Liverpool FC Forum

[dawson99]

agree 100% on the corners...

[account deleted by request]

Well I'm happy in that you've given your opinion yes. I don't agree with it obviously, but that's all good.

If you compare our record with Gerrard filling in for Alonso and with anybody else filling in for Alonso, I think it probably indicates that I am right on this one but once again it's just my opinion. 

Mick you do seem to use hindsight an awful lot which aides you to move the preverbial goal posts on Rafa.

Hypothetically speaking if Gerrard had partnered Mascha in central midfield at the begining of the season. I'd hazard a b.loody good guess that the possibilty of rotating or styling out a winning system. If all had not gone well with Gerrard playing there would be used in hindsight again to critique the manager.

I disagree with your notion that you think Gerrard should of started in CM. You'd disagree with it too, if it wouldn't of worked out; that I'm positive of.

I would of left Gerrard where he is and I still would considering how close a return Aquiliani is. However I would never of broken the Torres/Gerrard partnership up after what I saw from them last season. In your own words or words very much like it, that 'would of been sillyness'. Rafa doesn't have the luxury of hindsight, rather he has to go with foresight and seen as we have struggled in recent years to break teams down. Shifting Gerrard back to a deeper position (with the use of forseight) would hinder our chances quite emphatically of breaking teams down.

For me Lucas is at least a stop gap (making up the numbers, well IMO he is anyway). Rafa should not have to overcompansate numbers and defensive responsibilities if it leaves our attacking game weaker IMO. If we used one holding mid as oppossed to two, I may see the need to do  this. But having two holding mids in Mascha and Lucas with Kuyt too, in a midfield quintret or whatever the feck it is. Should not mean we drop Gerrard back, even if Benayoun a better player than Lucas takes his position in the team.

Balance balance is the key here, just as Lucas is not as good as Gerrard in the CM position, Yossi isnt as good as Gerrard in the advanced positon. Where as you have two CM's holding the fort, you have Kuyt wide who is hardly the catalyst of creators. And Riera the same, who when he can be bothered looks a decent enough player but cannot be consistently relied upon. Those two wide alone are not enough, not good enough to support a lone striker. Not even Torres.

Back to Lucas briefly, I think we just got away with him in midfield on Sunday, yes at times Essein and co literally walked the ball straight through him. But we have IMO bigger concerns where our defence is concerned at the moment than we actually do with where Gerrard should be playing. Put it this way, this conversation wouldn't of surfaced had we been able to keep a few more clean sheets. From Sundays viewing Lucas can hardly be blamed for Chelsea's goals.

Carra, Skertel and Insua worry me at the moment and that is our essential problem. Johnson not so much although when he bombs on he does leave acres of space behind him. Maybe this has affected the defence. If so though in cases where Johnson bombs on, the luxury of having two CM's means that logically one can drop in and cover for Johnson.

To sum it up though, Gerrard should of started where he did this season behind Torres. And that should stay that way as we continue to ride it out until Aqualini comes in. Otherwise we'll all be cursing Rafa in a fortnight for playing Gerrard centrally deeper when we come away from the stadium of light with a goaless draw.

posted on behalf of a mate

[Effes]

Well I'm happy in that you've given your opinion yes. I don't agree with it obviously, but that's all good.

If you compare our record with Gerrard filling in for Alonso and with anybody else filling in for Alonso, I think it probably indicates that I am right on this one but once again it's just my opinion. 

Mick you do seem to use hindsight an awful lot which aides you to move the preverbial goal posts on Rafa.

Hypothetically speaking if Gerrard had partnered Mascha in central midfield at the begining of the season. I'd hazard a b.loody good guess that the possibilty of rotating or styling out a winning system. If all had not gone well with Gerrard playing there would be used in hindsight again to critique the manager.

I disagree with your notion that you think Gerrard should of started in CM. You'd disagree with it too, if it wouldn't of worked out; that I'm positive of.

