Alberto Aquilani

The new Liverpool signing has started watching friendlies and training at the academy although he is sidelined for injury for one month. One month!

Meanwhile, Rafa said that Aquilani is an attacking player who can play between the lines, maybe between Gerrard and Torres. From what I see in Youtube videos, his positioning sense is good, quicker than Alonso, can shoot from a distance, and unlike Alonso, can provide final passes as he plays more forward. The drawbacks; people say he is injury prone, passing quality can't be completely analysed from youtube videos, plus he needs time to settle down in new league,new surrounding,new culture,new food,new everything.

I was bored to death at SMK Chukai yesterday listening to my friend Cha's guide after SPM to a bunch on Form 5 students when I thought about a hypothetical situation that would be happening at Liverpool following departure of Alonso and arrival of Aquilani.

Aquilani plays a little forward as compared to Alonso who sometimes was positioned even in line with the centre backs. We usually play from direct play from deep with Alonso hitting a 20,30,40,50-yard pass straight toward the forward, Stevie or the wingers. Now that Alonso is gone, who's gonna feed the ball to Torres, Gerrard and co? Masherano would still play deep of course (provided that he stays) but passing isn't his best attribute. And he lacks discipline in positioning, what with the forward bombardings all the time! But thanks largely due to his unbelievable stamina, he always manages to get back and does his primary job, even manages to give a hand to the fullbacks!

In my opinion, there would be 4 solutions that I could think of
1. Stevie drops deep and plays midfield all around like he used to do, but he's the best attacking midfielder in the league there is. So his talent is a bit wasted this way, and we wouldn't see the magical partnership with Torres, albeit one of these days I would like to see this partnership broken as sometimes they try too hard to set each other up.
2. We start playing and building attacks by way of short passes. This is where Lucas could play his part which he did best during his spell that earned him some golden ball award in Gremio.
3. Aquilani plays behind Gerrard as box-to-box midfielder playing short passes, of his long passes are as good as Alonso's he could hit long passes like Alonso did as well.
4. Agger plays, bringing the ball out of defence area, with Mascherano covering temporarily at the centre back when Agger goes forward.