Now that all the euphoria of Kenny Dalgish’s permanent appointment as LFC manager has passed and the serious business of the summer transfer market has begun, a frighteningly familiar picture is beginning to emerge for the Anfield Road faithful.
This is namely Liverpool seeming to pursue all the wrong types of players for what the team actually needs in order to be successful. If reports of the last few days are to be believed Sunderland player Jordan Henderson and Blackpool’s Charlie Adam are on their way to Anfield for a combined fee of nearly £30 million, that’s two central midfield players when a truly great winger hasn’t been seen in a Liverpool shirt in years and the club already having five central midfield players in Gerrard, Meireles, Lucas, Spearing and Shelvy and struggling to offload another in Alberto Aquilani.
Worryingly a lot of talk is being made of Henderson’s ability to play out wide but what is not needed is another player shifted out of position to do a job when a specialist could be brought in, unless the Academy is suddenly going to produce another McManaman or two the acquisition of Andy Carroll will be wasted as he will not have the quality service needed to score goals.
All the while Manchester United have snapped up Phil Jones a truly promising central defender, a position that Liverpool sorely need to invest in with Martin Skrtel, despite playing every minute of every match last season not being up to scratch, Daniel Agger being too injury prone to be relied upon and Jamie Carrragher on his last legs and in all honestly, while being an excellent defender, is a tactical liability with his insistence on hitting long inaccurate balls up field whenever in possession causing his team to lose control of the ball more often than not.
FSG strategy of buying young English talent with high re-sale value is to be commended in many ways but it should not be put before buying the right kinds of players in order to bring winning way’s back to Liverpool Football Club.
