Liverpool FC Forum

[66-1112520797]

Well lady luck played her part today, as pi$$ poor as Derby were in the first half we were equally as poor in the second.

We were in complete control of the first half, and had we been a bit more ruthless in front of goal, notably Babel missing the cushioned volley from Riise we may of had a much more comfortable game on our hands. The manager cannot take any flack from that second hlaf performance nore really about the team he fielded as their was enough quality to see off the Rams.

I know it was his first game back for a while, and for me this game will just bring up the Mascha/Alonso debate. Firstly Xabi got 90 minutes, so he was obviously in Rafa's case fit enough, but whether people will excuse the rustyness of his game for a mediocre performance, well I suppose is fair enough. But I've seen enough of Mascha and Alonso now, to catergorically state the Mascha is much the better player in the holding role than Alonso is. I thought Alonso was poor and at times was merely a passenger in the Liverpool midfield, fair enough he's had a lenghty lay-off but some of his passing was poor today, even the hollywood balls werent all that. Mascha when he plays has much more of an impact in our midfield the Xabi does, and although the little Argie is smaller in size he certainly has a bigger presence.
Ontop of that Alonso's midfield partner (Gerrard) never ever looks as comfortable playing alongside Xabi and he does Mascha. The England-Argentina combo is much more comfortbale looking and effective than the England-Spain combo, it has to be said.
Gerrard hardly roamed or ventured, like he does when playing alongside Mascha, he for long parts, especially in the first half was playing alot deeper. It wasnt until Derby equallised that Gerrard looked as he thought 'F.uck it, I'm going for it' and took the shackles off himself and played his more natural game, the one he seems to play more when alongside Mascha.

The second half was disjointed and the overall passing of the team was real lousy, but we were fortunate enough, with the aid of our captains endevour to claim three points. Aurelio, Kuyt, Voronin and possibly Riise were pretty poor IMHO, I dont think any of them are good enough for us, Riise unless he finds his form again. He looked like a fish out of water at CH and overall hasnt been convincing atall this season.

If we want 3 pts from ManC the performance needs to be better, just happy we won in the end.

BTW, Hope Derby and their s.hitty supporters go down, kunts.

[The_Rock]

True...not wanting to sound gay...but Mash brings out the best in Gerrard.

Not saying Alonso is a bad player...far from it....But for the team to have the right BALANCE....Gerrard & Mash should be our 1st choice CM pairing.

[maguskwt]

Rafa made things worse rather than better with his substitutions, although I believe Hyypia's was actually an injury rather than a stupid error?

you surely must be talking about the kuyt for babel substitution... 

it seems like anything that has to do with kuyt is a bad decision...

i don't think it's a bad decision at all mate... babel was having a bad game he couldn't even find his team mates with a pass... at least kuyt came on and made things a bit more flowing...

[Foximus]

True...not wanting to sound gay...but Mash brings out the best in Gerrard.

Not saying Alonso is a bad player...far from it....But for the team to have the right BALANCE....Gerrard & Mash should be our 1st choice CM pairing.

How about Mach and Xabi in the middle, Gerrard on the right, Benny on the left and Kewell and Torres up front.

Gerrard, Masch, Xabi, Benny,
                   Kewell,
           Torres.

[maguskwt]

peewee

none taken mate, it seems many more people are starting to realize what I have been saying for a long time that rafa is not as great as some people on here seem to think, a vote for rafa is a vote for mediocrity, time for the excuses to stop (although I have said this many times).

no excuses... rafa is great

Rafa will not win us the league,

geez how do you know this? are you a fortune teller? a pyschic? do you get premonitions?

we have a team that is good enough but a squad that isn't good enough

tell us our first XI that you say is good enough and I will point out to you the obvious weaknesses compared to our rivals... rafa is rotating according to games partly because our team is NOT good enough. so that each team he sents out is tailor-made to counter the other team's strengths sometimes he gets it wrong, alot of the times he gets it right... the funny thing here is he's sometimes guilty of being overly tactical against weak teams... but not in this game... and before you say this is the squad he assembled, newsflash this is not championship manager...

pray tell peewee, who would you have as a manager instead of rafa benitez... are you gonna say a british manager? if so you, too, are narrow minded...

