Familiar failings breeding contempt

I should have known our surprisingly good start to the season was a bit too good to be true. The potential for our attack to be as toothless as it was on Saturday (against a Birmingham City side that, admittedly, were brilliant in defence, making one wonder why Wenger decided to let Johan Djourou go out on loan in the first place) was evident upon first discovering the starting line-up for the game; the back positions were decent enough (near enough a first choice back line, with the possible exception of the once brilliant but now slowing Sami Hyypiä, but then he was filling in for the metatarsal-knacked Daniel Agger) and the midfield was also similarly decent (the raw but nonetheless improving Pennant was given another run-out on the right, while Alonso’s metatarsal knack gave Benítez the perfect excuse to drop him in favour of Mascherano, who has looked far more impressive in the past few months.) But then came the forward pairing (and, my, what a forward pairing it was, too!): the Laurel-and-Hardy-esque Dirk Kuyt and Andriy Voronin. It surely should have been obvious to Benítez that Birmingham (like many sides before them) may have come to Anfield with the intention of remaining compact in defence and trying not to give anything away; why, then, play two centre-forwards who are not known for being particularly pacy and who do most of their grafting 20-30 yards from the opposition goal? Neither forward has a particularly impressive goal tally, either (OK, I know Kuyt scored plenty of goals for Feyenoord in his three-season stint there, butthe example of Mateja Kežman has shown that scoring lots of goals in the Eredivisie may not be as impressive a feat as it first appears.) Surely it would have made sense, therefore, to play a centre-forward with a bit of pace and who you paid £20million for.

Speaking of Dutch players, time to move on to the second fatal flaw in the Benítez gameplan: the deployment of Ryan Babel on the left wing (a decision that can only be explained by the absence of another competent left-winger in the whole squad; a long-standing problem which Rafa’s summer spending splurge did nothing to address.) Dutch national coach Marco Van Basten described Babel as “having the potential to become the next Thierry Henry”. Having seen his performance against Birmingham on the left hand side of midfield (and, to a lesser degree, in the game against Derby), it’s high time that Benítez made the same realisation with Babel that Arsène Wenger made with Henry when signing the Frenchman from Juventus (i.e. that the player he has at his disposal is not, and never will be, a left winger.) By all means let Babel drift wide from a central position, but let him start in a central position in the first place.

In short then, Rafa, a few requests: when the transfer window re-opens, stop pretending the current squad is the finished article (like you did in the last two weeks of August) and do some business (after all, the club isn’t exactly hard-pressed for transfer funds, is it?) Buy a left-winger (I hear Florent Malouda is angling for a move from Chelsea now that the Special One(TM) has gone; failing that, why not Ricardo Quaresma?), a centre-back to replace Hyypiä (Vincent Kompany?) and some adequate back-up forwards (perhaps a cash-plus-Kuyt bid for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar? Karim Benzema?) Try Babel and Torres as a front pairing (even if it doesn’t work, it can’t be any worse than Kuyt/Voronin.) Cut your losses on Crouch, Kuyt and Voronin (I know the latter was a Bosman signing, but he’s hardly even worth the wages we’re paying him, which aren’t inconsiderable, I might add.)

Above all, abandon the rotation system (at least until you have the players to make it work); given that the teams expected to challenge for the title all have their own problems to deal with (given that Chelsea, in the wake of Mourinho’s departure, are in a state of flux; that Arsenal suffer from a lack of height, not to mention adequate cover, in the centre-back positions; that Manchester United, even with Rooney and Ronaldo back, still often lack penetration and still don’t have a recognised striker in their squad, with the possible of exception of Louis Saha, who's hardly used anyway), it’s not inconceivable that Liverpool (even with the squad we have now, which is still far from complete) can make a serious push for the league (after all, the three-point gap between ourselves and leaders Arsenal is hardly insurmountable.) However, if Benítez continues to indulge in this kind of needless tinkering, then we will continue to drop points in these kinds of games and find ourselves well off the pace by February/March (and what’s the point of saving your energy for the end of the season if the gap at the top is irretrievable?) That kind of meek capitulation (in a season which represents our best chance of winning the league in years) would be shameful and would probably (and, arguably, rightly) cost Benítez his job.