West Ham 2 Liverpool 3

Great result for Liverpool at West Ham but the performance did little to allay concerns about this team’s flaws.

Starting with the positives, Torres’ opening goal was a throw-back to his debut season and it was great to see him scoring that type of goal again. It was also pleasing to see the bench looking a lot stronger with the return of players such as Aurelio after injury. The biggest positive (aside from the fact we won) was the performance of Ryan Babel.

After being deservedly booed onto the pitch against Debrecen, he looked like a man with a point to prove and, for once, showed some determination to prove that point. For the first time in recent memory, the whining Dutchman actually put in a shift, working hard on and off the ball. He also showed ability on the ball beating opponents with skill and pace and superbly setting up the winning goal for Torres. This was the Ryan Babel we saw in glimpses in his debut season and this was the Ryan Babel we want to see every game. If he wants more minutes on the pitch, he has to start producing performances of that standard consistently. It’s up to Babel.

On the negative side, I just wish Rafa would take Gerrard to one side and tell him he is not a dead-ball specialist. There is one word for Gerrard’s free-kicks and corners against West Ham... ‘crap’. He’s been whipping in corners for 10 years now so there’s no excuse for under and over hitting crosses as regularly as he does. It’s time he handed the responsibility to someone who can provide better delivery on a more consistent basis and get himself into the middle where he is one of the team’s more dangerous players. In a team generally lacking in height, Gerrard is one of the taller players and is extremely effective in the air. He is also the one player Liverpool supporters would want the ball to drop to on the edge of the area. Stevie scored the winner at Bolton and all but scored Liverpool’s second at Upton Park by being in the middle. Rafa needs to tell him to bloody stay there and leave the corner-kicks to Aurelio or Benayoun.

And since I’m discussing set-pieces, we conceded yet another soft goal from a corner yesterday. I’m so sick of hearing about bloody zonal marking but until we stop conceding stupid goals from set-pieces, the debate isn’t going away. Not that there is much of a debate on the subject as every pundit, commentator, "expert" and fan seems to agree that zonal marking is a less effective method of defending set-pieces than man-marking. That is the view of football "experts" such as Matt Holland and Andy Townsend. Yesterday, it was Kevin Keegan sticking the knife in and if anyone knows about bad defending, he does.

My view on the matter is that man-marking probably is a better method because that’s what the likes of Man Ure and Chelsea use and they are very effective at defending set-pieces - although it should also be noted that they have better defenders and taller midfielders. Zonal can be effective as we have seen in spells over the last 5 years under Benitez but a massive flaw with it is it only takes one player to make a mistake and an opponent can be presented with a free header. The other big flaw is that if the opposition shifts the ball first, as Debrecen did repeatedly last Wednesday, it is very hard to switch from defending zones to marking opponents. Chaos ensues and the defence is vulnerable. This tactic has been used repeatedly against us by Man Ure and Chelsea in recent years and has cost us goals in big games.

The problem is, Rafa believes in zonal marking and is not going to change his mind. He would respond to criticism of the tactic by pointing out that for every goal conceded when defending in this way, a player has made a mistake. He is right but the questions are (i) are players more likely to make a mistake defending in this way, and (ii) does this method of defending mean mistakes are more likely to result in a goal? The evidence of the last 5 years has led me to conclude the answer to both is ‘yes’.

While it’s pointless hoping he abandons the tactic, I really hope his analyses of recent goals conceded lead him to at least vary it. We could, for example, stick men on the posts and still defend zonally. So often you see players from other teams making goal-line clearances after taking up positions on the post. Had we had someone there against West Ham, Carlton Cole’s equaliser would not have gone in and neither would Kevin Davies' opener for Bolton against us. We’ve got several short-arses in the team who simply aren’t capable of defending their zones against taller, stronger players (see Insua for Bolton’s first against us). Get the taller players marking the central zones and stick the likes of Insua and Mascherano on the posts. That way, if the ball breaks, we have players in the middle instead leaving opponents unmarked in front of goal.

With or without men on the posts, we can defend zonally much more effectively than we have so far this season but if we go into the Chelsea game defending like we have of late, we will be massacred.