Watching it at close quarters last night, one or two things come to mind from an attacking sense.
Suarez's starting position is often wide, particularly left, very often he has a lot to do when he recieves the ball in order to score. I think it is unlikely that he'll ever be the type of player who score two or three tap-ins for every brilliant goal.
The partnership of Carroll and Suarez is a total non starter unless one or both change the way they play. At the moment, they're like a pair of two year olds playing together with a bunch of toys. They are in the same room, but they don't interact. Each is trying to do something completely independent of the other, neither complimenting or supplementing his partner.
Carroll needs balls hit to him from wide areas (I really would like to see him play if we had Gerrard wide right), and he needs someone running off of him if the ball is fed in long on the diagonal. At the moment he gets neither. He doesn't get crosses of quality and consistency delivered in, and he doesn't get anyone playing close enough to benefit form anything he wins when it's hit long. It's almost as if in trying to turn him into a better footballer, we've done it the expense of the stuff we actually bought him for in the first place. He's also lost much of the devil in him, he used to be a physical handful but at the moment he's a big soft baby.
None of our midfield players are "arrivers" in the box. None of them get box to box or even "up and down", and with the exception of Adam in a good season, it's hard to imagine any of them getting 10 goals in a campaign. As a result, as someone touched on earlier the defenders have little else to worry about other than the strikers.
We are a little too ponderous when we have it. Too often the play is stilted, too much flatness and not enough fizz. We move the ball but not quickly enough, we don't ping it we stroke it, and there are times when we allow any holes we've begun to create to "heal up" again because we are too slow and lack penetration.
My suspicion is that much like Carroll funnily enough, Suarez would look a far better player if Gerrard were in the team. Unfortunately, Gerrard would have to play in a completely different position in order to help Suarez, and a similar role to the one he performed so admirably for Torres back in the Spaniards pomp would be the way to go. I've no doubt that together they would make fine footballing music.
Although Lucas is having a fine season, we must accept as a team that if we are going to play with an out and out holding central midfielder, the other midfielders MUST score goals. To that end, the Downings, Hendersons and Adams' of this world MUST get in the box more often. If that risks us being hit on the counter, then so be it.
The solution? Well based on yesterdays outing my guess is that for the time being we're going to have to play Suarez on his own up top while available (I think he'll get banned by the FA kangaroo court). We must sit Adam and an other in front of the back four, then play three of Downing/Henderson/Bellamy/Maxi in front with the instruction that they must get ahead of the play, and they must score goals. In fairnes two of their number hit the post last night so there's perhaps been a movement this way in any case. If there isn't there needs to be, and quickly.
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