Kevin Pietersen has been dropped from the England limited overs team after his piss poor performance in the last couple of series. The South African born batsman has only made 232 runs in nine competitive test innings which is poor for a player of his calibre. I would suggest that not playing much first class county cricket over the last couple of years has been the direct cause of Pietersen’s slump in form. Pietersen has signed to play out the remainder of the season for Surrey after the selectors demanded that he find himself a county to play for after his departure from Hampshire, who he only played a handful of games this season! I also believe that players like Alistair Cook and Paul Collingwood need to be dropped and have to earn their place back as both players have been poor. These top order batsmen should not be getting themselves out for less than 20 runs on a consistent basis. England need top order batsmen that can knock up 50 – 100 runs each and every match to be able to compete with the likes of Australia down under.
Liverpool have finally completed the sale of Javier Mascherano. The Argentinian has moved to Barcelona for £17.25m so Liverpool recouped most of the £18m they spent getting him to Anfield, which is somewhat short of the £25m valuation. Hopefully that money can be used to get a player of a calibre of Xabi Alonso who departed Anfield at the end of the 2008/09 season. Alonso has been sorely missed in the middle of the field for Liverpool; he was a true play-maker which Liverpool are seemingly lacking even with Steven Gerrard who is more of an attacking midfielder. Liverpool have already made a number if signings, Raul Meireles has been signed for £11.5m from Porto; Christian Poulsen from Juventus for £4.5m and Paul Konchesky from Fulham for an undisclosed fee, I guess we’ll find out soon enough if these new signings are good ones. One thing is for sure; Liverpool need to step up their game is they want to challenge for the Premiership title this season. As things stand, Liverpool need Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea to slip up to make any gains already being five points behind the league leader.
