Current up-front options for the rest of the season

Like to see N'Gog thrown in to the mix, he has pace and passion good elements to start with. Sure he hasn't had much experience, but you get experience by playing. I Think he has good potential.

Whenever I have watched him he has done ok, and the goals he has scored he has taken them well. I think he will coem good!

Nemeth?

Torres in the strikers role with Gerrard behind him really takes my fancy.

Oops, Torres's hamstring goes again.  I know, Babel will go upfront!  After all he's been moaning to go up top for months hasn't he?

...Then we rediscover that he won't even jump to challenge for a header. 

OK, so that's not working, Dirk Kuyt?  Oh he hasn't got the pace, not to mention he's got a touch like a rapist. 

Who else... let's see.  David N'gog?  Ryan Babel's twin brother?  Oh but he looks lost upfront on his own, someone tell him what his profession is and where he is playing, more importantly who he's playing for!

Hmm... Voronin's gone on loan, what was that other lads name?  God I can't remember.  All I remember is that we signed him 6 months a go from Tottenham.  Big money move?  The lad never asked for the price tag.

What?! He's gone back to Spurs?  Why?  Cos' he can't settle in?  Oh well.  At least we have an unspendable £16 £12 million sitting comfortably in the bank...

Say that again? It's the start of May? And we're fighting for 3rd?  You don't say.  We must lack strength in depth!  Oh well, there's always next season lads.  (The one that never comes!)

RANT OVER

Torres in the strikers role with Gerrard behind him really takes my fancy.

Oops, Torres's hamstring goes again.  I know, Babel will go upfront!  After all he's been moaning to go up top for months hasn't he?

...Then we rediscover that he won't even jump to challenge for a header. 

OK, so that's not working, Dirk Kuyt?  Oh he hasn't got the pace, not to mention he's got a touch like a rapist. 

Who else... let's see.  David N'gog?  Ryan Babel's twin brother?  Oh but he looks lost upfront on his own, someone tell him what his profession is and where he is playing, more importantly who he's playing for!

Hmm... Voronin's gone on loan, what was that other lads name?  God I can't remember.  All I remember is that we signed him 6 months a go from Tottenham.  Big money move?  The lad never asked for the price tag.

What?! He's gone back to Spurs?  Why?  Cos' he can't settle in?  Oh well.  At least we have an unspendable £16 £12 million sitting comfortably in the bank...

Say that again? It's the start of May? And we're fighting for 3rd?  You don't say.  We must lack strength in depth!  Oh well, there's always next season lads.  (The one that never comes!)

RANT OVER

In all this you forgot to mention how fantastic a player Keane proved for us in the short stint he had,banging goals left,right & centre & how highly he is regarded by the reds as compared to babel,kuyt & ngog.

God we are going to miss him.

In all this you forgot to mention how fantastic a player Keane proved for us in the short stint he had,banging goals left,right & centre & how highly he is regarded by the reds as compared to babel,kuyt & ngog.

God we are going to miss him.

Stop with the wind ups.

In all this you forgot to mention how fantastic a player Keane proved for us in the short stint he had,banging goals left,right & centre & how highly he is regarded by the reds as compared to babel,kuyt & ngog.

God we are going to miss him.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.  :

Nemeth will be slowly introduced next season. Not this year, He has gone on loan and got injured anyway!

I tell you when it was all over for Keano.

Against Newcastle when we put in our best performance of the season and he was dropped.  I remember Andy Gray crying and moaning and mocking Benitez team selection before the game.  How can you leave out a £20 million striker? He cried.

What happened - our best performance of the season by a mile and a 5-1 demolition away from home, against a side that hasn't actually been beaten at home since.

No Torres. No Keane.

The line up that day was

Reina

Carragher, Hyypia, Agger, Insua

Benayoun, Mascherano, Leiva Lucas, Babel,
Gerrard
Kuyt

Some people need to take a look at that team and remember that this was arguably our best performance of the season.  No Alonso, No Riera, No Torres, No Keane.

So on this logic if it was all over for Keane then it was also all over for Riera, Torres and Alonso.

Torres in the strikers role with Gerrard behind him really takes my fancy........

Oops, Torres's hamstring goes again.  Say that again? It's the start of May? And we're fighting for 3rd?  You don't say.  We must lack strength in depth!  Oh well, there's always next season lads.  (The one that never comes!)

RANT OVER

Rafa thinks we have enough options to cover for a Torres injury but I don't think any of them at the moment are anyway near the level of Torres or Keane for that matter when he was playing for Spurs (don't know why he didn't do it for us).  Maybe one of them could seize the chance but it is a big risk.

We needed to replace Keane with someone with a goalscoring pedigree.  We may regret that we didn't and Court will be able to say I told you so.  Not that that would give him any satisfaction.

My hope now is that if were short Torres or he needs to take him off that Babael is now his next option. Hes strong quick and powerful and Im sure if he got 1 good goal hed be off and running. Actually Id have liken to see him play some reserve games to maybe get his confidence up with a few goals.

Ayway in him we might just have a darkhorse to fire us to the title?   

If the unthinkable was to happen and Torres was to get injured give Agger a go up front.He likes to get forward and I think he would relish the opportunity.But,we cant go through life worrying about what might happen so lets be positive and look forward th Torres being available for the rest of the season.

  Was that some sort of sick joke !

