Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

Watch out! We’re so close to Rafa’s idea of the perfect side, says Alonso.

Xabi Alonso tries to describe the perfect side through the eyes of Rafa Benitez.

‘They are like a machine, working as a team from the first minute to the last,’ he says.

‘They are difficult to break down, their tactical movements are very good and physically they are very strong.

Perfection, says Alonso, was embodied in the Valencia side Benitez guided to two La Liga titles and the team that now sits top of the Barclays Premier League is, in the opinion of the midfielder, as close as his manager has come to recreating it since arriving at Anfield.

Alonso speaks from bitter experience about Valencia.

He was a key member of a Real Sociedad team that watched in awe as Roberto Ayala, Ruben Baraja and Pablo Aimar steamrollered their way to two championships in 2002 and 2004.

They were too powerful for Barcelona; too well-organised for Real Madrid.

‘They made a big impact in La Liga, because they were not Barcelona and they were not Real Madrid,’ says Alonso.

‘They won the league showing a lot of solidity and strength, and they deserved to win it.

‘I think they were as close as it gets to Rafa’s idea of a perfect team,and, having spent more than four seasons with him here, I can see why Valencia were so successful.

'I know now how Rafa likes his football and how he prepares his team during the week.

'He is very meticulous.’

So what about Liverpool? How do they match up? ‘At Liverpool it has taken time but I think we are no as close to what Rafa wants as that Valencia team were,’ he says.

‘Obviously there are still areas where we could improve.

'We could be better at home.

'But I think all the top teams are finding it difficult when clubs like Fulham and Wigan are now as strong as they are.

'They go to places like Anfield and prove very difficult to break down.

'Away from home, though, we are showing more personality than we have in the past and we are enjoying more control of the games.

'We are showing real maturity.

‘The spine of the team is solid, and many of us have been together for some time.

'That helps with building the personality and the identity of the club and the team.

'To feel attached to a group like that is important and we know what we want and we understand what the fans want.

‘For the first time, we feel that if we do things properly we will have a chance.

'We can compete. Rafa has all the knowledge and all the intelligence to be a domestic champion in England the same way he was in Spain and there is a real sense of excitement here.’

Alonso, back in the form he displayed en route to winning the Champions League in 2005, scored the goal that secured what he regards as a hugely significant victory at Chelsea in October, a win that will convince them they can leave Arsenal with another such result on Sunday.

‘It was important, psychologically,’says Alonso as he relaxes at Liverpool’s Melwood training ground.

‘It was a boost to our confidence because as a group of players we have not always performed that well away to Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United.

‘We had already beaten Manchester United at home.

'But to go to Stamford Bridge and win, and deserve to win, when they had not lost a league game there for so many years gave us great belief in the way we are playing this season.'

Belief has also come in the form of the international success Alonso and three of his Anfield colleagues enjoyed with Spain in the summer.

‘It has probably helped here, in that it has given the players involved great confidence,’ he says.

‘Everyone in Spain was so anxious to win something and once we had won I think, individually, it allowed us to progress and become even better players.

'And I think that has been the case.'

There was a point in the summer when Alonso was not sure he had a future at Anfield.

Benitez wanted to bring in Gareth Barry and Arsenal appeared to be interested in adding strength to their midfield by luring Alonso south.

Only when the Barry deal collapsed did the speculation end and it is to his credit that the Spain midfielder has performed as well as he has this season.

Alonso reflects on the saga with a shrug of the shoulders, pointing to the fact that nothing surprises him in a game that has been his life for as long as he can remember.

His father, Periko, was a Spain midfielder who won two titles with Sociedad before joining Barcelona in the same season as Diego Maradona and winning a third La Liga title there.

He then went into management, enjoying a spell with Sociedad as well as Eibar.

‘I have always lived around football and you realise you have to deal with everything in a professional way,’ he says.

‘I understand how this game works. Sometimes people are surprised but you always have to be prepared for the fact that anything can happen.

‘What happened is behind me now. You want to be where you are wanted and during the summer I had the feeling at certain moments that I might have to move on.

'But ,once I knew I was staying, that was it. I was positive about it and I just looked forward because it’s an exciting time to be here.’

It must have been exciting as a kid. Barcelona? Maradona?

‘I was very young but we knew him,’ Alonso says.

‘My father was a very similar player to me. Perhaps more physical.

'But he was a legend at Sociedad because the club has only won the league two times and he was in that team.

'He then spent four years at Barcelona, won the league again and played for Spain 25 times.’

It can’t have been easy trying to emerge from such a shadow.

‘Once you have shown you have talent and you have shown that you’re good enough to play in a team, you take the pressure on your shoulders and you don’t think about what your dad might have done,’ he says.

‘My dad has always been very helpful and very supportive.

‘I talk to him almost every day but he doesn’t try and give advice all the time.

