In the summer of 2005, so the story goes, Rafa Benitez rounded up all his back room staff and asked them to write down the names of everyone in the Premier League that they thought would improve Liverpool Football Club.
Knowing Rafa the exercise probably had several points to it. Who is thinking the way I am? Who is wide of the mark? But the main reasons given was to see what the coaches at Liverpool felt the deficiencies were in the squad, and to see if any surprise names came up that he hadn’t considered.
Today Neil Atkinson recreated the exercise with the most Iberian lads he could find. Sean Rogers, Steve Graves and Rob Gutmann wade through the Premier League 11 years later with their opinions on who would improve the current Liverpool squad.
Rob doesn’t pick as many goalkeepers as you’d think. Steve picks as many left backs as he can think of, but largely ignores anyone who plays in central midfield. Sean tries to be all sensible because he’s a real football manager.
The conclusions they jointly get to end up being a discussion of what certain Liverpool players aren’t bringing that they should be and who, from an attacking sense, might find themselves moved, or dropped, if players of genuine quality are brought in.
Top show guys very interesting
I like John Flannigan more playing at left back and would be confident if fig that he would do a good job for us
However KLOPP has not played him at left back at all
Preparing to move Clyne to left back instead of using John
So I hope he gives him a chance at left back but the signs are he won’t
I don’t see the podcast. I am logged into my account. I have tried 3 different browsers on my iPhone and iMac. What am I missing???
Not sure, Mike, just tested and all fine. If you have an active subscription and you are logged in it should work fine. Any further problems please drop us an email: [email protected] Cheers, Gareth.
Nice idea. You could open it out to Europe/the world for a bit more content.
Steve’s a funny one, isn’t he? Half romance, half spite.
I’ve been banging the Sturridge as the new Kenny drum for a while now. Not sure there are that many great players knocking around in the Premiership.
Bizarre that Steve doesn’t rate Martial. The lad is world class.
More bizarre that Rob thinks Ozil is a “fraud”! Guy had 19 assists and more importantly created, per Opta, about 140 chances, a record for the EPL.
I can get a Martial being rated a bit lower, although he’s a top player, but if this side had Ozil, Sturridge could have a Suarez year.
Bizarre.
Of course, the person missing is Dusty Springfield b/c you need a theme song.