How long does Torres need to sort his crisis of confidence out? 6 months on from the world cup finals, still he’s struggling?
I don’t believe he wants to play for Liverpool football club anymore.
He has been consistantly 10 yards off the pace all season, he is not hassling centre backs, he plays devoid of any positional sense, he does not look hungry, a token run towards any defenders clearing the ball, without so much as a tackle of block, is neither use nor ornament to anyone.
The Torres we paid more than £20 Million for, was alert, sharp, sat on the last man and frightened the life out of him, with pace, and running in behind the defence into the space. Defenders didn’t know if they should push up and risk being left stranded if any balls came over the top, or sit deep and be skinned as he ran at you with pace and trickery.
You only have to look at Torres this season and look at the Torres who destroyed Vidic in beating Man Utd 4-1 at old trafford.
Put him in the reserves and let the coaches there iron out his problems and give his place to a hungry forward who has positional sense in his play.
Another nightmare waiting to happen, is the continuous playing of players, out of position!
School boy error, it may be fine for half a game due to injury, but when opposing teams see Dirk Kuyt on the left instead of his familiar right side of midfield, it gives their winger and left back a lift and an attacking option.
It is school boy stuff Roy, for proof of this observe Fulham last season.
Fulham’s team picked itself. Players played week in week out alongside the same players in the same positions.
Why you are made manager of Liverpool, then decide to change players around and in and out of the team every other week god only knows.
Get a basic way of playing, put the first team in those positions and if changes are needed, make them gradually.
Let the team know a couple of bad games and then someone else will be given a chance in their position. To regain their place they must perform in the reserves and hope that the first teamer in their place has a couple of bad games, giving them another chance.

I really cannot understand why managers find this technique so difficult?
Play players consistantly in positions they were bought to play in.
Take Meireles for example, an attacking midfielder with a shot like a mule, scoring many goals ala graeme souness, from the edge of the penalty area.
Bought to provide more goals from midfield.
Where has he been played so far?
Right wing, left wing, sat in front of the back four, as a defensive midfielder. Why?
Maxi is another one. Starts scoring a few goals from the wing and midfield, then he’s “rested” – why?

Playing players in regular positions allows relationships to build and teamwork to grow, which increases defensive and attacking options.
They management can start coaching individual players in how they want them to play, improving individual technique.
It really is that simple

On the otherside of the draw, Man Utd will play FC Porto, the winners of this tie will play the winner of Arsenal v Villarreal at the semi final stage.

Ties will be played 7/8 April with return legs played on 14/15 April.

There are no easy ties at this stage of the competition, but with Barcelona and Bayern Munich having impressive wins in the last round, the English clubs will be relieved they are playing each other and not them!
If three English teams reach the semis, I’ll be putting a few earth pounds on the one non English team left, as is often the case, the one team not expected to win, often does.

Getty images

The game itself was not as fierce as we have come to expect, but we can’t complain, five goals is better than a one nil result.
Reading through the blogs and pundits this morning, you could be forgiven for thinking that the game was either all Man Utd or all Liverpool, truth be told it was neither!

Man Utd started brightly, Liverpool sitting back and easing their way into the game, culminating in Ronaldo giving United the lead from a penalty.
The lead lasted around five minutes, and highlighted what I personally have questioned for months, a simple problem regarding Torres.
In Spain, short burst of pace when an attack is on, is where Torres excels and the main reason he scored so many goals, it’s why Liverpool bought him.
His goal against Utd showed this up perfectly. Standing start less than 5 yards away from the last man in defence, he was able to show a turn of pace, steal the ball and cause utter panic in the defence.
He ran on and slotted past the keeper, 1-1.

Where Torres lets himself down, is when he starts to drop deeper, into no mans land, 10-15 yards from the last man, he is neither helping the midfield (no outlet) nor is he in a position to frighten defenders, by the time he has closed the gap on the defender, the ball is gone.
Sitting on the last man, any ball played down the sides or over the top of the defender, turns him to face his own goal, leaving Torress to execute a short burst of pace and panic the defender. If he gets the ball (as he does 3 out of 5 times) he is left with a one on one with the keeper. Why aren’t Liverpool’s trainers picking up on this?

Back to the match, with an Evra challenge after the ball had been nudged past him by Gerrard, resulted in a penalty, which Gerrard placed to the keeper’s left, 1-2 to Liverpool at half time.

Man Utd, as you’d expect came out for the second half playing keep ball as Liverpool sat deeper and deeper.
Contrary to what most pundits said, Rooney (for me) was Utd’s danger man, everytime he got the ball he ran at the Pool defence, Carragher was having difficulty picking him up as he ran from deep.
Reading about the game, the emphasis has been reported on Utd’s lack of attacking play in the second half, but easily they were creating too much for any team to hold on for the entire second 45 minutes.

