Allaying Fears and Other Tuesday Notes

As you'll no doubt remember, I wasn't thrilled with the signing of Charlie Adam. I feared a player who would emulate the younger version of Steven Gerrard, and not even be all that mobile as misplaced passes sprayed into the air like a toddler blowing bubbles in the park. The residents of the Kop would feel under attack as a more and more desperate to please Adam, seemingly under orders from Dark Helmet  to "keep firing, assholes!", would send more and more wayward balls into their faces and chests, causing them to run for cover.

That's hardly been the case. Adam, through only three games admittedly, has proven to be an intelligent mover of the ball, who has kept things ticking over in Liverpool's midfield. He's gotten ambitious at times, but only a few and generally against Exeter. His partnership with Lucas is growing by driver distances with each game, and they keep the team moving at a pretty fair pace which is suffocating opponents.

And my worst fears? Allayed!

 by Guardian Chalkboards

As you can see from this chart, Adam's passing has been keen but not ridiculous. He only attempted two passes that we could call "Hollywood", and they were both successful. He's picking his spots, and essentially just getting the ball to Downing and Suarez where they can make things happen. But this wasn't only a one-time occurrence.

 by Guardian Chalkboards

Here's his performance against Bolton compared to the one against Arsenal. Same thing. Only one or maybe two glory chasers, and mostly just the reserved kind.

 by Guardian Chalkboards

And here's the comparison between Bolton and Sunderland. In the opening game he was slightly more ambitious, but some of those are free kicks and the like. Overall, I've been impressed with Adam, he's much more than I thought.

-Apparently, Chelsea had a bid of Benayoun and 7 mildo for Raul Meireles turned down, as well it should be. Yossi, though a valuable servant to us the first go around, would be nothing more than a substitute again for us, with Downing, Henderson, Kuyt, and maybe even Maxi at this point all ahead of him in the wide positions. And Meireles is simply too good to let that go for that price. We don't know how all these midfield pieces fit together yet, not everyone's been healthy. But that's the thing, we can't count on Gerrard staying healthy, and Meireles would seem to be his first deputy.

-Transfer deadline tomorrow, and Rob's thread will return this evening. Don't expect too much more activity coming into Anfield, but the rumblings are that Joe Cole may need to break out his skinny black jeans and small sunglasses if he truly is headed off to Lille.