I would of left Gerrard where he is and I still would considering how close a return Aquiliani is. However I would never of broken the Torres/Gerrard partnership up after what I saw from them last season. In your own words or words very much like it, that 'would of been sillyness'. Rafa doesn't have the luxury of hindsight, rather he has to go with foresight and seen as we have struggled in recent years to break teams down. Shifting Gerrard back to a deeper position (with the use of forseight) would hinder our chances quite emphatically of breaking teams down.

For me Lucas is at least a stop gap (making up the numbers, well IMO he is anyway). Rafa should not have to overcompansate numbers and defensive responsibilities if it leaves our attacking game weaker IMO. If we used one holding mid as oppossed to two, I may see the need to do  this. But having two holding mids in Mascha and Lucas with Kuyt too, in a midfield quintret or whatever the feck it is. Should not mean we drop Gerrard back, even if Benayoun a better player than Lucas takes his position in the team.

Balance balance is the key here, just as Lucas is not as good as Gerrard in the CM position, Yossi isnt as good as Gerrard in the advanced positon. Where as you have two CM's holding the fort, you have Kuyt wide who is hardly the catalyst of creators. And Riera the same, who when he can be bothered looks a decent enough player but cannot be consistently relied upon. Those two wide alone are not enough, not good enough to support a lone striker. Not even Torres.

Back to Lucas briefly, I think we just got away with him in midfield on Sunday, yes at times Essein and co literally walked the ball straight through him. But we have IMO bigger concerns where our defence is concerned at the moment than we actually do with where Gerrard should be playing. Put it this way, this conversation wouldn't of surfaced had we been able to keep a few more clean sheets. From Sundays viewing Lucas can hardly be blamed for Chelsea's goals.

Carra, Skertel and Insua worry me at the moment and that is our essential problem. Johnson not so much although when he bombs on he does leave acres of space behind him. Maybe this has affected the defence. If so though in cases where Johnson bombs on, the luxury of having two CM's means that logically one can drop in and cover for Johnson.

To sum it up though, Gerrard should of started where he did this season behind Torres. And that should stay that way as we continue to ride it out until Aqualini comes in. Otherwise we'll all be cursing Rafa in a fortnight for playing Gerrard centrally deeper when we come away from the stadium of light with a goaless draw.

posted on behalf of a mate

To be honest - we did have a thread about dropping Gerrard back into CM and there were
a lot of people advocating the idea.

So, I was surprised to see the "hindsight" theory.

Not that Mick can't put his defence across like.

[account deleted by request]

Maybe I should start to add a disclaimer

Any views expressed are those of my mate, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of s@int.

[Sir Roger]

Maybe I should start to add a disclaimer

Any views expressed are those of my mate, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of s@int.

Are you sure you've got a mate...?

[dawson99]

Maybe I should start to add a disclaimer

Any views expressed are those of my mate, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of s@int.

Are you sure you've got a mate...?

im his mate 

[Sir Roger]

Maybe I should start to add a disclaimer

Any views expressed are those of my mate, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of s@int.

Are you sure you've got a mate...?

im his mate 

Lucky him

[account deleted by request]

Yes, I am twice blessed ..... I have two mates

[bigmick]

Yes there was a thread and I can't remember exactly how I put it, but I did say that once we've worked out that Masherano/Lucas isn't going to work, Gerrard must play in central midfield. This was before the season started, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. It's not Rafa's job to know more than me (otherwise he surely would have a job for life), it's to get the big decisions right, and get them right quickly.

Now if it was me, once Alonso was fecking off (and lets be honest Rafa probably knew this at the end of last season) I'd have been hatching a plan. I'd have been trying out some combo's IN PRE SEASON against proper opposition and having a look at it (I've also got to say I wouldn't have signed a replacement who wasn't going to be fit for the first ten games, particularly one from the Italian league but that's by the by). In those pre season games I'd have been playing properly, with a view to being ready for our tricky opening batch of fixtures.

