Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

After last seasons performances away from home when we where absolutley pathetic.
I owe Our Rafa a big appoligy after tonight when he hugged and kissed Rhys''s mother and she hugged and kissed him back.
There was also that momment when one of the Anfield stewards lifted him up in the air when we got through to the CL.

I am so happy with the way we have started this season and its down to one man Rafa, but he has made BIG mistakes in the past with his rotation the problem with his rotation was the players that he chopped & changed wernt good enough.
They wernt even good enough for a sh.it team in the league never mind LFC.

If the problem was money well its sort of sorted now he could buy a few well known names and a world class one who may I add is acceptional he is fuckin great.

The best buy Liverpool ever made since Hyypia and Hamman.
The lad has so much talent and so much talent around him to make him become one of the best forwards in the world.

Ive gone slightly off topic but I want to hold my hands up here and now, Rafa has let us down on a lot of occasions playing so defensive away from home.

Them wholesale changes of 9 players a game.

It was 9 changes tonight without our two most influencial players Carra and Gerrard.
And we didnt even miss them, dont get me wrong times through that game I wished Gerrard was playing to tear them a new @rsehole.

But it shows how far we have come.
I know its early as Big Mick would say but if this is early I dont want to be late any more.
I love the way the team is playing.
We have some great players on our books now.

And I may be a bit prejudgemental but Ciggys got a feeling this could be our year.

BTW Rafa you have got feelings after all and you showed them tonight for that I already respected you but I respect you even more after that.
What a man is our Rafa xxx

[Kharhaz]

I love the way rivalry is always put aside to what is actually happening in life and so credit goes to everyone inside anfield, even at the end when they sang for young rhys. This is why LFC and its supporters are second to none. I thought the mother was extremely brave in trying to held back the tears and brought it home just how painful it must be for all the family.

Also I dont think an apology is needed, he hasnt brought the premiership home yet !

[Sabre]

As an official member of the happy clappy brigade and the red-rosed tinted spectacles, and as an offical member of the "In Rafa I trust" brigade, I think you don't have that much reasons to apologise.

What is happening at the end of the day is passionate fans that love their club, and when we have  a bad patch are fuming in anger, and when we win 4-0, dominate chelsea, and win twice away, are happy. It cannot be more natural than that.

We just must learn to control the passion. No doubt a bad patch will come this season aswell, that's when Rafa will need the understanding of his crowd.

On rotation, it's working. And it's working because it's not the same thing to have Crouch and Kuyt to rotate, than having Neil Mellor or Bellamy to rotate.

Rotation allows that when Gerrard has a damaged toe, you can give him some rest to avoid a worse injury, and not needing to force him. Because you have a Mascherano, not a Zenden, to replace him. And since you've been giving him matches and you haven't kept him without playing Mascherano will be fit and able to feel a gap when a rest is needed. And by the looks of it, he will be also able to impress and claim a starting eleven place instead of Alonso, for instance. Rotation, with deep quality squads, works, improves competition, and allows to compete in many competitions with all the confidence of the world.

In Rafa I trust.

[Ciggy]

Sabre I understand that but he rotated players that wernt good enough for 3 three years.
Now he has the squad to rotate in the past he just did it because it was his way everyone else was wrong.

Why he didnt play Crouch in our CL final I will never know we would have won it, but I dont want to sound like an evertonian but he did do it.

Now I want to praise him cause he knows the score now, he has the correct tools for the job in hand.
He didnt before.
So he acted like an apprentice in the prem.

But I must say that Hammer, Drill, and spiritlevel aint doing to bad 

[Bad Bob]

FFS, I had a whole thing typed out on the fruition of the Rafalution right after the match and then my internet connection up and quit for a few hours.  Since Cigs has opened the door, though, I'll recompose my comments here.

I think we are finally getting to see the Liverpool FC that Benitez has been slowly building for the last 3 years.  After an at times painfully slow process of bringing in quality players and shipping out deadwood, we now have exceptional strength-in-depth right across the pitch (with the possible exception of CB, which may yet be addressed).  Moreover, beyond our handful of 'untouchables'--Gerrard, Carra and Reina (with Torres soon to be knocking on that door, IMO)--we have a squad of quality individuals whom Rafa has drilled to be vital yet still largely interchangeable cogs in a well-oiled footballing machine.  We saw evidence of that tonight: Masch in for Alonso and the side doesn't skip a beat; Benayoun in place of Pennant and we keep ticking over; Lucas on for Momo and we continue to boss the game...you get the picture.  We've now got a squad that can do the heavy lifting required in the league and the cup competitions at the same time and that's exciting.

And, you can see the Gaffer's plans bearing fruit in other areas.  He's said that he wants the goals spread around.  So, what do we see so far?  Kuyt (2), Voronin (2), Torres (1), Crouch (1), Gerrard (1), Sissoko (1), Hyypia (1)...with the likes of Babel, Riise, Pennant and Alonso knocking on the door as well.  In terms of style, we've seen some explosive counter-attacking goals (Torres v. Chelsea, Voronin v. Sunderland), some well-orchestrated team goals (Momo v. Sunderland) and some clever interplay in and around the box (both of Kuyt's against Toulouse), in addition to the occasional thunderbolt from outside the area (Gerrard's free kick, Voronin's strike in France).  Our attacking play is creating bags of chances and we're only converting a fraction of them.  Imagine what'll happen if we get clinical? Oh, and all of this is built on the air-tight defensive foundations we've come to expect under Rafa.  We truly are seeing a rampant Liverpool for the first time under Rafa and it's breath-taking stuff at times.

