All summer and during the transfer window, a major headache for Hodgson was the left back position. We had been linked with virtually every left back who plays the game today and in the end we have Fabio Aurelio who re-signed for us in the summer after being released by Benitez and now Hodgson raided his old club Fulham and bought in Paul Konchesky.

So my question to the fans today is: Who do you think should be our first choice left back? let us not forget that Hodgson has started off the season with Agger at left back but he does not look comfortable at all in the position, one just has to look at how he struggled against Manchester City.

I am a huge fan of Aurelio, who can forget that freekick against Man Utd? But besides that freekick, when Aurelio is fit he is a very decent left back. The only problem is his fitness. We will be lucky if he is fit enough for 50% of the games this season.

Now with Konchesky, we have a player who has experience playing in the Premier League. He is solid in defence and looks decent going forward. It will be interesting to see how he fairs in a team with more quality players around him than he had at Fulham.

Talking to my fellow OurKop.com bloggers, the general consensus is that we need a stable back four this season. I think Johnson and Carragher have their places cemented (although I still believe having Agger and Skrtel in the middle will be the best for us as Carra is getting old). For me a backline of Johnson, Carragher, Agger and Konchesky is not bad but they have to play a large chunk of our season. Remember how solid we were the days of Babel, Hyypia, Henchoz and Carragher in the backline and how consistently those guys played? We need something of that nature this season.

Here we go again! Fabio Aurelio is injured…again! Aurelio has had some bad luck with injuries ever since he joined us from Valencia. He always seems to get injured when he is actually going through a good spell. Well the latest injury is rather bizarre. Aurelio twisted his knee whilst playing with his children in the garden and as a result he will require surgery and is likely to be out of action for 6 months. This means that Aurelio will miss the rest of the year.

I am a huge fan of Aurelio, especially after THAT freekick at Old Trafford. But besides that, his game has improved ever since we signed him and he became Rafa’s first choice left back. Now Rafa has to make a plan! Dossena was set to leave this summer and go back to Italy but now with the news of Aurelio, will Rafa still let Dossena go? For me, I will be happy if Insua becomes our first choice left back in the absence of Aurelio but we still need cover.

We have signed Chris Mavinga from Paris Saint Germain who is also a left back. Mavinga is only 18 years old so he does not have a lot of experience so I do not think we can intrust him to be our second choice left back. So with that said, I think Rafa may just decide to hang onto Dossena following this Aurelio injury.