Pennant: A Natural Wide Man

Liverpool’s current off-field problems are well-documented, but in this post I want to just stick to their on-field short-falls. One of their biggest problems at the moment is that they don’t have enough width. All their attacking (the little that they do) is straight up the middle and, although they do try to swing it wide on occasion, they don’t have the players to make good use of the wide channels.


Joe Cole is an obviously gifted player, and a great attacker, but even when he is played in a wide position, he loves to come inside to make his runs. So does Ryan Babel, as did Yossi Benayoun when they were given a rare chance under Benitez. Kuyt and Jovanovic are not natural wide men and cannot deliver consistently good crosses.

In fact, probably their best option from wide on the right is via wing-back Glen Johnson; he is very good at making runs down the flank and putting in decent crosses with either his left or right foot, very much like Steve Finnan did for years. I wrote about this before when I felt Benitez wasted Jermaine Pennant, he was definitely one of the best crossers in the league.

Pennant is now playing for Stoke City, and I watched him in a recent match and he still doing the business; still pulling very wide, stretching the pitch, still excellently controlling with the one-touch, and still swinging in tantalizing crosses for the strikers to get on to. And with other attacking options like Ethrington and Kenwyn Jones, Stoke look a decent side going forwards. I’m sure Liverpool would love to have the services of Pennant at the moment.