Sorry for being so dismissive ... in my opinion, stevie g is one of the main reasons we conceded too much goals last season, 2 goals less than hull who were fighting relegation, and more than palace or southampton, it was a miracle we fought for the title with that leaky defence, and this comes from the fact that our defensive midfielder (stevie g) didn't provide cover at all to our defenders, leaving them on numerous occasions exposed to a frontal attack, this combined with glen johnson almost always caught out of his position, meant that we were likely to concede with almost every attack of the opposition, no matter how weak the opposition was, remember the game away at Norwich, home with Sunderland, even at Cardiff we were in shambles in defence, at Fulham also.
So the basics in creating a strong team are the defence and the midfield, hence we need an anchorman who can provide cover and can run his guts for the team, linking the defence with the midfield. Stevie is too slow to do that nowadays, either our manager shows guts and resorts to giving him less minutes in the starting eleven, as Chelsea did with Lampard, even though Lampard's role at Chelsea wasn't so vital as he played an advanced position, if he made a mistake, they had Obi Mikel/Ramires/Matic/Essien covering him. At us if Stevie makes a mistake, we're fu**ed, see the slip vs. Chelsea. Or we change Gerrard role to an advanced position, we could play 4-5-1 or 4-1-2-1-2 depending who we are facing. In a 4-1-2-1-2 formation, i think of the following starting lineup : Mings-Glen-Sakho-Skrtel/Lovren-Moreno-Lucas/Can-Henderson-Coutinho/Gerrard-Sterling-Sturridge-Balotelli, and in 4-5-1 : Same defence , with Sterling-Henderson/Gerrard-Lucas/Can-Lallana-Markovic-Sturridge ... What this means is our need for an established defensive midfielder, Khedira comes to my mind, Song also.
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