'He treats me in a very respectful way because he knows I have my own coach and my own manager.’

And a manager who has won league titles, too.

[Rorschach26]

We have world class players all he way through the spine of this team.........theres no way we lack ambition like alot of people on here have all ready stated wre just abit thin on the number of quality squad players

every year under Rafa weve added afew quality additions i think in afew years time we wont be talkining about having only afew match winners & no1 who can come off the bench & change a game

[kazza]

KNEE JERK REACTION!!

This thread is not a surprise at all, we must have no ambition at all because we only managed a draw at the Emirates (even though the thread starter said a draw would be good result before the game). Shocking!

We were lookin good for the win until they went down to ten men and defended. In fact Arsenal had a couple of chances on the counter as we were pushing up the field looking for the winner. That does not seem like no ambition. Ambition is how you play and not whether you agree with the substitutions or not. Wenger is the one that should have gambled for the win as they needed the points much more than we did. Wenger is bitter and he can say what he wants does not mean sh1t.

Kuyte was holding the ball up much better than Keane and was a better choice up top in order to get the midfielders into the play. Raffa's sides always score more goals from midfield. I am surprised that with your excessive knowledge about football you did not spot it Mick. You never seem happy with Raffa as a manager Mick no need to disguise it, why not just come out and say what you feel instead of the typical "I am not saying Raffa is a bad manager but he is cr@p"or words to that effect.

[Sabre]

I don't think it's easy to measure ambition from our position, to be honest, and I don't see signs of lack of it anyway.

On the contrary this season I've seen signs that could mean ambition and will to win, as we've seen many come backs, which is not easy to do in modern football.

I didn't see lack of ambition against Arsenal, but that's just me. I think Wenger managed well his number inferiority, all must be said. For what I have read so far, it seems to me that many think that playing with one man more must mean a victory, but there are managers and teams that manage this situations very well, and Arsenal knew to defend their point well.


If we had 3 points cushion we'd be talking about a good result yesterday, but the anxiety of feeling Chelsea's breath in our back makes us a bit desperate for points and demanding victories in difficult grounds.

[account deleted by request]

KNEE JERK REACTION!!

This thread is not a surprise at all, we must have no ambition at all because we only managed a draw at the Emirates (even though the thread starter said a draw would be good result before the game). Shocking!

We were lookin good for the win until they went down to ten men and defended. In fact Arsenal had a couple of chances on the counter as we were pushing up the field looking for the winner. That does not seem like no ambition. Ambition is how you play and not whether you agree with the substitutions or not. Wenger is the one that should have gambled for the win as they needed the points much more than we did. Wenger is bitter and he can say what he wants does not mean sh1t.

Kuyte was holding the ball up much better than Keane and was a better choice up top in order to get the midfielders into the play. Raffa's sides always score more goals from midfield. I am surprised that with your excessive knowledge about football you did not spot it Mick. You never seem happy with Raffa as a manager Mick no need to disguise it, why not just come out and say what you feel instead of the typical "I am not saying Raffa is a bad manager but he is cr@p"or words to that effect.

We have drawn 4 out of our last 5 league games mate, hardly a kneejerk reaction to question why.

[bigmick]

KNEE JERK REACTION!!

This thread is not a surprise at all, we must have no ambition at all because we only managed a draw at the Emirates (even though the thread starter said a draw would be good result before the game). Shocking!

Oh dear oh dear 

"Ambition is how you play and not whether you agree with the substitutions or not". How you play is determined by the personel you have on the pitch and the formation you choose to employ. If you have five strikers on the pitch but with 10 men behind the ball, that's not trying to win the game. If you have 5 centre halves on the pitch and no strikers, but play 4-2-4 that's not showing ambtition either. Just out of interest, before you post up this stuff do you actually think about it, do you read it back? If this is what happens when you get involved in football discussions you might be better off just doing your trademark short and silly attacks with no reasoning whatsoever.

The comments about Kuyt I'm not going to go into now. Neither am I going to get involved in Rafa's teams "always scoring more goals from midfield"  Just out of interest, did you see any matches last season? Did you forget that we had a Spanish lad up top who scored quite a few?

No, like I say if I were you I'd stick to the silly snidey comments and leave the football talk to other people. I can't even give you a good effort for that one, I think that was a ridiculous post, even by your own standards.

[Ciggy]

We have drawn 4 out of our last 5 league games mate, hardly a kneejerk reaction to question why.

He just wants to pick a fight with BM he is a BM stalker.

[bigmick]

I don't think it's easy to measure ambition from our position, to be honest, and I don't see signs of lack of it anyway.

On the contrary this season I've seen signs that could mean ambition and will to win, as we've seen many come backs, which is not easy to do in modern football.

I didn't see lack of ambition against Arsenal, but that's just me. I think Wenger managed well his number inferiority, all must be said. For what I have read so far, it seems to me that many think that playing with one man more must mean a victory, but there are managers and teams that manage this situations very well, and Arsenal knew to defend their point well.


