RED WATCH: Don’t let Xabi Alonso drift away with the deadwood

May 7 2008 By Andy Proudfoot

DESPITE our season coming to a slightly premature end last Wednesday, I bet there are a few players who have been pulling their tripe out in training since then just in case Rafa’s considering whether they should be gracing some other practice ground come August.

While most of the first team squad will be digging out their flip-flops or avoiding injury for Euro 2008, there are a fair few who will be keeping their mobile phones off in case a certain Spaniard wants a word.

The absence of Riise, Pennant and Crouch from the end-of-season lap of apology on Sunday gave rise to plenty of speculation that they had already been shown the door, and the former two appear to be the “mish-mash” referred to by Martin O’Neill as makeweights in the Gareth Barry deal, a description it’s hard to quibble with.

John Arne ‘Mish’ Riise’s deterioration in the last two years has been stark, as his former surging runs and net-busting drives have been replaced by casual passes to opposition forwards, comical own goals and the demolition of the houses in Anfield Road from wayward shots.

Jermaine ‘Mash’ Pennant, meanwhile, might have invented the phrase ‘flatter to deceive’, his good performances against Fulham and Birmingham recently serving only to hoodwink Benitez into putting him on before Babel at Chelsea last week, wasting a substitution.

As for the long-legged one, it’s hard to see what he has done wrong, unless of course he is the one doing the pushing. If Crouchy has finally tired of people asking him why he doesn’t start more often then you can hardly blame him and he’ll depart for the best of reasons.

I do hope Benitez has tried hard to change his mind however, since this will leave us short up front (no pun intended) and at the mercy of My Big Pony, Andriy Voronin.

Despite some early promise, the Ukrainian has proved strong evidence that you don’t get something for nothing, and should be allowed to follow Sean Dundee and Eric Meijer into Kopscurity.

Assuming that Kewell and Carson will also be plying their trade elsewhere next season, the only other notable potential departure mentioned in the press has been that of Xabi Alonso.

Please Rafa, say it ain’t so. This hasn’t been Xabi’s best season I know, but he’s had two long absences with a dodgy toe, and the distraction of a new baby may have accounted for this patchy form.

If Barry arrives, then you can see how Rafa might decide that, with Mascherano a certain starter, Alonso’s lack of goal threat might count against him.

But I for one would miss the sight of Xabi on song, ‘managing the game’ as Luis Garcia once memorably described, spraying divine passes round the pitch and trying audacious shots from the halfway line.

Alonso is a real footballer, and we haven’t got too many of those to be able to use them as fund-raisers to buy less-talented replacements.

A QUICK mention of the Reserves, who picked up their Premier League North trophy at Anfield on Sunday, and play Aston Villa for the national prize tonight.

Older readers will remember the days when the old Central League trophy was on permanent display at Anfield, and new signings spent at least a year in the ‘stiffs’ learning the Liverpool Way.

The youth on show on Sunday showed that times have changed, but hopefully the end product will be the same: a stream of new talent pushing for the first team.

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