So on this logic if it was all over for Keane then it was also all over for Riera, Torres and Alonso.

I wasn't suggesting we play that team week in week out.  I was just highlighting that without Torres, Keane and a whole host of our other 'certs' we can still get results.

I was trying to instill a bit of optimism.

Step up Ryan Babel.
He has a chance to make himself a real hero with the fans this season. He looks more likely to get a chance upfront now and if he can start to bang in the goals regularly, that could be the answer to this stikeforce conundrum.
If not, i wouldn't mind seeing Kuyt up top with Torres. I hate seeing him played on his own upfront but i think he would work nicely with nando.

Was that some sort of sick joke !

If you disagree, give your reasons.

As far as I'm concerned, Billy was thinking outside the box other than going down the route of the all the doom and gloom merchants. So well played Billy.

Personally I don't think it would be a bad thing to try. Just as much as Hyypia wouldn't be a bad thing to try if we wanted to edge towards a target man.

Daniel Agger loves going forward from defence but he has never played in attack he wouldnt be able to ajust to the movement his finishing is good for a defender but not a striker out of all our defenders he is probably the weakest headerer of a ball so as a target man that wouldnt be an option anyone one else think Agger could do a job ! While were at it what about putting Dossena upfront or mabye Lucas.

This is all speculation on the possibility of Torres/Gerrard getting injured. So if either our number 8 or 9 get injured, it'll depend a lot on our opponents and which ground it's at. For example, if we're playing Arsenal at Anfield then Ryan Babel should be nowhere near the starting XI because you need to keep the ball against a side like Arsenal and Babel is usually woeful in possesion. However if we're playing a side who are cramped in their own box looking for a draw, Babel's loss of possesion won't be as crucial as well as him having that powerful shot on him.

I don't really like the idea of shipping natural midfielders (or defenders) up top. Benayoun, Lucas and even Stevie are not forwards, they're midfielders. When Stevie plays the role, he's a supporting midfielder - not a forward. So it's really between Ngog, Babel and Kuyt as I don't think any of the youngsters will get a go this year (well until the league has been won with games to spare and we're resting our stars for that night in Rome)

To be honest I think I'd rather give N'Gog a go up front than stick Kuyt up there. I think if (god forbid) Nando got injured, it should be Babel's chance to sign. Him up front alone with Stevie playing just behind him. Then if we are in desperate need of a goal it could be an option to push Kuyt into a more central position beside Babel. However I honestly don't think of Diggler as a striker any more.

With Gerrard and Torres having a mental connection most teams drool over I would love to see Rafa play the set up he had against Chelsea.

Big Games Against Teams with Serious Attacking Presence

Reina
Arbeloa Carra Skrtel Aurelio/Insua
Mascherano
Alonso
Kuyt/Yossi              Riera
Gerrard
Torres

This worked really well against Chelsea and without the amazing body blocks by Alex we would have won that game 4 or 5-0 with Torres making amazing turns in the box.

Against smaller teams we seem to be rarely troubled in the back and when we do concede it is from set pieces or Lucas penalties  That being said I would like to see Rafa use his 3 man back line which is great because it floods the midfield which Rafa loves to do, also flooding the box giving us more chances to hit players who can stick the ball in the net.

Reina
Carra     Agger     Skrtel
Mascherano
Yossi      Alonso    Riera
Gerrard
Kuyt/Babel Torres

Yossi has shown his complaints of lack of playing time were justified. He is a hard worker and someone who puts in a quality performance every time Rafa calls on him. Rafa is also right we do have enough players to play in the front but he has to really look at a change in formation because Torres works wonders when isolated but we can easily put 3 or 4 past most teams its just we lack the presence in the box if the ball goes past Torres. I am not sure on this but I would put money on it that this season we have had more possession than any other team in the league over all our games, and we still manage to stall against smaller teams. We have the players, Rafa just needs to blow the lock off his conservative pants and start playing some menacing attacking football, something that the Scum do well because of Fergie's faith in his center backs. Rafa has some of the best in world, he needs to use them!

I agree with you, except that I think Yossi can also play on the left.  Sometimes, Riera lost possessions too easily.  Yossi showed he could play on the left at recent Chelsea game with a few good attempts at goal.  To add, if we want to rotate, we can switch to 4-4-2, playing either two of Mascherano, Alonso or Gerrard, with Kuyt and Torres up front.  For the wingers, we can play Yossi, Riera or El Zhar (quite active when he comes on).  Also, I would prefer Insua over Aurelio.  Lucas, Babel, Ngog are all craps!  Especially Lucas, why do we have to play him when we have three world class midfielders to choose from?  His tackles (give away penalty against Wigan), passings (mostly short passes with no vision), shootings (his best game with many chances against Newcastle, but still could not score) are all below premiership standards.

Tonight proved that without Gerrard we're non-existant going forward. He's a much bigger loss than Torres. Hopefully Stevie won't be out for too long because if he is then I'll be fearing the worse.

Tonight proved that without Gerrard we're non-existant going forward. He's a much bigger loss than Torres. Hopefully Stevie won't be out for too long because if he is then I'll be fearing the worse.

I'd say it was just a bad day to be honest with you.

To be honest tonight when Babel came on for Nando I thought he made the best of a bad situation. Certainly has put my mind at ease a little bit on this topic anyways !