KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Reds open talks with Masch

If you look at the whole picture you can clearly see how Mascherano is not good enough. When you play for Liverpool, United, Chelsea or Arsenal apart from hgames when you play against each other you know you are going to dominate possession for about 70% of the game. For this reason it will make a player who can only tackle redundant for virtualy all the game so that when you attack against the teams who play eleven men against the ball you are always going to be a man light when really you need extra. What you need against these types of teams are midfielders comfortable on the ball,can use the ball intelligently and can score and create goals this is why Mascherano is the dearest passanger in our history. The most successful teams always had tacklers who also brought extra to the table Keane, Veira and before them Whelan and Souness, tackling is slowly being forced out of the game in favour of a non contact sport so the modern midfielders like Alonso, Carrick, Inniesta, Pirlo and Xavi are now the future while Dinosaurs like Mascherano, Hamann, Batty, Makelele, Savage, Parkinson, Carsley and Deschamps are now things of the past for the top sides.

i can see what you mean and football in general is heading into that direction that you described, but still i think mascherano is a player who would be a very good addition to any squad. but he should NEVER be paired with a player like lucas....

Look at real madrid. when they had makelele in their team players such as zidane and figo were given the sort of freedom they needed to produce their best football, but the only reason they could be given that freedom was becasue they had makelele doing all the dirty work. the day he left the whole real team fell apart....many chelsea players has told how important he was and when chelsea were at their best (2004-2006) he was in the team. i don't now if it is a coincidence...

but you have to build a team where such players as mascherano can fit in and we had such a team last year. torres, gerrard, riera and benayoun were all over the place and that is when you need a player like masch to do the dirty work....but somehow the whole team has managed to lose all their creativity and that's why mascherano may not fit in at the moment.

am not being funny but come on how much defending does a team like Madrid have to do when they had all those players playing the game in there opponents half of the pitch, it's like United, there defence has'nt been the greatest the last few years but because of there attacking style of play, opponents dont get the chance to exploite any weaknesses they may have because United are always in there half of the pitch, attack is the best form of defence for the likes of Madrid and United even the greatest Brazilian teams of the past never had great defenders and i include Roberto Carlos and Cafu in that even though they were fantastic going forward. I could play in Madrids holding midfield role for the amount of tackling which was expected off you thats why players like Carrick and Fletcher who may or may not be the greatest tacklers in the world have each one about 5 or 6 leagues between them and a champions league thats the point I am making you dont need to have an ugly tackler. Barcelona won the champions league against Arsenal with a midfield of Messi, Inniesta, Xavi and Ronaldinho and last season they beat United with a midfield of Keita,Inniesta,Xavi and Messi ,Toure played in the back four so there was not a tackler in sight, this shows you dont need one of those types of players to be successful and lets face it if there was one team you would like us to play like it would be Barca.

you say real didn't need any defending. im saying this for the third time, their whole team completely fell apart when makelele left. their defense looked ridiculous....

and yes, if i'd pick one team we should play like it would be barca. but they have busquets or toure as holding midfielders for most of their games and i think there's a reason why the greatest team on earth right now wants to buy mascherano.

as i said before, we're crap at the moment and our creative players are not delivering. and playing him and lucas doesn't make it any better....if rafa had the guts to drop lucas and play masch with gerrard our season would at least be a bit better...

well whats the point in playing a player who only tackles and nothing else if you dominate possesion in virtualy every game you play and when you attack you are always a man light through carrying him.

lets just face it, masch isn't the problem in our team. we have no decent back-up to torres and we have wingers without any creativity at all (except benayoun). than we have a player (lucas) who's doing nothing for 90 minutes in every game. if we had some decent attacking players around masch it would all make sense to you. or did you have the same opinion last season?

i guess your post was directed towards ged? becasue this is what i tried to tell him....players like masch gives the flair players more freedom. the problems is that our team is lacking any creativity at all at the moment...

My point is that we need more complete midfielders than players who tackle and nothing else. You tell me the last time Liverpool won the league with a player who just broke up play and nothing whatsoever else like we have played in recent years with Hamann and Mascherano, lets face it it's no coincidence we have not come close to winning the league with those types of players is it, we always had a Souness, McMahon or Whelan who broke up play and so much more. As I have said what we need to be doing is looking for midfielders who are more complete like a Keane or Veira or players able to put opponents on the back foot other than tackling a bit like Alonso,Carrick,Inniesta, Xavi and Pirlo have shown.

I think a lot of people will be disappointed with this news as they want Masch out of the club. They prefer to believe that he has always wanted to leave the club & is not committed. They even criticised him for kissing the badge in the Derby game!

Agree with Ged - Mascherano is good at what he does but is pretty limited in what he can actually do, and if Barcelona are willing to pay £25m + for him, we would be mugs not to take it, and spend it on something we are crying out for like another proven striker.