[maguskwt]

bigmick's quote: Well I didn't see it but by all accounts I didn't miss much. Firstly, thank god again for the captain pulling us out of the sh!te yet again, but once that's said I find some people are going a buit over the top about the performance. Now I know someone will say "how can you comment you didn't even see it", but that's kind of the point. You don't need to see it sometimes, we won so you have a shower, get back on the bus and feck off back home. Feck the performance, we got the points and just like at Villa Park our captain has chipped in with a late goal which was vital.

well said and totally agree

As for this proving that rotation isn't the problem, I'm not sure I buy that TBH. It may just be coincidence, but in the games recently where we've kept the same team we've played better by all accounts than we did at derby with the rotations, so I think at the very least it's fair to say that changing the team didn't make us play any better on this occasion. Equally, the more the season progresses, that period earlier in the season where we decided to "rest" Torres for consecutive League games is looking more and more like it was a fairly big error given what we now know.

expected

Anyway, we won the game and have gained points on a couple of our rivals. Unfortunately we haven't gained any points on the Mancs who look like pretty much certainties to me,

yes mick keep on jinxing our rivals    but no more jinxing our team... everytime you say 'absolute certainty' we get a bit shaky

but for now it's head down, bum uip and keep winning. Presumeably (well hopefully anyway) after a few people have had a "rest", we'll return back to something like our best eleven for the next couple of games and the forseeable.

yup I totally dig the phrase "head down, bum up and keep winning"... reminds me of a certain 2 life crew song...

[Toffeehater]

Arsenal played to a goaless draw at Fratton Park; just like we did. And they "wasted" the efforts of their full strength squad.

thats good news , manure top , bad news

[Toffeehater]

:D its thinkpad against the rest

p.s : I do not agree with think pad

someone like peewee , no offense peewee

none taken mate, it seems many more people are starting to realize what I have been saying for a long time that rafa is not as great as some people on here seem to think, a vote for rafa is a vote for mediocrity, time for the excuses to stop (although I have said this many times).

Rafa will not win us the league, we have a team that is good enough but a squad that isn't good enough

if my vote counts for anything , peewee , i would vote rafa . this man has done so much for this club and for that he deserves our respect and the way we are acting is as if we had lost the game , dodgy games happen for top sides whr u sneak points right at the death , watch a manure game , they have sneaked most their points right at the death where they have been held or losing , etc everton last weekend , us last season , accept it and we have to move on .

[account deleted by request]

I can clearly understand why its the people who admit they have'nt seen the game that are defending the result the loudest. I don't think that unless you saw Derby's first half performance you can appreciate just how bad they were. They couldn't string 2 passes together, they wern't getting tight on our players ,wern't tackling and their goalkeeper looked as if he was going to have a heart attack every time the ball went anywhere near him. We had 89% possession at one point, Derby really were as bad as that, first half.

If we had gone in 3 or 4 goals up we should have been dissapointed, but we hardly created any chances, and obviously being only 1 -0 down at half time enabled Jewell to instill some fight into his team and at least they competed in the second half.

Sometimes you play a bottom of the table side and by effort, luck and a certain amount of skill, they will make things difficult for you and may get a result. That just wasn't the case first half today, the only players that made it difficult for us today WAS OUR OWN PLAYERS.

Second half at least we had the "excuse" that Derby tried to make a game of it, they began to make tackles, became more physical and at least tried to make a game of it. First half we had no such excuses, Derby where so bad that by half time the game should have been over, and all Derby should have been concerned with was trying to keep the score respectable. 

We have had a few nightmare performances this season, Reading and Marseille being two that spring to mind, but at least Reading and Marseille made the game difficult for us, we had no such excuses first half against Derby.

As for Alonso, he just didn't look fit to me, maybe I have forgotten how slow and immobile he is in comparison to Mascherano, but he really looked struggling at times today. Hopefully he will soon get his match fitness back.

I was a little harsh on Rafa and his substitutions during the game as Hyypia didn't look injured when he came off, but I have commented a few times on how unbalanced his selection for the bench sometimes is, and to not have a defender on the bench was a mistake in my opinion.

Our title challenge is hanging by a thread, we just can't afford any more performances like this one, as against almost any other team we would have paid dearly for it.

[Toffeehater]

A poor performance but the right result.

