Ah, like a breath of fresh spring air, our beloved Reds swept through what semblance of a Manchester City squad sat in front of us last night. When I say “sat”, I mean it; the City boys were as stagnant as standing water. Their performance was disgusting (if I were a City fan) and horribly indicative of a team on the precipice of no return. Surely I wasn’t the only one who saw the signs of a team leaning towards complete capitulation, was I? So much for a Billion dollars well-spent!
More importantly; how about our boys? What a great night! What a nice debut for Flanagan. And the scoreboard reads:
Carroll/Suarez 4
Torres: 0 (Thank you Roman!)
We cannot possibly be happier about this budding relationship between Carroll and Suarez, could we? Imagine all that we have to look forward to next season. A huge shout-out to the big man for his ice-breaker performance! It was easy to track his delayed reaction of utter joy after that first goal. Initally he took off, controlled, calm, his arms spread in a t-shape; then the power of love from the Anfield crowd overtook him and his face cracked in that youthful smile, his run picked up pace and his triumphant fist-pump said ‘thank you’—I re-watched it three times for Carroll’s reaction alone.
Other notes from the sinking of the Billion Dollar Babies: Jay Spearing was all over the place, covering every inch (I’m sorry, I’m American & incapable of spelling it out in metrics) of the field possible without (read Lucas) straying out of position. He looked three steps quicker than his central midfield partner all game long. Hopeful signs from the Liverpool lad! Fabio Aurelio has not had a lot of love from me over the years, but showed solid signs upon his return. His passing is rarely a problem, but his positioning and tackling typically is, but not tonight. Staying in the back, did anyone notice Carra/Skrtel? No? Me either!! Wasn’t it nice to not sweat through clenched teeth as opposition strikers bullied our back men? It was as if City played without strikers tonight. And what can be said about young Flanagan except that he needs to grow some damn facial hair?! Looking at the boy makes me feel old, very old. What a debut; solid tracking, conservative runs and passing tact which shows promise. He finished a little too aggressive in both his forward runs and closing down City players, making him susceptible to easy circumventing, but it was the boy’s debut. Imagine; us with a home-grown youthful dilemma at Right Back next season between two young ones. And at what cost to the club? Arab billions? We don’t need no stinkin’ Arab billions!
In a less positive note; those of you who know me know, though I’m outgrowing my dislike for Aurelio, I have not moved far in my position over Lucas. He’s the most active Tweeter on the squad and I’m sure he’s a great guy and wonderful young father, but he still hasn’t sold me on the right to wear our colors. Against City he lost his footing too easily each time a City player put a simple move on him and his work rate paled in comparison to Spearing’s own. Worse still, what passes did he make that wetted the appetite and provided anything to our front men? He plays in the center of the park!! I have decided to find out WHY there is such a love-fest with Lucas from my Red Brothers and Sisters and the only way I could objectively do that is with numbers---after all, my heart tells me that he is a safe, decent player, but nothing more. Surely the love so many Red men and women show him means I’m missing something. But what? So I decided to track everything he does, and doesn’t do, each game until the end of the season (if ESPN and Fox continue to show all LFC games). It’s called my “Lucas Tracker” and here my first results from tonight’s game:
The Lucas Tracker
FS | FC | SOT | Total Shots | Shooting % | Passes | Passes Complete | Passing % | Incisive Passes | ||||||||||||
11-Apr | Man City | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0% | 40 | 34 | 85% | 0 | ||||||||||
Tackles | Successful Tackles | Tackling % | INT | Headers | Headers Won | Heading % | Dribbles | Completed Dribbles | Dribbling % | |||||||||||
16 | 9 | 56% | 4 | 6 | 3 | 50% | 13 | 7 | 54% | |||||||||||
FC-Fouls Committed/FS-Fouls Suffered/SOT-Shots on Target
So far the numbers hardly support the opinion of the Band of Lucas Lovers, at least for this game. Twitter was alive with people promoting his play against City as one of his best games this season, so he’s either had a very bad year or people honestly believe he played well. I, and my numbers, beg to differ. Two horrible shots and barely half of his tackles, headers and dribbles were successful. And before you try and justify his 85% passing rate consider what he actually does with the ball; it’s constantly going laterally or backwards. Proof of his uninspired passing is seen in the fact that he didn’t have a single creative (incisive) pass in a game we completely dominated against a jaded team. He just doesn’t bring anything to the side; at least Jonjo will try to break open a defense; at least Meireles can create and is dangerous into and around the box. Lucas….well, he occupies space.
It’s time to sit Lucas; I’m still convinced of that. There are only a handful of games left; let’s see what happens when we push Meireles in the middle and let him make those deep runs. Or keep Meireles on the wing if we must and let Spearing and Shelvey begin what might be the next midfield pairing for the years to come. We may never know what the young pair can do if we don’t try and we know for certain that Lucas is not Xabi or even Masch’s better-looking-but-crappier-footballing-cousin. I just hope that whatever King Kenny’s plans are for the wings in the off-season they involve some form or fashion to get Meireles off the periphery.
But, alas, even Lucas cannot dampen my spirits tonight. All signs are pointing in the right direction and have made it so incredibly easy to forget what I saw last week against West Brom. I, for one, never want to see another episode of This Greek Tragedy again this season. A longer-term contract should not be long in coming….King Kenny definitely has us moving in the right direction, so……
Until we meet again,
The Red Yank
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