With Torres standing off the last man too much and Gerrard following his lead and trying to play off him, the ball was returning too often and too fast by the wide open Man Utd midfield.

As if by magic, Liverpool started to play the ball out of defence and play further up the pitch but still relying on the one-two of Gerrard and Torres.
Having a bit of success in holding the ball upfield, seemed to spur Liverpool into a bit more attacking, committing more players forward as the half went on. Utd brought on Giggs, Scholes and Berbatov (who looked like he was still feeling the effects of an injury picked up warming up against Inter Milan in midweek) and started to spread the ball better, Giggs was popping up all over the place, but Liverpool got men behind the ball and lack of movement from many in the Utd side, they cancelled each other out.

By now Torress was playing about 10 yards further up the pitch, closer to the last man, a flick on from Torres to Gerrard halfway into utd’s half, left Gerrard one on one with Vidic (who to be fair was having a torrid time – mainly because Ferdinand kept leaving him so isolated!) Gerrard knocked it past Vidic and was away, Vidic had little choice and pulled him down. Had Ferdinand not stayed wide and watched and ran across to help his team mate out, it might have been just a yellow, but it was red.
With utd now down to 10 men, the game was still an each way bet, utd now had four upfront and three recognised centre forwards on the field.
From the free kick, Areleo, stunned the old trafford crowd with a regular free kick into the corner, which was all the more confusing as van der sar stood rooted watching it go in?

As a contest, the game was over, Liverpool had time for one more goal. A simple kick out by Reina missed the head of Babel and bounced right into the path of Dossena, who caught the goalkeeper in no mans land, lobbing him from outside the area.

Will all this change the title race? Maybe, but not in the way you would think this Liverpool fan would think!
Chelsea have been my tip for the title all season, this result will have done them a huge favour.

Liverpool:
Despite looking strong and playing well against Real Madrid, I cannot see them progressing past the semi-final stages (sadly for me) – Benitez has been earning his living from the European cup for far too long – the league is our “bread and butter.”

Man Utd:
Yes despite the historic rivalry, without playing especially well against Inter Milan, they deserved to go through to the quarter finals. I watched half their game in the first leg, they should have made the tie safe there. As much as I’d like to see them go out at the semi final stages, I think they’ll at least reach the final. If they do, then I hope Wellback, Carrick and the like get a look in as they are playing well.

Chelsea:
Can they hold their nerve this time around?
They scraped through to the final by the skin of their teeth last time against the pool, heart breaking for a pool fan, especially the way they got there (own goal by riise) but they did break the jinx that Liverpool had over them in semi finals.
Although Juventus are not the force they once were, any result in Italy against an Italian team, is a good result. Has Hiddink come just in time to save their season?
They deserve their place, possible finalists I think.

Arsenal:
Their win over Roma was the best news of the round for me. I can take or leave Arsenal, they don’t really bother me either way, but when I watched the text updates on BBC live text, saying their tie was going to a penalty shoot-out, I worried for them.
Penalties are a complete lottery, so when the first kick was saved, I feared the worst for them.
I remember watching them in the final and losing out, they didn’t do themselves justice at all, love them or hate them, they always try to play attacking, flowing football.
In Arsene Wenger, they have one of the most knowledgable managers in the Premier League. If the doubters got their way and he left the club, then Arsenal would really be in trouble.
Semi finalist this year I think, but well worth their place there – hopefully!

For me the biggest plus, was Jay Spearing!

With Liverpool 3-0 up, Real Madrid were getting through the midfield all too often. Despite not scoring, they were playing one-twos and causing problems everytime they went forward.
Lucas came on as a substitute, he’s an ok player, but neither a great tackler nor and goal scorer, Real’s progress through the middle continued to grow, to the extent that Real’s overlapping right back was constantly in space on his own on the right wing, Real didn’t use him at all.

Once on, Spearing showed good speed from box to box, almost getting through on the keeper and being unmarked as Torres chose to try to curl one past the keeper, when Spearing was in a better position as he arrived from deep to the edge of the box.
He had only been on the field 10 minutes and the fans around the ground chanted his name.

Most impressive for me, was that the attacks through the middle from Real, stopped within 5 minutes of Spearing coming on.
Instead Real were forced to play it wide to their unmarked right back, who was now in Arbeloa’s pocket.
Benitez should have more faith in some of the young talent coming through the ranks and not be afraid to have them in the first team as regulars, no point winning youth cups and leagues if they are to be released to other clubs and not put pressure on the so called big names currently holding first team places!

The Real defence let a long ball bounce and it looped over the Real number 3, who turned to face his own goal with Kuyt and Torres breathing down his neck, Torres touched his shoulder momentarily and he went down, Kuyt took a touch and pulled the ball back along the 6 yard box, where Torres or Gerrard were waiting to pounce unmarked. The keeper had no chance.

