The Anfield Wrap on Citytalk this week sees Adam Smith, Melissa Reddy and Rob Gutmann look back on Chelsea but imagining how that impacts upon Hull City.
Ben Finney also joins on the phone to talk about Hull and their new manager.
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Direct: Radio City Talk: Hull To Pay?
Don’t know what this has got to do with anything, just making an observation. Watching our replay vs Forest in the ’89 semi. Ray Houghton smashes Nigel Clough in the first minute. As well as we play football, we are gnarly as fuck! Gnarly as in we know how to beat you at footie and know how to bully you
Liverpool – lacking being gnarly since 1990.
Come guys please lose the new footy lingo like “transition”, “between the lines” “false nine”, “game intelligence”. All “Brentisms” or “Rodgerisms”. All truly pathetic
It seems to have been completely forgotten amidst all of this “Wijnaldum is integral to us playing our best football” talk that he was on the bench when we obliterated Watford with a Henderson-Can-Lallana midfield to go top of the league in November. He was also on the bench the game before that when we put 4 past Palace and didn’t start the league game before that, either, when we beat West Brom. He did, however, return to the side for the 0-0 at Southampton which ended that impressive winning streak and has been ever-present for the months of patchy form that followed.
I’m not blaming Wijnaldum for his return to the starting XI coinciding with our loss of form but it does fly in the face of what seems to have become the accepted truth on TAW: that his dynamic midfield play was key to us surging to the top of the table and that putting Emre Can in his place completely disrupts that. Its odd to keep hearing people talk about the need to get Wijnaldum in and Can out of the midfield in one breath and then reminiscing about the Watford game in the next, in which the opposite was true.
For all of the talk about how important Wijnaldum’s quick movement of the ball is in breaking down defensive teams, I actually think those are the games in which he tends to struggle. His strength on the ball and availability for a pass helps swing the frenetic midfield battle in our favour against the top sides but against those happy to cede all possession his ultra conservative passing often makes him a passenger.
I guess my point is I’m really not arsed which of Wijnaldum or Can starts today; it’s much of a muchness, despite frequent claims on TAW to the contrary..