Now we knew before the season started that neither Masherano nor Lucas were great distributers of the football. We aren't learning anything new here, we knew this quite a while ago. Surely then, Gerrard in central midfield was a fairly obvious move ? Yes you then break up our striking partnership, but we saw last season that if they get isolated, then obviously they don't function anyway.

Here's the thing though. Even if we say "well OK but Rafa believed in Lucas 'cos he played well pre-season" then you can allow those first three matches where he persists with a system which clearly isn't working. Lets face it, against Spurs and Villa we were completely disfunctional in central midfield. Then Mash gets injured which gives the manager no option (no tactical genius here) but to play Gerrard in central midfield. Suddenly, we smash everyone we play against, Torres can't stop scoring and all is good. Now at that point, if we stick with Gerrard in midfield until Aquilani returns all is good. But we don't. We change it again, once more Gerrard and Torres are isolated up front and we lose our next two games 2-0.

Now nobody can say for sure that if Gerrard played in midfield we would have done any better, but I think we can safely assume based on what we've seen that we'd have had a better chance of doing better if you get my drift.

Top managers on the top of their game don't make silly mistakes, and they don't make them twice in the space of a few weeks.

[Sabre]

I don't know Mick, we know a lot of things now but I'm not that sure that we knew as much as you say in the past.

For instance, in the Alonso's last blip the previous season to the last, it was Lucas who substituted Alonso in those games and the general consensus was that he did well, and in fact that's when in this forums we started talking about of the possibility of selling Alonso (heated discussions those).

I'm not that sure as you are that the people around here thought in summer that playing Lucas was a clear mistake, you may have said so, but I don't remember many opinions against it (it's true aswell that in summer I read less newkit post, I might have missed that).

Also I would like to say that while not Mascherano nor Lucas are as good as Alonso in the art of distributing the ball, I wouldn't put Mascherano and Lucas in the same league doing it. I can perfectly see a team in which Mascherano is the first midfielder to receive the ball from the defence, and working. Meaning, Mascherano is a better passer and distributer than people give him credit for, IMHO.

Just fix the CB mess this season, and we might judge Mascherano the distributer better, because with the CB being a mess and huffing balls and nervous, we'd be talking about another Alonso's blip if he was here.

[tubby]

This thread has been GYBSasperated.

Not really mate. Mick was asking a rehetorical question over and over again. Not a pop at you btw mick, just think until Aquilani is fit it would have made dead sense to play Stevie back a bit.

[NANNY RED]

This thread has been GYBSasperated.

Que Mashine gun Tommy

[tubby]

Fear not everyone. It seems our kind owners have given us a 12Mil warchest to splash on world class talent in the Jan window. All will be sorted then.

[Perry Digweed]

As far as Champions' League is concerned, victory over Fiorentina might be needed now.  Could still finish level with them on points and go through like this:

Team Pld Pts Position
Lyonnais              6 12 Qualify
Liverpool              6 8 Qualify
ACF Fiorentina 6 8 Europa League
Debreceni VSC 6 3

You can predict scores and see the table on my website at htttp://www.footballtables.net

[heimdall]

Fear not everyone. It seems our kind owners have given us a 12Mil warchest to splash on world class talent in the Jan window. All will be sorted then.

Well what the feck do you want then, for them to give Rafa £150 million and plunge the club into bankrupcy??

Do some of you guys still not understand that there is NO FECKING MONEY out there in the real world apart form if some daft Arab wants daddy to buy him a toy football club.

BTW totally agree with BM, it is blindingly obvious that Stevie has to play in the middle and in any case why change a system that works so well, surely you have to be the best manager in the world and a tactical genius to understand it or do you have to a distinctly average and inflexible manager who manages by numbers, i.e as soon as Mascha is fit he plays because that was decided pre-season and nothing going to change that master plan, especially not results.

I'm fed up with Rafa now, and apparently the owners are as well.