1 - Correct me if I'm wrong, but we were playing a 4231 and when Balotelli came not hat didn't change - Lallana and Borini playing wide and cutting in. Borini looked good doing the wide bit, working hard, the ball he turned on and took a quick shot with his left would have been a wonderful goal if it were a half meter to the right! I think his energy, drive, attitude would only be positives on the pitch. We're missing that. I also think he gets on well with Balotelli (where Sterling doesn't seem to, at least not in football terms).
2 - The 4231 always looks half-passioned. The two sitting midfielders, the wide players tracking back, a lone striker... and when teams are setting up defensively against us, they have all the time in the world to take up shape and pressure us at the circle, and by the time we're near the 18-yard box Mario or someone else is frustrated and just takes the low-odds shot.
Is that because of the shape? The 1-2 midfield with Gerrard sets us up to be more attacking but then the slow, slow, overly thoughtful build up is still our problem - and I have no idea moving the ball around and taking our time, but we get stuck on one half of the pitch by the by line and then punt it back to Skrtel or Lovren or Migs and do the same again. Seems to me we need to be moving the ball faster - and to my eyes, the reason we can't is because our movement off the ball has been pretty shit in midfield and in attack (NOT just Mario). To Borini's credit, he looked like he was doing lots of good work off the ball, and Lucas, Coutinho and Hendo seemed to have a good thing going in midfield last night, too, in terms of pass-move-ready to take the ball and move it on again, with Coutinho able to pick up the ball and run at the defense, and open up space for Borini or someone else to charge into...
3 - Gerrard is definitely coming back in Saturday. You know we're revert to a 433 or diamond with Gerrard sitting deep, henderson and probably Allen will come back in - but maybe Coutinho earned himself a start in the middle 3. Sterling and Borini wide and cutting in, Borini especially tasked with getting into the box to let Balotelli drift around and do his thing - I think it could work at Newcastle.