it has been a very crazy and busy week for liverpool football club since the last game against fulham. the move of fernando torres to chelsea and two new inclusions in luis suarez and andy carroll.
the fans were eager to see the new boys in action against stoke. suarez started from the bench but andy carroll was on the stands as he is still nursing a thigh injury.
it was an interesting starting line-up by kenny dalglish. pepe starts in between the post. in front of him there was agger, skrtel and kyrgiakos as the three center-backs. on the flanks were johnson on the left and kelly on the right. gerrard, lucas and aurelio was at the centre of the park with meireles and kuyt as the striking force.
the basic formation as i see was 5-3-2 with the three center-backs flanked by 2 fullbacks. 3 midfield and 2 strikers. with the names mentioned we saw 6 defenders started and to some it looks like it was a very defensive line-up by dalglish.
with dalglish's style of play of 'pass and move' it never really looked too defensive. the formation altered during the game to suit the players in whatever situation they were in. from a 5-3-2 they can change to a 3-5-2 offensive line-up with the fullbacks supporting from the flanks. at times meireles will drop leaving kuyt and it became a 4-5-1 formation. we also see agger, kyrgiakos and skrtel rotated among them whenever anyone of them pushed up.
maybe the flanks didn't really play as what dalglish wanted. stoke, a team who plays a very direct and physical type of football made it difficult. the boys did well as they move the ball a lot and their movement on the field was good. keeping possession of the ball and keep on trying to find an opening to score a goal, that was their task. and they stuck to it.
skrtel, agger and kyrgiakos was constantly a menace whenever they got the chance to push up. skrtel even had an attempt at goal where his shot was wide. lucas in midfield made some nice passes. his game has improved a lot and it made easier for the captain stevie g to roam arround.
with torres departed, kuyt played as a striker. a position that suits him well. his work rate can never be questioned but his role as the striker against stoke was spot on. he holds the ball well, his linkup play is tremendously good and always a menace to the stoke's defenders.
the game ended 0 - 0 at halftime but liverpool was on top. it took 2 minutes after the breather for them to score the first goal. liverpool got a freekick and the ball was floated into the box by stevie g where the ball landed onto kyrgiakos's feet which he coolly laid it to meireles who later tuck the ball into the back of the net.
suarez was brought onto the field on the 63rd minutes replacing aurelio and had an instant impact. meireles was pushed to midfield where he partnered kuyt up-front. it didn't took long for him to score on his debut. after again a wonderful work by kuyt, managed to put suarez free towards goal. he rounded the keeper and release a shot towards goal. andy wilkinson tried to stop the ball from going in but he failed miserably. this happened on the 79th minutes.game over.
during the post-match interview by kenny dalglish, suarez has not had any training session with the rest of the team and yet he managed to score on his debut. of course the king is convinced things will get much better once the new boy joins them in their full training sessions.
next is chelsea at stamford bridge. this will be another big test for the king and the rest of the players. with the mood and morale is high around the club i'm sure the king will spring another surprise cum sunday because chelsea is another different ball game.
i hope that liverpool fc will get another good result on the weekend and keep on climbing the table. long live the king and YNWA!!!
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