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I'm going to disagree with you here.

Firstly about Finaan. He is one of the most underated players around and has been the most consistant right back in the Premier Lge over the last 3-4 seasons.

There might be a right back in the Premier Lge better than him (although I'm struggling to think of one) but if there is one then it isn't Gary Neville.

Before you start thinking here we go again another Liverpool fan pans Gary Neville then think again. True I hate the cunt but I have always had respect for him as a player albeit of the begrudging kind but he has always just fallen short of being in the top bracket.

I'll also be picky with you in the centre of defence.

I like Vidic. He's a very good all action central defender and his style is very much suited to the Premier Lge. He is very similar in style to Carragher and at a major push (and I'd probably have to have a couple of pints as well) then I could make a case out for him being as good as Carragher but he certainly isn't any better than him.

It's Carragher over Vidic for me.

As for comparing Ferdinand and Agger then Ferdinand has always been a bit overrated to me. He is a top player but not quite as good as the Mancs or some of the media think he is.

As for Agger then I like him a hell of a lot and his absence through injury for most of this season has been a major loss for Liverpool. He is one hell of a central defender for a 22 year and as he matures and gains more experience he is going to be a centre half of the very very highest class.

That said at the moment Ferdinand may have the edge but if he does then it's by a very very small margin.

My point is that the Mancs aren't better than Liverpool because they have a better defence because they don't. It's because they have a quality attacking left back, two absolutely top class wide players (one being the best in the world in his position) and two pretty good players in Saha and Tevez to compliment their main striker Rooney.

In the same positions Liverpool have Aurelio, Riise, Kewell, Pennent, Kuyt and Voronin all of whom are bollocks and are barely good enough for the Premer Lge let alone a side that is supposed to have aspirations to win it.

Plus the Mancs have a manager that knows the Premier Lge inside out and who knows what it takes to win it.

The latter may even be the most important difference between the two sides.

Yet they still manage on occasions to score at will
The last 3 champions league matches...8..4..4..goals
Maybe not the biggest opponents but still at that level

We will see what they have to offer against rampant italian league leader Inter Milan

I agree with your analysis about the lack of width

Kewell was bought for the wide left role but he's never there for more than a handful of games before injury strikes...goal instinct at present NIL

Even though you never won didley squat you were always entertaining
especially when in the championship

I ain't got a problem with Man City fans.The REAL team in Manchester imo.It's Scousers,Man U plastics,Yids and Pikey's(West Ham) that i've got a REAL problem with.

Chelsea run from NO ONE!!!!

The 8, 4 and 4 goals came against sides that attacked Liverpool and not sides that sat back and frustrated Liverpool. Therefore in those games the lack of width wasn't a problem as there was plenty of space down the middle.

Until Liverpool prove they can overcome a congested centre of midfield then more and more sides are going to give them more of the same.

The lack of width has been said before. Remember Gerrard Houllier's reign. In his 4th year those were the exact same grumblings about width or lack of it and hence why they went out and got Harry Kewell who was supposed to be the solution but obviously wasn't.

12 months later Houllier was sacked.

Here we are 3 1/2 years into the Benitez era and the same grumblings about lack of width surface again.

Hopefully it won't end the same way for Benitez as it did for Houllier.

i'd only seen highlight snippets of the 3 games

they'll get their chance against Inter as their not the show ponies they used to be with the likes of adriano & recoba out on loan
More likely to play the typical italian defend & counter attack

who could forget houllier...3/4 trophies in 1 season by defending at all costs(hyypia/henchoz)but not much else

sure he ended the disastrous preceding era which stretched back about a decade if memory serves me correctly but he still bought some very average players and from what i've been told used to play players out of position for reasons known only to him

If Liverpool sack benitez anyime soon they need their heads read
2 Champions League Final appearances in 3 years says he knows
what he's doing.You'd ant a bloody good replacment...ie mourinho
but whose to say he would be any better without wholesale changes

I think that's what some people are forgetting in that Benitez took a pretty ordinary group of players and won the Champions Lge with them.

The cynics say that he fluked it but 12 months later he took the majority of that side and won the FA Cup with them and 12 months after that took them back to the Champions Lge Final.

Hardly a fluke then but those cynics seem to forget that.

I do think that he needs to look at himself though and ask himself the question is he part of the problem because as I said in a previous post that he does seem to make a lot of his own problems.

Benitez has often said that he is constantly reevaluating his playing and coaching staff, which was the main reason that he fell out with Paco Ayesteran, but maybe he needs to include himself in that.

Everybody makes mistakes but he seems to make some of the same mistakes over and over again.

And you think it's Sven that's turned them round. He just happened to be there when suddenly there was loads of money around to actually get some decent players in.

And, let's be honest, 5th or 6th in the premiership is nothing to get that excited about.

No one is infallible but it starts and ends with the manager so you've got to run with his vision

Look at how many years it took Ferguson to get Man U up to speed in the late 80s/early 90s......then another 6/7 years before they made a Champions league final...their only appearance

Mourinho even with an open chque book couldn't buy Chelsea a Champions league final appearance

Speaks volumes

I agree playing a 4-5-1 formation is ridiculous at home against anybody

Its got to be any formation as long as you have 2 up front

3-5-2,4-4-2,4-3-1-2 but one up front smacks of a defensive mindset