Paying the price for lack of bravery

AURELIO and Lucas? Lucas and Aurelio? Aur-okay, don’t labour the point.

I don’t know why I’m worrying. Europe has lost much of its allure of late, and if there’s a decent match-up in February post-hibernation I’ll open one crusty eye and feign interest.

Said with all the arrogance of the perpetual qualifier. I’m not the only one either. There was something creepily complacent about the Debrecen game, and it continued in Florence — until it was too late.

Something tells me we will be a lot more focused next time out. Italian football has lost its way in recent years. I could care more about that. I’m not sure it’s possible to care less.

Fiorentina looked a tasty little team, but then Burnley have won all their home games thus far and Stoke survived the Premier League last season.

Home comforts still count for an awful lot, as last Tuesday’s referee amply demonstrated.

Martin Atkinson wasn’t much better on Sunday.

Not that I can blame referees for everything, after all I’m not Alex Ferguson. Thank God he didn’t kick a plastic bottle eh? Sammy Lee must be absolutely furious.

We were an utter shambles in that first half in Italy. Lucas came in for more stick, but, whilst one can’t deny he was appalling, pairing him with a half-fit full-back in such a game was asking for trouble. Even in his pomp Souness would have struggled to carry either of them.

Proof that Rafa’s chess-piece attitude to footballers hasn’t vanished and isn’t likely to.

We were all over the place last week. The defence has been run ragged lately even in victory and it’s terrifyingly reminiscent of the end days of Evans when we often needed three goals to win.

More than any other part of the team the defence is a unit. Houllier rotated more than Rafa but always kept his back four the same if he could. Change isn’t welcome.

Johnson has personally done well but something’s not quite right, add ‘protection’ from Glassman & The Scapegoat in midfield and we were lucky Fiorentina settled for two.

In Rafa’s furious response he kept saying ‘we’ a lot but he sent out a midfield ill-equipped to do the job so it sounded like buck-passing.

There were worrying rumours that Mascherano wasn’t injured at all. Nothing concrete, just the odd line in reports that made you wonder if more might emerge soon.

He was fine at the Bridge in a close but ultimately frustrating game. We’ve emerged battered and bruised so often from there that we should be immune to disappointment.

I’d always assumed hatred of Drogba stemmed from his unerring ability to turn it on against us, even in his Marseille days. You try to rationalise and say you’d love him on your side.

You know what, I really don’t think so. I couldn’t.

Our own problems stuck out like a sore thumb and the Alonso name-checking increases after each defeat. I wonder how many it will take before anyone admits we’re significantly weaker than last season.

We still could have got something from this game but Torres had an off-day and Gerrard did the usual West London vanishing act. You look around for someone else to pick up the baton, and silently seethe.

By the time Benayoun missed a virtual open goal small things like the returns of the old Mascherano and Skrtel were scant consolation.

Riera does nothing now except put us in jeopardy. There is a lack of bravery in some of our players, it isn’t just physical cowardice as in Riera’s case but a cerebral shortcoming, almost as if some don’t begin to understand what it all means.