Date: 15th September 2008 at 4:43pm
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After watching our win on Saturday against Manchester United, I got thinking about what would our best starting eleven be this coming season. I was highly impressed with Alonso and Mascherano in midfield. I feel Alonso has shown a lot of character by bouncing back from the constant speculation this summer surrounding his future. One would have thought that after Rafa made it clear Alonso would be sold if the price was right, Alonso would have dropped his head and not put in any effort this season. But he has done the opposite and come out playing well. Credit to Xabi! It is still not the Alonso form we all saw and loved in 2005 but it is certainly much better than the Alonso we saw last season.

Many would say that we should start with Mascherano and Gerrard in central midfield. I would not disagree with that but I would certainly love to see Alonso feature in our plans and why not have him with Mascherano and then play Gerrard out on the right? Now I know a lot of you are not happy with seeing Gerrard on the right and would much rather have him in the middle. He himself says he prefers to play in the middle but he will play anywhere for the team. So for the team he should play on the right. I remember the season he played a string of games down the right and he looked effective.

I would say, if we were to play a 4-4-2 then we have Riera down the left, Gerrrad on the right and Alonso and Mascherano down the middle. Or even if we opt to play the 4-2-3-1 formation we can have Alonso and Mascherano holding in the 2 man midfield and have a 3 man axis of Riera down the left, Keane in the middle and Gerrard on the right with Torres upfront.

Knowing Rafa’s thoughts and Stevie, he would not be forced to stay on the right and he would be allowed to come into the middle to create things from there then when need be he can go down the right and whip in some crosses. But Rafa seems to be a huge fan of Kuyt down the right and I seriously doubt he is willing to drop Kuyt for Gerrard so it looks like Alonso may be the one sacrificed.

What are your thoughts about this matter?

 

One response to “Stevie G should play on the right”

  1. eagle says:

    It sounds good… looks like we got a deep in midfield… just hope Rafa can use them effectively… play one in midweek and another in weekend… depend on match opponent of course…