As Arsenal proved today and more so at the weekend that playing badly and then winning is what really matters.

Today's game doesn't alter my viewpoint that we won't win the League and why should it. We are not playing anywhere near Arsenal's level in terms of the quality of the play.

Fortunatley we have 2 world class players in Torres and Stevie G who can conjure something from the abyss when the game quality is as poor as it was today.

Sunday's game at City will say more about our intent going into the New Year than today's game at Derby. I'll be there so hope to provide an after match summary.................. let's hope its better than some of the after match comments from Derby !

Walk On ..........

I got the feeling that the players will step up to show that the derby game was just a one game fault . I'd expect rafa to put the squad that before this game has been playing together and well . I think rafa has come to a realization that , that specific line up is his strongest .

[Toffeehater]

Utter bl00dy hopeless...our midfield was overrun...Veronin did ...why no Mascherano to steady the midfield and allow Gerrard to play higher? For a Brazilian, Auerlio sure can't pass and Babel was aweful at the wing!!! The only saving grace was the 3 lucky points...thank god for Gerrard. Second best (and nearly loss) against the bottom team who can't score at home that's saying something...I wonder what was in Rafa's thoughts... 

Dude..u echo my points.

For Gerrard to play to his potential, he needs Mash behind him.

For me babel is a waste of money...I know ppl here are saying give him time...but my thoughts are he is not good enough. Maybe he could make a good striker (but he has to play there for me to have an opinion about him)..but rafa keeps playing him on the wings...and babel keeps doing a "sissoko"

If Rafa hadn't bought Lucas (8 million) and Babel (11 million)...we could have bought a 19 million star player....but rafa decided to buy quantity instead of quality..and now he is saying we need to buy more 20 million players

How about getting rid of the deadwood 1st ? I mean balance the
books before buying. The owners already have enough problem paying for the stadium....

2 questions...

1)  Who do you consider to be the deadwood?

2)  What is your definition of 'deadwood' in this context?

a)Deadwood
i)For starters these players are not good enough
1)Kuyt
2)Voronin (Huge wage)
3)Sissoko
4)Auerlio (Reduce wage)
5)And all those tons of reserve players he has bought ... Are they even good enough in the 1st place ? Think we have the largest squad in the league.

ii)If we can get better replacements
1)Riise
2)Pennant
3)Either one of Carson & Charles Itan**** (SP ?)
4)Crouch
5)Babel - yeah...i am saying Babel. He is just a forward sissoko. We got rid of cisse for having no brains....well babel is about the same as him.


b)Defination of Deadwood in a footballing world.
Players not good enough to represent the club (if we want to have title aspirations).

babel wow rock? 2 starts in 12 , 6 goals , thats not bad for some1 who has played a subs role almost all his liverpool career so far . Babel's first season and people already writing him off? what if it was torres mate? would u be saying the same thing? . he has had 1 bad game and u guys are already toking abt getting rid of him ..

[Ciggy]

I can clearly understand why its the people who admit they have'nt seen the game that are defending the result the loudest. I don't think that unless you saw Derby's first half performance you can appreciate just how bad they were. They couldn't string 2 passes together, they wern't getting tight on our players ,wern't tackling and their goalkeeper looked as if he was going to have a heart attack every time the ball went anywhere near him. We had 89% possession at one point, Derby really were as bad as that, first half.

Spot on.

[Toffeehater]

Touchline bust-up leaves Benitez and Jewell facing rap

by Jeremy Cross Wed Dec 26, 8:47 PM ET

DERBY, England (AFP) - Rafa Benitez and Paul Jewell could find themselves in hot water with the Football Association after clashing at Pride Park during Liverpool's last-gasp 2-1 win over the Premiership's bottom side.

The rival managers confronted each other during a stormy second half when Derby goal scorer Jay McEveley launched himself at Andriy Voronin with a crude challenge which left the Liverpool striker lying in a crumbled heap.

Benitez took exception to the tackle and raced out of his dug-out while Jewell thought Voronin had made the most of the tackle to get McEveley booked.

Both managers made their feelings clear before squaring up to each other as match officials struggled to calm the situation down.

The feuding duo were eventually pulled apart as the game continued but both Benitez and Jewell face an anxious wait to discover if they will be charged with bringing the game into disrepute.

