KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Steven Gerrard.

do all of those have managers who make them play like an auxiliary centre back despite them being attacking players? until lucas is managed effectively by a manager who plays him in his best position and doesn't stifle him we will never know if he is up to the job

but as a defensive midfielder then yes he is no good

i actually believe he's better as a defensive midfielder than an attacking. rafa's not forcing him to play sideways 99% of the time is he?

have you seen the lack of movement in front of him? who is he meant to pass the ball too? he is receiving it far too deep and then having no options moving forward ...... we have lost our pass and move - now it is pass and watch

strange that stevie and aqui can do it when they're in that position then...

i agree our movement is a disaster at the moment though.

bring back gerard to midfield..but who is our new torres assistant?

Pacheco?

stevie is one of the main culprits of the lack of movement and aquaman has never played defensive midfield to judge him

we've played with lucas and mash in the middle and because both of them sucks when it comes to the attacking side of footaball our creativity has disappeared this season.

lucas has the same position alonso held in the past but because his not even 10th the player xabi is our midfield collapsed. but the few times aqui or stevie played in that position this season we looked much better.

aqua never played in the same position as lucas has been asked to - lucas is asked to remain disciplined and hang back when it is clear it is not his game ..... aqua is never asked to do that ..... of course lucas isn't like xabi - that is a stupid statement to compare the two swede - it is like saying pacheco is crap because he is not messi, it is a completely unfair comparison!

if stevie stopped sulking and put some effort in with his movement and our wide players offered some movement forwards and gave the player on the ball options then lucas might stand a chance of passing forward ....... you need to look at the team overall and not just one player, there is nothing there for him - last season we had a bit of movement forward and options for the man on the ball, gerrard was making forward runs, torres was fully fit and moving more, kuyt was actually getting forward etc ..... this season kuyt is playing further back, gerrard is either struggling with injury, getting lazy or sulking because he is not offering a thing, torres is not fully fit so not offering the movement he was last season etc ..... that is why johnson has been our main attacking threat, he is just about the only player making forward runs ...... it doesn't help that lucas and mash are shackled to the centre halves to make sure they don't venture too far forward and maybe opening up some space behind them - doing that also means they can't help support the forwards and offer us anything going forward

of course i can compare lucas and xabi, because it's xabis position he's been playing at. you're saying playing defensively is not lucas game, then what is? please tell me when he has showed us the slightest glimpse of handling a more attacking role (scoring against havant & waterlooville doesn't count)

the other things you're saying about our team is true. i said it myself before, we lacked movement this season. the players weren't willing to take the runs to create spaces but believe me lucas wouldn't be the player to feed the more attacking player the right balls.