and a message to rafa benitez. welcome to the real world my friend. as great as us fans think you are (your track record proves it), and as much as i know that you are the man to take this club back to the top again, i hope you now realise just how big a job you took on here.
it is unbelievable to note that this is the first time in SIX YEARS that rafael benitez has lost three games in a row as a manager. no reason to push the panic button you would think. however i feel that the period between now and the end of the season will be the biggest test of rafa's managerial career so far. he now has to pick up a bunch of players who must be down in the dumps after yesterdays performance. as much as i like rafa's calculating approach to the game, there are times when you just have to give players a b#llocking. if he didn't do this at half time yesterday then he should have done.
because as positive as things were looking at the end of 2004 off the back of three straight league wins against newcastle, west brom and southampton, since the turn of the year there has come a serious run of results which have threatened to blow our season apart. lose against watford on tuesday and we will all of a sudden find ourselves out of two cups and still seven points off fourth place in the league. forget all this talk of it "only being the carling cup", the watford game has now become our most important game of the season in terms of getting back on track and reinstilling some confidence.
it's not just the defeats that should be worrying rafa recently, but the MANNER of them. put the norwich victory to one side, the games against chelsea, manure and southampton have been extremely worrying. ok we were unlucky against chelsea (due to some dodgy refereeing and a deflected goal) but all in all peter cech had one save to make. infact over the three games we have scored the grand total of NO GOALS and barely mustered a shot on target. normally, i have always found that what you may lack in skill, you make up for with passion and desire. well in the last two games we haven't even had that.
against burnley, we played a lot of youngsters and got found out. even then i said that the conduct and performance of some of the more "senior" players i.e. nunez, biscan was a disgrace to the shirt. disregarding such a great traditional competition was wrong on the managers part, but at the end of the day it's not the manager who has to go out on the pitch. the players were seriously poor and let the club down but i put it down to pure inexperience. even then, i thought it would be the low point of our season.
wrong again. what followed at southampton, in the first half particularly, was the WORST performance i have ever seen by a liverpool side. there was no skill, no passion, no desire, no nothing. considering we had our strongest available side out we ended up making southampton look like brazil. i don't think even benitez could believe what he was watching at times.
of course, this is all part of the course. i'm not one for slagging players off or making scapegoats. benitez would have known that there was going to be some unbelievable ups and downs over the season as he tries to find the balance and create the team he wants. the highs of course were the olympiakos and arsenal games. the lows have come in the last eight days. benitez has to pick the players up and fast, and i'm sure he will do, starting on tuesday. the way some fans have reacted, slagging off players (particularly garcia) is unacceptable. at the moment it is about collective responsibility and the team as a whole are not producing. get behind the team because it is when things are not going well that the players need your support more than ever.
YNWA