FA officials will now wait to discover what is included in the match report of referee Alan Wiley before deciding whether or not to take the matter further.

Benitez said: "The longer the game went on the more physical and aggressive Derby were. For me, it was a bad tackle.

"He (Jewell) said his player didn't touch him but it was a different point of view. At least I didn't receive a tackle from him (Jewell) when he approached me."

A more pressing concern for Benitez is the fitness of influential defender Sami Hyypia.

The Finnish centre back limped out of the action after just 53 minutes with a damaged ankle and will undergo intensive tests and treatment in a bid to be fit for Sunday's crucial trip to Manchester City.

Benitez said: "Sammi has a problem with his knee and will have to go and see the club doctor. We will have to wait and see what happens with him but he will be a doubt."

Jewell has mounting injury problems of his own as he battles against the odds to save Derby from relegation.

Goalkeeper Stephen Bywater withdrew an hour before kick off with a shoulder problem while midfielder Stepehen Pearson was forced to go to hospital after suffering a dislocated shoulder in a challenge with his own team-mate, Darren Moore.

Jewell said: "Everything seemed to conspire against us after what happened with Stephen Bywater before kick off and then with Stephen Pearson during the game.

"We were really stretched at the end and the injury problems are mounting up."

Jewell played down his touchline spat with Benitez but did admit he had ordered his players to get stuck into Liverpool after half time and show more fighting spirit.

He said: "You have to compete and make a few tackles when you play against a side like Liverpool, otherwise they will kill you if you show them too much respect.

"He (McEveley) never touched him. It might have been a foul, I don't know, but that happens in games."

McEveley's first goal of the season, in the 67th minute, looked to have salvaged an unlikely draw for Jewell's side after Fernando Torres had opened the scoring in the 12th minute.

But a frantic finish saw Steven Gerrard bundle home the decisive goal from close range after Lewis Price had spilled Torres's initial shot and McEveley had fired his clearance straight to the England international.


Not good news looking at the injury to sami , means that he cud miss the city game and rafa could be charged

[The_Rock]

Utter bl00dy hopeless...our midfield was overrun...Veronin did ...why no Mascherano to steady the midfield and allow Gerrard to play higher? For a Brazilian, Auerlio sure can't pass and Babel was aweful at the wing!!! The only saving grace was the 3 lucky points...thank god for Gerrard. Second best (and nearly loss) against the bottom team who can't score at home that's saying something...I wonder what was in Rafa's thoughts... 

Dude..u echo my points.

For Gerrard to play to his potential, he needs Mash behind him.

For me babel is a waste of money...I know ppl here are saying give him time...but my thoughts are he is not good enough. Maybe he could make a good striker (but he has to play there for me to have an opinion about him)..but rafa keeps playing him on the wings...and babel keeps doing a "sissoko"

If Rafa hadn't bought Lucas (8 million) and Babel (11 million)...we could have bought a 19 million star player....but rafa decided to buy quantity instead of quality..and now he is saying we need to buy more 20 million players

How about getting rid of the deadwood 1st ? I mean balance the
books before buying. The owners already have enough problem paying for the stadium....

2 questions...

1)  Who do you consider to be the deadwood?

2)  What is your definition of 'deadwood' in this context?

a)Deadwood
i)For starters these players are not good enough
1)Kuyt
2)Voronin (Huge wage)
3)Sissoko
4)Auerlio (Reduce wage)
5)And all those tons of reserve players he has bought ... Are they even good enough in the 1st place ? Think we have the largest squad in the league.

ii)If we can get better replacements
1)Riise
2)Pennant
3)Either one of Carson & Charles Itan**** (SP ?)
4)Crouch
5)Babel - yeah...i am saying Babel. He is just a forward sissoko. We got rid of cisse for having no brains....well babel is about the same as him.


b)Defination of Deadwood in a footballing world.
Players not good enough to represent the club (if we want to have title aspirations).

babel wow rock? 2 starts in 12 , 6 goals , thats not bad for some1 who has played a subs role almost all his liverpool career so far . Babel's first season and people already writing him off? what if it was torres mate? would u be saying the same thing? . he has had 1 bad game and u guys are already toking abt getting rid of him ..

