One would've guessed that Claudio 'Tinkerman' Ranieri was criticising Xabi Alonso for his lack of pace. Far from it. A through read through the article proves otherwise.
'He was a player we wanted,' Ranieri said of Alonso. 'But he is a player, who even though he is an extraordinary man and a great professional, left me perplexed by the slowness of his movement in midfield.
'In the midfield of Rafa Benitez's Liverpool, where all of them are little soldiers, he finds himself in a fantastic position.
'But in our midfield, he would have found it hard to support the midfield line seeing as (Juve wingers) Mauro Camoranesi and Pavel Nedved are not players that come back to give support like Liverpool's wingers.'
Well, it was more of a reference in his role in Liverpool's midfield trio of Alonso-Mascherano-Gerrard rather than direct aim at Xabi himself. He's right though. The likes of Benayoun, Kuyt and even Gerrard cover far more ground in a match then the players like Camoranesi and Nedved. Basically, we've got more 'workers' throughout the team and therefore the workload's spreaded out. If Xabi was to play in the Juve team, he will be closed down too quickly before he can even spring those wonderful long passes to the flanks. (Guess that's why Ranieri signed another ex-Red Momo Sissoko instead, even though Momo's inferior to Xabi technically).
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