If we had 3 points cushion we'd be talking about a good result yesterday, but the anxiety of feeling Chelsea's breath in our back makes us a bit desperate for points and demanding victories in difficult grounds.

Anyway, moving swiftly on to somebody who actually knows something about football.

I don't know about you Sabes, but I thought we definately settled for the result yesterday with 20 minutes to go. The fullbacks were sitting in, we took off Keane and put Kuyt up top (bet Arsenal were sh!tting bricks at that point) and we didn't try to play with two out and out strikers until there were two minutes left on the clock.

Now as has been mentioned, a draw at the Emirates is not a bad result, far from it. That said, this was a draw where we played for half and hour against 10 men, and for a half where they didn't have their best player.

I fully accept and agree with your point about them deserving some credit for keeping their shape, but I would just like to see us have gone for it more.

As it was, I don't agree with your "if we were three points clear" angle to be honest. The game was there to be won, and we didn't seemingly have the will to properly go for it. That Arsenal were able to comfotably hold on and the keeper had barely a save to make tells it's own story.

[maypaxvobiscum]

However, Wenger insisted his men were not out of the championship race.

He said: "The title is won in May and we are in December. Mathematically we will fight until the end. I believe Liverpool will drop many points. I am convinced of that.

"They had four draws at home. That means they dropped eight points, why shouldn't they drop eight more in the second half of the season?''


*comments from Wenger*

[Emerald Red]

Simple as this: we're missing a link for the master plan, and that link is one Fernando Torres. It's not lack of ambition at all that we drew 4 of  or 5 last games. We're missing the sharp end of the spear. The one player to put the sh*ts up the opposition. If Torres had not got injured at all this season, we could be looking at an at least 6 or 7 point gap between us and Chelsea, and I dare anyone to argue with that.

[Alex G.]

I think Rafa wasn´t scared of win, it was the players. They have fear to the responsability of a champion team. They were ambition against Man City when there was no pressure.
A champion team must assume that they have the obligation to behave as a champion team in that occasions. And I agree with Bigmick, in the yesterday situation (Adebayor and Fabregas out) Man United or Chelsea would have cornered  them in the last 30 minutes.(playing with one or 2 strikers, it is indifferent).

[Leonmc0708]

Top of the league.

7 points from 9 against the other teams in the big four.

Sack the manager.

Not your best post that one Leon and a good example of why I get a bit bored sometimes trying to discuss football on here. The first post in the thread isn't a Rafa bash, it's asking a simple and fundamental question, did we and do we go for it enough.

I'll take it from your answer that you think we did/do.

Sack the manager? 

I did not realise that you where now personally rating each and every post.

I tried to get in early and post negative stuff before everyone else.

It was a sarcastic post and needed the as yet unreleased sarcasm smilie.

[bigmick]

Should have quoted Maxie here......


I wouldn't expect him to be conceeding it now to be fair, nor do we normally when we are in the same position. They are gone for all money though in my view, and while he's right that we might drop points, there's three teams with a gap to Arsenal not one, and they aren't all going to come back to them. If one team gets out and gets a lead there's hope for everyone, but if you are adrift of a top three you're gone.

On a slightly seperate note, during the last 20 minutes of the Arsenal game I got my first strong feelings that perhaps this isn't going to be our year. Many times in the past I've seen the Mancs, and Chelsea be the recipients of outrageous luck in terms of decisions, injuries to opposition players etc, and they've made full use of their fortune. I'm absolutely convinced the Mancs in particular would have swarmed all over Arsenal's 10 men, and the fact we didn't try to do so made me think that we don't quite yet have that title winning mentality.

[Leonmc0708]

Anyway, moving swiftly on to somebody who actually knows something about football.

Your fuc.king attitude stinks, and the way you have lorded it in this thread reminds me a lot of Stu.

[Alex G.]

I wouldn't expect him to be conceeding it now to be fair, nor do we normally when we are in the same position. They are gone for all money though in my view, and while he's right that we might drop points, there's three teams with a gap to Arsenal not one, and they aren't all going to come back to them. If one team gets out and gets a lead there's hope for everyone, but if you are adrift of a top three you're gone.

On a slightly seperate note, during the last 20 minutes of the Arsenal game I got my first strong feelings that perhaps this isn't going to be our year. Many times in the last I've seen the Mancs, and Chelsea be the recipients of outrageous luck in terms of decisions, injuries to opposition players etc, and they've made full use of their fortune. I'm absolutely convinced the Mancs in particular would have swarmed all over Arsenal's 10 men, and the fact we didn't try to do so made me think that we don't quite yet have that title winning mentality.

Did you realize that the last 30 minutes we started to play slower?

It´s obvious that we don´t Know play well against deep defensive teams.