Alonso and Mascherano suited eachother perfectly, they go with the whole destroyer - creator theory brilliantly. Those 2 were a match made in heaven; i think the fact Alonso isn't still there, could be a part of the reason why masch wants to leave; as for you saying we played a 4-1-1-3-1 against Rabotnicki (sp?) i disagree. Yes, Gerrard pushed on quite a lot (to be expected against such weak opposition) but so did Lucas, they both took it in turns to bomb forward. but both at times came deep to win the ball or recieve the ball from a defender.
Also, if Gerrard ran beyond Joe Cole; cole often droppen into Gerrard's position to help out, and won the ball back a few times....
As for DMF saying if he plays Masch and he get's injured. we'll have an unhappy player on our hands; well he wanted to leave last summer, didn't. had a bad 3 or 4 games and then put his head down and got on with it and was pretty good. I think at the end of the day, he knows he's a Liverpool player until someone bids for him and as Woy said, a deal doesn't look immintent atm....
As for Poulsen, i don't see why people are trying to compare him to masch; it's obvious masch is one of the best in the world at what he does! But at £4.5 million, it's not a bad signing, although i have the same concerns as Zeb.....