FRIENDLY THOUGHTS

The first thing to hit me was Leto.
Leto!
I'd forgotten about this bloke. Getting rid of Riise and Kewell, I thought Pennant was our only winger left.
I'd forgotten about Leto, but then I guess that's easy to do.
Surprisngly, he was probably our best player in the first 30 minutes, consistently beating the full back with nutmegs and bursts of pace and trickery.
This was Lucerne though, after all.
But, it was more than he ever did during last season. Remember that absolute shocker he had last season, I think it was the Marseille game at home?
He barely looked an athlete, let alone a footballer.
It's this discernible lack of wingers that I think I'm going to change tack and say we should keep hold of Pennant.
Not that I particularly want to, but I just feel we can't go through the season with our only recognisable winger being Leto.

With the Keane transfer now looking more likely, and the Barry deal probably still going through after everyone has got their sensible hats on again, I can't see us having a great deal of cash over £30 to play with to secure a decent wide man.
So, it makes sense to give Pennant another year. There were times when he looked dangerous. It's just his attitude and general indifference that often stinks.

Back to the Lucerne game, our most consistent performer was probably Voronin. Ah yes, the enigma that is Voronin.
His second half to the season invoked the ire of most Liverpool fans and it would have been difficult to find a Red keen to keep hold of the Ukranian tank.
But it seems Rafa's determined to keep hold of him, as there's been absolutely no speculation about him leaving.
Then again, there's probably not a lot of clubs who'd want to bid for him.
It was a beauty of a finish on Wednesday, let's be honest -

And I guess Rafa's thinking is that he got him on a free, so there's no desperation to get rid and recoup spent cash.
From my point of view, I thought he did some decent things in the first half of the last campaign, it was only post January that let him down.
There was that thumper against Toulouse, a sealing goal away at Sunderland and he did show that his general link up play could be fairly decent.
So while remaining unconvinced, I'd accept him staying at Anfield for one more year.
His touches, vision, and ability to drop deep agaist the Swiss was quite impressive the other night.

There were some impressive things from the youngster Pacheco too, playing up front with The Tank. Although I can't see him featuring much this coming season.
Nice little ball for Lucas' first goal, but he fluffed a lot of presentable one-on-one chances.
The lad's only 17 though, and looks a definite one for the future. Let's not get too excited at the moment.

We also got a run out of new boy Degen. Early days, but some worrying signs for me. Twice got done by long diagonal balls and his defensive talents appear to be suspect.
Decent touch on him, but he didn't ever seem to make progress, just turned back on himself and tapped it to a teammate.
Plessis has a fairly quiet game, but it was good to see Lucas gettig forward and slotting. We need a pretty big season from the Brazilian now to justify the hype.

In other news, it seems the Keane deal is perhaps moving closer. Please God, make it happen.
He's apparently 28 now, more reason to only pay £15m for him.
£20m for a player who has perhaps only three more years at his best would be crazy talk.

Comments welcomed as always lads and ladies. (just make up an email address if you want...and copy comment in case the annoying catchpa thing messes up...)