THIS week’s Unwrapped, in a slight change of format, peels the layers off Liverpool’s victorious League Cup Semi Final First Leg win over Stoke City at The Britannia.
Ben Smith and Ian Salmon join Rob Gutmann as they discuss a point proven and a result to take back to Anfield.
On the agenda for today’s show:
Joe Allen, a player seemingly reborn put in potentially his best performance in a Liverpool shirt, suddenly short of the weight of expectation the Welsh international put in a virtuoso performance, can it be sustained or will it prove to be final flourish in the midfielder’s Liverpool career?
Christian Benteke, dropped but not unbowed – Klopp’s suggested interest in the Belgian when he was Dortmund coach points to a possible path for Liverpool’s big Summer signing to carve a career at Anfield, but how?
Banjoed hamstrings – Coutinho and Lovren join a long list of spaghetti legged absentees, all with similar injuries, what exactly is going on and why?
Liverpool to win the League Cup? Should we be arsed? Is any silverware good silverware? Can it get Liverpool back in the mix?
Will a trophy in the cabinet kick Liverpool on to greater things or merely prove to be a false dawn? It didn’t end up doing much for Kenny Dalglish!
That and all the micro analysis you could shake a stick at and more in this week’s ‘Unwrapped’, including a quick look at Liverpool’s Friday night fixture away to Exeter.
In a free excerpt from the show, Ben, Rob and Ian talk about Christian Benteke’s future at LFC and Klopp’s admiration for the front-man.
[audioplayer file=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/theanfieldwrap/UNWRAPPEDCLIP060116.mp3″]
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Joe Allen has always produced performances like he did the other night. Maybe not to those heights but he pops up every once in a while with a standout performance or 2 and then fades back into mediocrity.
He’s 25 now soon to be 26 and still cannot cement his place in Liverpool fist XI at a time when our midfield isn’t exactly coming down with superstars.
He was bought for £15mil to be a starting player but has flattered to deceive. He’s a saleable asset and would still hold much of his value with the money raised put to better use, a quality centreback maybe.
Surely someone like Rossiter can take his place in the squad.
He would be one I would be looking to sell this month or the summer.
I like Lucas but I think unless he’s prepared to be a squad player then he needs to be sold also and if Lallana doesn’t start producing goals and assists on a regular basis he should be sold too.
If we have ambitions to be a top club in this league again then we need better quality and must be ruthless in order to achieve it.
I’ve been a fan of Joe Allen even before we’ve signed and still don’t understand the criticism he get’s. Yes he isn’t going to be the player who goes and gets you goals or bags of assists but not everybody has to be that lad. When he plays he puts in a good display 90% of the time. He keeps the ball well gets around the pitch and takes pressure off of better players. He has just been a lad who has just had a stupid tag of ‘Brendan’s Favourite’ thrown on him even though he never played all that regularly under Rodgers and gets pelters because of it. I think selling Allen would be pretty stupid to be honest, he’s the perfect squad player. Even when he goes long patches without really playing you don’t hear the slightest bit of noise about him being unhappy, and when we need him to the job he do it no fuss.
Been subscribing to TAW Player for 4/5 months. Worth every penny, nice one. Also worth mentioning that my elder brother went to school with Gareth Roberts, but they fell out over a bag of chips.
Nice one. Who’s your elder brother? I’ve never fell out with anyone over a bag of chips! GR