Lets not kid ourselves....rafa bought babel has a winger..and he has not at all impressed whenever he played on the wings.

Like i said...i will give babel his due (like how i gave kuyt his due last season)....But i still retain my opinion that come next season ...ppl will be talking about babel how they are talking about kuyt. I knew Kuyt wasn't good enough last season (although i did mention he wil contribute more if he just stays in the opposition penalty box )... And more ppl are convinced that Kuyt is a major disappointment for 9 million pounds (seeing how benny macarthy, anelka cost less than him...and for a few million more, we could have gotten berbatov).


Please note that i base my opinion on babel on how he performs as a LW or RW. I don't care if he performs like a world class players as a striker because rafa doesn't play him there FWIW...Rafa persists on playing babel on the wing...and for what i see from his performance there....it is not enough.

As long as rafa plays Babel as a winger, he won't be good enough for us. Same as Kuyt.... As long Rafa plays Kuyt as a headless chicken...he won't be good enough for us.

[Toffeehater]

Utter bl00dy hopeless...our midfield was overrun...Veronin did ...why no Mascherano to steady the midfield and allow Gerrard to play higher? For a Brazilian, Auerlio sure can't pass and Babel was aweful at the wing!!! The only saving grace was the 3 lucky points...thank god for Gerrard. Second best (and nearly loss) against the bottom team who can't score at home that's saying something...I wonder what was in Rafa's thoughts... 

Dude..u echo my points.

For Gerrard to play to his potential, he needs Mash behind him.

For me babel is a waste of money...I know ppl here are saying give him time...but my thoughts are he is not good enough. Maybe he could make a good striker (but he has to play there for me to have an opinion about him)..but rafa keeps playing him on the wings...and babel keeps doing a "sissoko"

If Rafa hadn't bought Lucas (8 million) and Babel (11 million)...we could have bought a 19 million star player....but rafa decided to buy quantity instead of quality..and now he is saying we need to buy more 20 million players

How about getting rid of the deadwood 1st ? I mean balance the
books before buying. The owners already have enough problem paying for the stadium....

2 questions...

1)  Who do you consider to be the deadwood?

2)  What is your definition of 'deadwood' in this context?

a)Deadwood
i)For starters these players are not good enough
1)Kuyt
2)Voronin (Huge wage)
3)Sissoko
4)Auerlio (Reduce wage)
5)And all those tons of reserve players he has bought ... Are they even good enough in the 1st place ? Think we have the largest squad in the league.

ii)If we can get better replacements
1)Riise
2)Pennant
3)Either one of Carson & Charles Itan**** (SP ?)
4)Crouch
5)Babel - yeah...i am saying Babel. He is just a forward sissoko. We got rid of cisse for having no brains....well babel is about the same as him.


b)Defination of Deadwood in a footballing world.
Players not good enough to represent the club (if we want to have title aspirations).

babel wow rock? 2 starts in 12 , 6 goals , thats not bad for some1 who has played a subs role almost all his liverpool career so far . Babel's first season and people already writing him off? what if it was torres mate? would u be saying the same thing? . he has had 1 bad game and u guys are already toking abt getting rid of him ..

Lets not kid ourselves....rafa bought babel has a winger..and he has not at all impressed whenever he played on the wings.

Like i said...i will give babel his due (like how i gave kuyt his due last season)....But i still retain my opinion that come next season ...ppl will be talking about babel how they are talking about kuyt. I knew Kuyt wasn't good enough last season (although i did mention he wil contribute more if he just stays in the opposition penalty box )... And more ppl are convinced that Kuyt is a major disappointment for 9 million pounds (seeing how benny macarthy, anelka cost less than him...and for a few million more, we could have gotten berbatov).


Please note that i base my opinion on babel on how he performs as a LW or RW. I don't care if he performs like a world class players as a striker because rafa doesn't play him there FWIW...Rafa persists on playing babel on the wing...and for what i see from his performance there....it is not enough.

As long as rafa plays Babel as a winger, he won't be good enough for us. Same as Kuyt.... As long Rafa plays Kuyt as a headless chicken...he won't be good enough for us.

decent enough view mate but shipping him out just cos of that? i think he has done a decent job from the wings , only in the 2nd half yesterday derby started closing him down and he came absolutely sh!te