re: Liverpool FC 2012/13 Season Long Thread

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He needs better competition he seems to have regressed a bit

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Nature of the beast when dealing with an 18-year-old. Gonna be massive ups and downs. His best years are still at least 5 years away, so he has a lot of room to grow and learn from the likes of Lucas, Agger, Gerrard and Suarez.

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I'm sorry I think he sucks and we need to get rid of him.

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He's extremely effective in particular matches. He works best when paired with a destroyer or overly physical midfielder who can make their presence known in the midfield. When in a midfield 3 alongside Lucas, Gerrard or Shelvey, Allen is allowed to play his game and not worry about dealing with physical midfielders. Those other guys are willing to do the dirty work, get in a player's head, commit a foul when need be, etc. Yesterday he was paired with Henderson and Suarez. Henderson is a technical midfielder, similar to Allen, who relies on positioning and intelligence, rather than physical strength, to boss a midfield. Suarez is purely offensive and is only mildly effective dropping deeper into the midfield.

Admittedly, I was hopeful of the formation yesterday. But like I said, in hindsight, it just wasn't balanced. The only way that formation was going to succeed is if we got out to a quick lead and Oldham were then forced to chase the match.