First things first - I wholeheartedly agree Mascherano is "world-class" insofar as it relates to a narrowly-defined specialist role. He is an absolutely fantastic holding player and seems to show he might improve quite a bit over time in other areas.
BUT .....
For me he deserves a place in the centre of our midfield. He should be a regular starter, more so than Alonso and Sissoko.
The demand for his specialist skills is limited compared to the demand for the skills our other central midfielders offer.
The essence of Mascherano's game is destruction and obstruction. Sure, he can do other things (and seems to be getting better at them), but his chief appeal is destruction to counter our opponent's efforts at creation.
Specifically, Masch is never more valuable than when we play an opponent who can threaten us from between the lines.
Masch is never going edge out Alonso as a "regular" starter because:
i) Alonso's creative and distributive capacities are obviously greater; and
ii) there are relatively few opponents in England that can offer a serious threat between the lines - United, Arsenal, maybe Man City if Elano holds up - even Chelsea seemd to have lost this aspect to their play since Gudjohnsen and Duff moved on. At a stretch you could put Spurs in the mix.
Point is, there are few games where Rafa will consider that we need to commit a central midfielder to contain a particular opponent's threat.
Different story in Europe though. I think Masch will be a "regular" in our big-game Euro lineup without ever becoming a "regular" for English opponents.
Disagree. For me Masch and Gerrard is or best centre midfeild pairing at the moment. They should have played against Chelsea, and I reckon we would have won if they had. I can't see why he's being used against teams likes Derby and Tolouse instead.
So what, you think he would have dispossessed Rob Styles of his whistle with an incredible sliding challenge?
I imagine you are going to argue the ball would never have got that far if Masch was playing. I'll offer three points in anticipation:
i) you can't possibly know that
ii) if we had decent officiating on the day, we probably would have won without him
iii) you are overlooking Alonso's lovely header in the lead-up to Torres' goal. You can't be sure Mascherano would be far enough up the pitch to make that header, let alone whether he would have managed the task as neatly as Alonso did.
