Jonjo Shelvey must start against Brighton

Liverpool's English midfielder Jonjo Shelvey (L) scores next to his teammate English midfielder Steven Gerrard (C) during the FA Cup football match between Liverpool and Oldham Athletic at Anfield in Liverpool, north-west England, on January 6, 2012. Liverpool won the match 5-1. - AFP

Brighton beat Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup in 1983 and drew there in 1991. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine the ninth-place Championship side to knock off the seventh-place EPL team, but while this game should be close, the best they will likely do will be a draw.

Those possibilities would be materialised, if and when the Liverpool FC played as lousy as they did in the match against Manchester United last week. 

Since this FA Cup is another animal all together, we do hope the squad would do better and play truly to their status as the EPL team, against a lowly club of Brighton stature. 

But the status alone cannot guarantee a walk in the park for Liverpool. Look at Arsenal. After the mauling of 7-1 against Blackburn, the Arsene Wenger's boys lost two matches in a week with a almost similar margin totalling 6-1 (4-0 lost to AC Milan) and (2-1 lost to Sunderland).

Liverpool FC must not be the next team to get humiliated in such a torrid way.

In terms of players, again we need to have the midfield to be compact. Apparently the lost of Lucas Leiva is slowly proving very costly to the team. Having a £16 million midfielder in Henderson has yet to convince many fans. Again and again, Henderson seems to be lost in that field. We simply didn't have the holding midfielder, the one who would stop and steal the ball from the advancing opposition, accurately and diligently, just like Lucas or one Javier Mascherano.

Who would be the best player to replace Henderson tonight? (Knowing fully well nothing I or any of you wrote in your respective blogs or medium would alter the decision made by our manager!) I would like to see Jonjo Shelvey to start the match tonight.

If only Jonjo was still in the Blackpool team, he might have do something to avoid the 2-0 defeat by our small club neighbour, Everton last night. Having said that, Jonjo was reported to be brilliant in his short stint with the Blackpool and was called back to cover the midfield when Lucas was crocked. But somehow, he has not in the list all the while.

We have seen how mellowed Henderson and I just don't understand how did Jay Spearing managed to be ahead of Jonjo. As I have written before, Spearing is now prone to making silly mistakes. I blamed Spearing for the Manchester United's winning goal.

So let's hope Jonjo will get his chance to shine tonight. WALK ON ! WALK ON!