The Monday Football Column: Keep laying Liverpool

"The Reds are anywhere up to 2.77/4 for a top-six finish, and 5.24/1 to reach the top four. There’s still value in laying both of them."

Ralph Ellis' pre-season scepticism about Liverpool's latest reboot has been justified by a shaky start...

"Don't it always seem to go", sang Joni Mitchell, "that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." Ok, so You'll Never Walk Alone will always be the number one song at Anfield, but this week, at least, it seems Big Yellow Taxi might be number two in the charts.

It was more of a claret-and-blue taxi that took Andy Carroll away from Merseyside to go to West Ham last Thursday night. Who would have thought he would be missed so much, so quickly?

From the moment that Kenny Dalglish spent £35m to sign the big centre forward from Newcastle last January, there was always a large contingent of Kop fans who didn't want or rate him. Not a Liverpool player, they said. His touch wasn't good enough, he wasn't mobile enough, he wasn't creative enough. Waste of money.

And when Brendan Rodgers took over, it was soon pretty obvious that he shared those views. Within days the signals were being given through the media that Carroll could go, and when subtle hints weren't working Rodgers said it outright.

He got his wish when Carroll went. But Clint Dempsey, the man the manager thought was lined up as a replacement, went to Spurs instead and right now Liverpool are a team without anybody to do the most important job in football - put the ball in the net.

All the optimism that surrounded the appointment of Swansea's former manager has evaporated already. Back in early July, I suggested laying the Reds for both a top-six finish at 1.558/15 and a top-four finish at 3.7511/4. My reasoning was that Rodgers' attempts to change the style of football would take too much time. What we didn't know was that his attempts would also be hampered by a lack of resources in the transfer market.

This morning, the Reds are anywhere up to 2.77/4 for a top-six finish, and 5.24/1 to reach the top four. There's still value in laying both of them. Talk of an approach to Michael Owen might bring some romantic headlines but will his fitness record stand up to playing regularly in the Premier League?

Rodgers was recruited by Liverpool's owners who had wanted a different direction after spending huge fees on the likes of Carroll, Luis Suarez, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson without seeing any value for their money. But it meant his first task was to trim the wage bill. He's got eight players off the books and saved around £20million, which is smashing - except it has left him with a squad of just 19 to work with.

And while he was allowed to pay out £15m to bring in Joe Allen, at the moment the pocket-sized midfielder is not on the same wavelength as those around him. During his debut at West Brom, I lost count of the number of times he moved into space and showed for the ball, but didn't get it. A look at the TV pictures from yesterday's defeat by Arsenal suggested that hasn't changed too much.

Rodgers is undoubtedly a talented young coach. He's a deep thinker about football, about tactics and strategy. He has the ability to make the most of what's available.

But like any football manager, he's only as good as the players he can work with. And if his squad doesn't have a goalscorer, his team won't score too many goals.

Liverpool have got a recall clause for Carroll that kicks in on January 1. By then they might be preparing a Big Red Taxi to bring him back!

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Michael Vaughan: Why I'm laying the draw in the Second Test

Pakistan v England / Michael Vaughan / 24 January 2012 / Leave a Comment

Run machine. Jonathan Trott looks set to cash in this time.

"This England team don’t do boring because they’ve become accustomed to playing an aggressive brand of cricket. That’s why they’ve been entertaining to watch since Andy Flower took over."

All the talk is of mountains of runs on a flat pitch but England are rarely involved in draws and there's a great chance we'll get another result. If there are runs to be scored, expect Jonathan Trott to be amongst them, says Michael Vaughan.

A cricket dressing room is a great place to be in when you're winning but a pretty miserable one when you've just been hammered. There will have been plenty of soul-searching amongst the England players as to what went wrong and plenty of work done by analysts and other background staff into why their batting line-up capitulated not once, but twice. No prizes for guessing which Pakistan bowler will have been the subject of the greatest amount of analysis. If England don't play Saeed Ajmal a lot better than they did in the First Test they're in big trouble but hopefully all this fancy technical equipment will help them work out where they went wrong last time.

Chris Tremlett isn't fully fit so will miss out, although I suspect the Surrey paceman wouldn't have played anyway, even if he was 100%. This will be a pretty flat pitch here in Abu Dhabi and that's not really the sort of track where he's dangerous. All the talk has been of Monty Panesar being brought in to help Graeme Swann with spinning duties but I'm not sure that's the way forward. There should be some cracks emerging and a some rough areas to aim at on days four and five but during the first three days you need to put pressure on the batsmen by either generating your own spin or varying the pace at which you're bowling. I'm not sure Monty will be a huge threat in those conditions and I'd actually go with Graham Onions instead.

It's been a while since we last saw the Durham man in action but this may just be his sort of pitch. We know there's unlikely to be much swing assisting the bowlers and the pitch may have just that little bit more bounce than the one in Dubai but there's still not much chance of wickets falling to short-pitched deliveries. And this might just be where Onions comes into the equation, bowling stump-to-stump deliveries. The DRS was prominent in the First Test and if you bowl straight enough on the Abu Dhabi wicket and hit the pads, that may just be the best chance you have of taking wickets.

As regards the batters, Eoin Morgan is probably the only player whose place may be in doubt but dropping him just because Ravi Bopara can bowl would be rash. And this England management team don't do rash.

The Betfair market suggests a draw (2.2) is on the cards. The reason for that is that both of the two matches played here before did end in high-scoring draws. But we should remember that when Pakistan drew with Sri Lanka late last year, the latter needed a double century from the great Kumar Sangakarra to avoid defeat because Pakistan pretty much had them on the ropes.

I'm laying the draw at [2.2]. Over the past few years England have played in all manner of conditions and very rarely do their matches end up in boring draws. OK, so there was the First Test of the 2010/11 Ashes series in Adelaide but (excluding two against Sri Lanka last summer where a huge amount of play was lost to rain) the stalemates have been thrilling draws - Panesar and James Anderson batting out the last few overs at Cardiff, Onions out in South Africa and the West Indies tail (twice in the series) doing the same with just one wicket in hand in the Caribbean, the last time England lost a Test series.

This England team don't do boring because they've become accustomed to playing an aggressive brand of cricket. That's why they've been entertaining to watch since Andy Flower took over. If anything, Pakistan are the more likelier side to go on and win the match for two good reasons: I can't see England scoring 550-plus to put themselves in a wining position and Pakistan (3.8) look better suited to taking 20 wickets on this pitch. But England are capable of winning because they've developed that sort of winning habit so I'd rather cover both bases by laying the draw than just backing Pakistan.

For England first innings top batsman honours, it has to be Jonathan Trott. He looked really good in the second innings and was picking Ajmal before getting out to an uncharacteristically careless shot off the bowling of Umar Gul. That was just a lapse in concentration because I think Trott was on for a big score and he's worth backing at [5.0] to build on a good start and pile on the runs.

My last tip for the match is that a bowler will take five wickets in an innings. Ajmal took seven in the first innings of the First Test and both Gul and Graeme Swann took four so there's a good chance that it will happen again. Ajmal is the most likely player to do it but there are plenty of others who can get on a roll and with the wicket likely to get considerably worse on days four and five, there's a good chance for someone to really cash in.

3 pts lay the draw at [2.2].
2 pts Back Jonathan Trott to be England first innings top batsman @ [5.0]
2 pts Back a bowler to take five wickets in an innings @ [1.7]

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Michael Vaughan's £500 Run Chase!

Our cricket ambassador is challenging you to predict how many runs will be scored on each day's play during England's Test match against Pakistan. In return we are offering the opportunity for you to win £500 cash (or a share of it). See full details here.

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