When all is said and done, footballers, like everyone else, are human beings and when they get pilloried from the stands by their own fans it is never a nice thing. In some respects, both Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky were victims of guilt by association with previous manager Roy Hodgson, with fans believing the two signings summed up the mediocrity that Roy represented. It was determined, quite justly in my opinion, that neither player were of a high enough quality to play for Liverpool Football Club. It meant then that it was always going to be an uphill struggle for either player to be embraced by the Anfield faithful, and neither have managed to demonstrate that the criticism of them was wide of the mark. The departure of Hodgson may help and new manager Kenny Dalglish stated on his arrival that he would make it one of his priorities to rehabilitate some of the players who had not performed to the required standard:
“We’ve got a couple of senior players who the supporters haven’t exactly seen eye to eye with. We’ve got to try to rebuild them. If we can get Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky back on side then that makes the squad that bit deeper. Christian played very well at Blackpool.”
For Paul Konchesky, it maybe too late. Kenny has not picked the left back in any of his games in charge either starting Fabio Aurelio or Glen Johnson out of position on the left hand side. For Christian Poulsen, the fat lady has yet to sing. The Danish international midfielder has started two of King Kenny’s four games in charge against Blackpool and Wolves, and while he was part of the side who were on the wrong end of a 2-1 defeat against the Tangerines, he played his part in the impressive 3-0 victory at Molineux on Saturday afternoon. It will take a hell of a lot more to convince Reds fans he has what it takes to succeed on Merseyside but the 30 year old did make an important contribution to the victory over Wolves. He made the slide-rule pass for Raul Meireles who squared the ball to Fernando Torres to open the scoring in the first half.
Most Liverpool fans would be justified in thinking when Poulsen came to the club that he was a direct replacement for Javier Mascherano. After all, the Argentinean left for Barcelona in the summer and the Dane was the only defensive midfielder who came in to replace him. The facts are though; Poulsen has never had the pace or the tackling ability of the Argentine even in the early stages of his career. At Copenhagen under Hodgson, he started as an attacking midfielder and gradually made his way back into central midfield until his time at Sevilla when he became a holding midfielder. He wasn’t ever a classical defensive midfielder in the Claude Makelele sense though and this was held against him. Poulsen can pass a bit (demonstrated against Wolves) and tackle a bit, but never really excels at either. He is more of a holding midfielder and adept at filling space, intercepting and offloading the ball forward, rather than chasing down counter attacks like Mascherano or a distributor of the ball like Xabi Alonso.
The question becomes then, does this sort of player really have a place in the Liverpool team? At the age of 30, with time catching up with him and his pace lacking, there have to be serious question marks about his suitability. For me, Hodgson just made the wrong decision to buy him in the summer and although £4.5million is not a great deal to buy a class defensive midfield player, he would have been better holding onto his money rather than waste it on somebody who wouldn’t fulfil the role totally.
There is something to be said for the fact that it takes time to adapt to the Premier League and Poulsen is still pleading for time:
“I know the fans sometimes shout at me, but I did really good in the first half [against Wolves], and I had two or three misplaced passes in the beginning of the second half. Of course, I want to improve my game and I hope I can do that here at Liverpool. It’s a fight to get into the team, and with some good performances on the training ground hopefully I can have a new start here at Liverpool. The season hasn’t been too good for the club or for me. I hope we can now start getting more wins. We need to.”
Perhaps he will begin to adapt better and improve during the season. He was OK against Wolves, without being spectacular, and it looks as though he will be used on a semi-regular basis until the end of the campaign, but I can’t see him being here beyond the end of the season. Damien Comolli will certainly be eyeing a defensive midfielder in the summer with Rennes’ Yann M’Vila, St Etienne’s Blaise Matuidi and Real Madrid’s Lassana Diarra all cited as possible targets.
Read more of David’s articles at Live4Liverpool
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