My adulation of Swansea’s Leon Britton last season—he of the pass completion percentage in excess of Xavi Hernandez’s—was in part in relation to his successful partnership with Joe Allen. The two formed a pivot in front of the back four, with Britton cycling the ball, and Allen generally breaking up opposition play.
Alistair Tweedale at Whoscored.com by the way has already done a neat little piece on why Liverpool were after him. He was officially unveiled a few moments ago.
The question though is who will play the Britton role at Liverpool? Intriguingly, Rodgers might consider playing Steven Gerrard in a slightly deeply role and have the two link up. Or perhaps he could join Jay Spearing in the back line. In any case, having players experienced in the Rodgers’ Way will at least hopefully speed up the learning curve. A bit.
I would think a mid field 3 of Allen-Lucas-Gerrard with all 3 capable of swapping roles will be used more often than not. Lucas would fill Brittons role the most I’d think. Spearing will be lucky to be there by January.
Well, this conundrum is easy to solve: Lucas Leiva.
Happy to help.
Only players who have trained together as one unit for some time can pass like the Britton-Allen combo. It’s lazy stuff to just buy in what clubs should be able to do as a matter of course, pass the ball. Why would a fundamental skill be alien to the top flight? Because it’s all about shuffling for more money. If players would stop chasing rainbows and realise staying put and becoming a TEAM is the way forward. But everyone wants gold and transfer drama. Britton himself said it was a mistake to leave Swansea and he went back so that he could operate with people he knew well.
damn, I hope Laudrup can make Swansea as enjoyable to watch as last season. Two key pieces to the midfield are gone. But they did bring in JDG2 (who I am sure will be incredibly loyal and wont run when the chips are down…)
Hello GCR-off, I think he will. Danny Graham made a statement that his hat-trick the other day was due to Laudrup’s training…something like that…and those goals versus B’pool were very good. We should see how they work v Stuttgart on Saturday. :-)
Fuck I wish I could be at the Swansea v West Ham match on the 25th but I couldn’t get tickets in the away end. I’ll be in London and will likely see Charlton or Brentford play instead.
How is DeGuzman playing?