talking about xabi alonso's influence on the team , there is absolutely no coincidence that torres and gerrard partnership was at its best when alonso was putting in the passes to them and it fell away when he left , even gerrard in his book makes reference to that .
faz you seem to see what I am saying regarding Alonso, answer me this you tell me any player including Gerrard, Torres or Carragher who you could take out of the team which finishes second and then go to seventh all because one player was taken out, not even taking out the players I have just mentioned would you drop five places like that, that
just shows how important Xabi Alonso was and how he has been our greatest player, not the most spectacular but most certainly the best in the last 20 years... Better than fowler, gerrard, hamann, hyppia, torres, babbel, owen, mascherano, macmanaman??? get real. Alonso had one superb season and thta was when he was trying to get a move to madrid. (Rafa made him into a star and got a very tidy profit from him but no one mentions that). The rest of the time he was very inconsistent. You're misremembering him.
PS - if Alonso was so vital and phenomenal, did we climb 5 places the season after signing him? We finished 4th in 2004. We signed Xabi and then finished 5th. If selling him is the reason we dropped to 7th then signing him is the reason we dropped to 5th?
