25. Jose Manuel Reina
23. Jamie Carragher
__ 4. Sami Hyypia
3. Steve Finnan
______________________________________ 12. Fabio Aurelio
8. Steven Gerrard
(
C)
____ 20. Javier Mascherano
11. Yossi Benayoun
______________________________________ 19. Ryan Babel
15. Peter Crouch
______ 18. Dirk Kuyt
Substitutes (Probable):
30. Charles Itandje , 46. Jack Hobbs, 6. John Arne Riise, 21. Lucas Leiva, 10. Andriy Voronin
So Liverpool go up against another in-form team, Blackburn Rovers, who sit one spot above them with an extra point, equal games played. Its an away game, comforting to some, as Liverpool's away record this season is much better than last term's. It even is a stark contrast to their Anfield home form. Liverpool have to deal with two threats, the attackers and most probably the wingers. The job of closing down players who can cross very well, without beating the full-backs, such as Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Bentley, will go to Steve Finnan and Fabio Aurelio, the latters closing down are vital to cutting of the aerial or grounded crosses by those two Blackburn wingers. Blackburn fowards Benni McCarthy and Roque Santa Cruz will provide Liverpool with aerial as well as on the ground problems. Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia have to win the aerial battles, as they would struggle with the pace from the two strikers.
A very vital job for Javier Mascherano, or who ever plays in central midfield, whether Lucas Leiva or Momo Sissoko, is to close down the spaces for their central midfielders, not allowing the latter to spread the balls wide or slide through passes into the feet of the strikers. Skipper Steven Gerrard will supply the ammunition to Liverpool's wingers or through balls for Dirk Kuyt to feed on. Yossi Benayoun and Ryan Babel will need to supply decent, if not good, crosses for Peter Crouch. So c'mon Reds!!
Liverpool won Cardiff City 2-1. Not very convincing scoreline against a Championship club. Youngster Nabil El Zhar's goal was magnificent, great confidence booster for him. The other youngsters including Lucas looked good, and another goal for Gerrard, hopefully he can get another one tonight at Ewood Park.
The holidays haven't been the best of holidays. Remedials was on everyday for last week, and I haven't been sleeping much. So yeah... Hope to get the XBox360 fixed soon, so can play FIFA2008... Shit sia'l...
Bye~!