which spaces to run into and when and when to press to win the ball back quickly. In addition to the well coveted passing and possession game that Rodgers' team favuors, the defensive part of the tactics and game that he had Swansea playing is what I most would like to see him bring to LFC.

Having said that he may need to get more mobility into the squad to do that. Bellamy is getting slower, Adam is not quick, Lucas has not got an abundance of pace. Hopefully he can work on Enrique and Johnson's defensive game as well or even better use Johnson as a right wing and Kelly on the right back when fit. That frees up left wing for downing and we may only need to sign 1 winger and still get by.

Now on to the game on Saturday...

For those that did not watch it, it was not a great game of footy.

Liverpool played mostly with youth players that on the whole performed admiably. One could see signs that some of the passing style is starting to take hold with Rodgers boys. Raheem Sterling looked stellar and so did Sama in Defence (unknown to me before this game) but big physical defender with African background. We apparently signed him from Bayern I think the announcer mentioned.

We should keep in mind this was week opposition and it is early in preseason but it was particularly good to see some senior players back.

Lucas got about 20 minutes of game time. Aquilani played a half. Skertel played a half. Other seniors that got minutes was Adam, Joe Cole, Dani Pacheco (only one that for me did particularly well of the seniors).

On the whole I was not overly impressed but look forward to hopefully catching the Roma game tonight.

Score was 1-1 and goal was created by Raheem Sterling but Adam Morgan scored for those that did not look into it. Jordan Ibe (another youngster who is only 16) looked good on the right wing as well but keep in mind the opposition is so so.

For those who did not know I heard that Tim Cahill went to New York Red Bulls recently. That is a major surprise to me.

Further comments on the Toronto game below.

YNWA,
Stian



-----Original Message-----
From: Stian Andersen
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 2:55 PM
To: Mal Jones
Subject: Re:

Agreed. Sterling looked stellar. So did the fella sama whom I've never  heard about.

Stian

----- Original Message -----
From: Malcolm Jones
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 04:48 PM
To: Stian Andersen
Subject: Re:

Two good halves I thought - youngsters in particular impressed, Aqiilani and Joe C showed why they will be let go. Want to see Borini and how he fits in
Cheers
Mal


----- Original Message -----
From: Stian Andersen
Sent: 23/07/2012 19:04 GMT
To: Malcolm Jones
Subject: Re:

Thoughts? Lots of youngsters. Good to see Lucas back.
Stian