Source: Liverpool_Echo
Blood Red: Substance as well as style with Alberto Aquilani
PATIENCE is a virtue sorely lacking in modern football and that is something Alberto Aquilani will have discovered this week.[LNB]Despite the fact he is just starting to find his feet after enduring a 12-month spell that was decimated by injury and included the upheaval of moving to another country, he is being branded a flop two Premier League starts into his Liverpool career.[LNB]For some commentators, it wasn't enough that he stroked the ball around with elan, tried his hardest to launch attacks whenever he received possession or that he kept getting up from every robust tackle that knocked him out of his elegant stride.[LNB]No. Judging from some of the views that have been raised in the days since his performances against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa, it has already been decided that Aquilani is going to be a Liverpool flop.[LNB]Perhaps his reviews would have been kinder if he had scored goals in each game from inside his own half as well as hitting a series of raking, cross field passes into the path of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, to show he has a telepathic understanding.[LNB]But neat and tidy isn't good enough any more, is it?[LNB]In this era when everything must be done yesterday and there is no time for reflection, knee-jerk reactions are commonplace and determine whether footballers are instant triumphs or turkeys.[LNB]It is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Had this same rationale been applied at the end of the 1990s, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry, for instance, might have been drummed out of Arsenal because the English game was too much for them.[LNB]Thanks to a bit of time and understanding, though, they became two of the greatest players ever to appear in the Premier League; now this is not to suggest Aquilani will become an all-time great but you get the picture.
