Liverpool FC won this encounter but it was more about luck than skill, and if the team selection by Rafa Benitez is a sign of things to come then it is going to be another disappointing season for Liverpool.
What amazed and then shocked me by the team selection when i first seen it that even though we had spent nearly 50 million in the summer on players, mainly attacking players the only new player on show was Torres, the player from the new bunch that cost the most, but has also shown in pre-season that not only does he need time to gel with his new teammates, but also adjust to the pace and physical aspect of the Premiership, where was Yossi Benayoun, he looked like our biggest improvement during our pre-season and looked like a player that might finally solve some of our creativity problems and he knows the Premiership, but instead of his creativity Benitez opted for basically the same team that failed so badly and finished so many points away from the top two last season.
I have never really questioned Rafa Benitez`s managerial skills as he came with a great reputation and lead us to win the Champions league and FA cup. But one has to wonder about his latest team selection, he has gone on all summer about how important a good start to the season is, and then he ignores most of the signings we made this Summer in our first game, and believe me Liverpool were lucky to win against Aston Villa, only for Gerrard once again saving us it was two points lost, this is not how teams with title aspirations work, relying on one man to save them in every game.
I really hope that this team he deployed today was some sort of tactical ploy because if he thinks that to solve our problems he can play last years team and add in a striker with a good reputation then we have bigger problems.
His defense selection was good but i would have put Riise as a the left back and used a more natural left winger and as i said before Benayoun should have started on the right. Up front he made the right decision, but if Liverpool are to truely take a step forward this year we are going to have to employ a more attacking style of football and Benitez seems to have realised this, but at the first hurdle against Villa he seems to have backed away and a gone for the same old system of defence first which has caused so many disappointing seasons for the Anfield faithful.
If Liverpool Football Club really have aspirations of winning the league then they need to start to play a lot braver football, and not let the other teams dictate their team selection or way of playing, because as sure as shit when Man Utd and Chelsea arrive at Villa park their team selection will have nothing to do with Villa, they just pick the team and let Villa try and deal with it.
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