Liverpool continued to look sharp, closing down well and forcing mistakes in Real’s passing game.

Steven Gerrard scores Liverpool's second

Real started to come back into the game a bit more, ex Portsmouth player Diarra looks impressive bringing the ball out of defence and rarely misplaces a pass.
Real playing much better as half time arrives.

Liverpool flew out of the blocks again at the start of the second half, looking dangerous on the break, a sweeping move had the ball at babel’s feet, for once he hit the byline and dinked in a left foot cross, which bounced right in front of the “running from deep” Gerrard who controlled it brilliantly first time to fire into the roof of the net.

Real didn’t switch off and came back at liverpool more and more going close on a number of occasions, the ball just wouldn’t go in for them, and when it finally did, they had two players offside!
Real’s passing game through the middle was causing Liverpool problems every time they came forward, Lucas came on, but had little effect, until Liverpool brought on the pocket rocket!
Jay Spearing, who has been with the club since he was seven years old and captained the youth team to the youth cup, from the position of centre back stemmed the flow of attacks through the middle!

Box to box he played, any pool fans remember sammy lee in his playing days – exactly the same he is. A tigerish midfielder with a great engine and an eye for finding spaces in the opponents half, he had the crowd chanting his name after 20 minutes!

Pool swept up field to score a fourth, Dossena making up for his booking, getting free in the box, firing under the keeper’s hand to make it 4-0.

All in all a very satisfying game for the pool, who move into the last eight.
I would still question why Torres can’t be lazy, whilst sitting on the last man in defence, of the four times he did it in the second half, he did this, he got clear twice and won free kicks the other two times.
This was the sharpest I’ve seen him in a long time, perhaps he is now fit?
Arbeloa had a cracking game, very solid, Mascherano will be missing for the next round as he picked up a yellow card and will be suspended.
Lets hope that Liverpool avoid English opposition in the next round, with Chelsea coming through their away leg against Juventus, Man Utd looking unstoppable and Arsenal on a run, the one danger team looks to be Bayern Munich, who followed up their 5-0 first leg win with a 7-1 thrashing of Sporting Lisbon!

Arsenal breezed past Burnley in their tie today (3-0 the final score) at the Emirates stadium, I have long tipped Arsenal to lift the cup this season, no doubt I have just jinxed them, but they are on an impressive run in the league and have players coming back from injury at just the right time.
Had they stayed clear of injuries earlier in the season they would be close to catching Man Utd for the league this season.

Everton are proving also that returning players at the right time can be as good as having a new signing.
They have lost Arteta for the season (another one of my fantasy team players to go down with injury!) but with Jo on loan in reserve (not sure if he’s eligible to play in the cup?) and Saha returning with a couple of goals, and their two wide players returning to form, they could be dark horses for the cup… if only they didn’t have Utd in the semis.

Utd’s tie against Fulham looked over from the minute Tevez scored at the back post, I stopped watching at 2-0, Welbeck looked in terrific form, he is going to be a big player in years to come. Now if only Liverpool can start picking up the players young, instead of spending millions on half decent players, come back Bob Paisley and his scouting set up, we need you!

….. and the winner is?

Ledley King!
When you have stopped laughing, have a think about it.
He was world class for England in the Euro championships in France, keeping the then World champions and eventual Euro champions at bay for 89 minutes in Paris, funny how England’s performances at the back went down hill when he had to return home before our tournament ended – when he is fit and in the Spurs back four, they are solid and organised.
He has good speed, he has great distribution, good reading of the game, good header of the ball, he is consistant, he scores goals, he can play the simple pass out of defence but if there’s nothing on, he can bring the ballout and draw a midfielder into committing himself.

Laugh you may, but can you think of anyone better?
The only downside is his injuries, when fit, he would be the first choice in my premiership team!

Exactly how does a football club win any trophy or league when they are constantly chopping and changing everything around?
How does a club build up a “fear factor” for other teams to worry about?
How do players build up an understanding between players, on each wing for example, if every week they are playing with a different team mate?
What about those that have a great game, then are dropped to the bench or out of the squad for the very next game? How are they to build confidence?

Then we have benitez’s “style” of play:
By all means have tackling back, but playing a world class midfielder as a striker may be good to cover for an injury, but not week in week out.
Simple process football is, pass and move, play to your strengths.
Find a format that works and stick to it!

What about Benitez success?
What success? Don’t forget that when benitez won the European cup (known as the champions league) he did so with a team crafted and built by Gerard Houllier and Phil Thompson.

During the sunny days of the season, Liverpool look half decent, but come a cold and frosty wednesday night in a league cup replay, etc, the players brought in from sunnier climates, are nowhere to be seen.

Oh how I long for the legendary Bob Paisley. No fuss, No messing about, set your stall out and let the other teams worry!