Now, the rotation debate will no doubt kick off anew, with proponents singing it's praises with stronger voice and nay-sayers still questioning it's wisdom in season's past.  As another of the "In Rafa I trust" brigade, I've always defended his methods.  Not, mind you, because I thought rotation always made sense last year (or in previous seasons) but because I felt that--like zonal marking--that rotation was so fundamental to his footballing philosophy that to ask him to abandon it was tantamount to asking him to step down.  Rafa, I felt, would either triumph or fall by his rotation policy and I always had enough faith in the man to see the experiment through.  Whether it ultimately delivers the title remains to be seen but I'm hugely encouraged to see that it really can work a treat if done with the right personnel in the right way.

Now, I recognize that we've not won anything yet (and, TBH, Toulouse were so p!ss-poor tonight that drawing too many conclusions from this one result is laughable) and that there will in all likelihood be a few more rough patches ahead as the team attempts to sustain its first proper title challenge in years.  Nonetheless, I am very encouraged by what I've seen so far this season and I really do feel that we are finally, at long last getting a look at the kind of Liverpool side that Rafa's had in mind since he arrived.

[112-1077774096]

good post bob, i am one who will still question rotation in the past, it was a pointless exersize because we didn't have the players to do it, it was being done just for the sake of doing at, as opposed to doing it because it would make us better. now we have the players it doesn't make the last 3 seasons right.

now we have the squad there is no real problem with rotation done on a small scale, i would still be wary of wholesale changes, just the odd changes per game will be ok

[Bad Bob]

good post bob, i am one who will still question rotation in the past, it was a pointless exersize because we didn't have the players to do it, it was being done just for the sake of doing at, as opposed to doing it because it would make us better. now we have the players it doesn't make the last 3 seasons right.

now we have the squad there is no real problem with rotation done on a small scale, i would still be wary of wholesale changes, just the odd changes per game will be ok

Fair enough, mate--you're right in saying that it doesn't undo some of the mistakes of the past three years.  As, with some of his weaker transfers, however, I'd like to think that Rafa learns a great deal from his mistakes and that this has led him to tweak things in the right way to bring us to where we are now.  Time will tell if Rafa's methods will win titles or whether Big Mick's notion that rotating will never win you the league is correct.  For the moment, though, I don't think any of us are going to argue with the results we're producing on the pitch! 

[112-1077774096]

i am not sure that mick is against rotation, i thought he was the same as me, against it when you significantly weaken the team, however with the current squad we wont weaken the team any great deal (unless rafa goes bonkers and plays the youth team against the mancs).

last season was just ridiculous, some of the line ups he put out were laughable, this season our second string is quite strong so that shouldn't happen

[Igor Zidane]

You don't have to apologise cig for having made a constructive argument against rotation last season. Your critisism of rafa's selections last season were well thought out , the same going for peewee and bigmick and others . Your not argueing for the sake of it , it's because you want the best for the club , of course it is. It's the muppets who say sack rafa and rafa's sh!te , that do my head in. You have every right to say what you've said because it's constructive and well argued.

You still may have some problems this season aswell with rotation because it's only early yet and alot can change, but it's going well so far.

Also one thing that we can all agree on ,is if rafa is going to rotate alot, he should do it in the cup comps and not the league. The premiership is the one we all want this year and his strongest side must be played 99% of the time.

[Sabre]

I love it when we win, because we all agree in one page, and not in seventeen.

Rafa, win everything!

[112-1077774096]

I love it when we win, because we all agree in one page, and not in seventeen.

Rafa, win everything!

i disagree   

[account deleted by request]

I love it when we win, because we all agree in one page, and not in seventeen.

Rafa, win everything!

i disagree   

I think you are wrong to disagree 

[112-1077774096]

I love it when we win, because we all agree in one page, and not in seventeen.

Rafa, win everything!

i disagree   

I think you are wrong to disagree 

well we have to agree to disagree     

[Sabre]

So, provided that he doesn't mess much in the league, and the rotated players are quality, we all accept rotation works as a one of the universal truths of the forum?

[stmichael]

From what I've seen at Villa and Sunderland, our whole philosophy seems to have changed away from home this season. Last year we would have gone to those places, sat back and tried to hit teams on the counter. This season we went to those places, attacked and should have won by a better margin than we actually did. We are certainly more attractive to watch aswell in my book.

My only concerns are that Kuyt and Crouch still seem to be missing an awful lot of clear cut chances. It all brings back memories of games like Blackburn around Xmas last year when we should have been about 4-0 up at half time and ended up losing the game 1-0. Hopefully the goals last night will give them a bit more confidence and they'll kick on. The positives are we have now got a squad with plenty of creativity and flair, individual brilliance with a good team ethic. With Torres and Voronin we have players with great quality and also (as Rafa says) game intelligence.

The midfield looks really strong atm. Still not sure about our left side though. Hopefully Aurelio can come back and stay injury free.