Liverpool FC Forum

[66-1112520797]

i havent seen the game, not going to either. So I'll take your word on that.

[JoeTerp]

I know a lot of people like the lone striker, especially as we have a distinct lack of a decent partner for Torres, but I hate it. We always let our striker become isolated when we play one up,and then the only way he can receive the ball is by running away from the goals towards the wings.

such is the paradox that is Liverpool FC this season.  Torres and the team seem to play better with a second striker, but none of the other forwards are good enough to be deserving partners, and certainly offer just as much of a goal threat if not less than an extra midfielder.  Almost everyone would agree that the worst out of Gerrard, Mascherano, and Alonso is still better than the best out of Kuyt, Voronin, and Crouch. 

Also, if Torres had more quality in his wide support it would probably be a non-issue. 4-3-3 every game.  But other than the Newcastle match, this combo hasn't really worked for us.  Although I like Kewell, and think he has been getting too much bashing around the forum the last couple of weeks, he does need to step his game up a bit or else I will have to say he isn't good enough. Babel trips over his own two feet too much for me right now. Voronin and Kuyt certainly aren't the answers, and Pennant offers no goal threat. Not really sold on Yossi in one of these roles either, but not really unsold.

So I think it is clear that we are lacking in two KEY positions AND we have limited funds. So where do we buy? Well the market will probably determine where we go, but all else being the same, you look at Gerrard. If you like him out wide right in a 4-4-2 with some combo of Masch/Alonso/Lucas and I guess momo, then I think the answer is to buy as good a second striker as you can, especially one that you think can partner well with Torres. In this system you can just put one of Kewell, Babel, Yossi, Riise, or even Pennant out wide depending on what you like, or what the situation calls for. (wasn't thrilled with Pennant when he played on the left today, but as long as we have a left footed LB bombing up, the threat of a right footed player out wide left cutting inside is dangerous)

If you like the 4-3-3 and prefer Gerrard more central or just right of central, then we need to buy ourselves a world class attacking wide man.  This would involve settling for Babel, Yossi, Kewell, (or worst case, Kuyt or Voronin) as the other wide player, OR really ponying up the dough for TWO attacking wide players, which would almost certainly involve selling off some players unless I highly underestimate our budget.

And if you like Gerrard in the middle of a 4-4-2, then you gotta either not sign Masch or sell Alonso, because we are going to need to fix a LOT of other stuff

[The_Rock]

Hope this finally puts to myth that 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 formation is the way to go......


why it won't work
1)We don't have speedy fullbacks
2)Our wingers are not good enough...and they don't score enough goals...(ie...teams which play 4-3-3 have awesome wingers who score loads of goals -> chelsea with duff and robben.


Think we should ride of this season playing 4-4-2....then if rafa wants to play 4-4-3...he should get rid of pennant, kewell, finnan, riise, auerlio and go for better players.

[Leonmc0708]

Take each game as it comes and try and win every one.

[Big Niall]

I think he should go in the summer (at the latest). He has had four years to build a team and spent a lot of money and are already a dozen points behind, on target for his usual twenty points behind.

Wenger broke up a great team that won the league unbeaten - Seamen,Adams,Viera,Henry,Bekhamp,Lughnberg, etc and took just three years and very little money to get a team challenging for the title.

Rafa is a cup manager and his surrender to Reading showed.

I think the new owners are looking for new manager now.

[SouthCoastShankly]

IMO we lost the title race when we lost to Man Utd. It frustrates me that every season our rocky patch of the season invariably lasts twice as long or occurs twice as often as the other top 4 clubs. This and the fact that our head to head record within the top 4 is miserable.

My worry is unless Benitez fixes it quickly he will be out of a job sooner rather than later. This means winning at the least ALL the remaining top 4 head to heads.

[Sabre]

I left the game downloading so I'll watch it when I come back from work, but I already know the result and I'm already depressed, I'll watch it anyway, a fan must be a fan always.

I think that even the most happy clappy member of this forum can see that we have problems. THe reason of this problems can be plenty? Rotation? well yesteryear many thought that all we needed was a prolific striker, but now we have it, it wasn't it seems the real problem. Equally we might find that if we played a settled team a la bigmick with little rests, we would struggle aswell. My point is that it's evident we have problems, but not so evident which are those. Anyhow, too depressed right now to enter that debate. Really depressed


I'll discuss about the game (it seemed we played one striker) and the reasons later, but the only way to go is Leon's, take each game as it comes and trying to win it, and that includes not resting players too much and taking each game as seriously as if we were challenging for the title.

If we do this and improve in our problems we might be in March and 6 points away, and the anything can happen. But the best thing is thinking only in the next game.

[Reg]

If we assume that the League is as of now probably a bit beyond us, where do we go from here?

I'm gonna spend more time in the garage fixing the motor. Got an oil leak from two separate places round the sump and need to work out how bad it really is.

Could be the rear main seal, if so its a kunt of a job. Hope not for youe sake.

I say go for the champions league.

And also its confirmed rotation wont win you the league, thats been proved tonight end of discussion on that, the anti's were proved right.

Had the car serviced and the tw@t overfilled the oil which after a long and high speed run - I am assuming - created too much pressure and I think blew a seal or gasket. Freakin´annoying, as you should be able to trust a garage to correctly refill the oil!

Yep, we´ll have to compromise and settle for more CL glory....   

[bigmick]

My worry is unless Benitez fixes it quickly he will be out of a job sooner rather than later. This means winning at the least ALL the remaining top 4 head to heads.

Well Rafa keeping his job certainly shouldn't depend on us winning Away at all of the other big three, let's face it he is almost certainly fecked if it does. No for me, and I've been saying this for a while now, it's about direction. This is not another rotation post, it's not the place or the time for that, but it's about the general feeling of where we're at and where we're going.

Now I've got to say that to some extent I feel very sorry for the manager in that the goalposts keep moving as to what he is actually expected to do, and what tools he has at his disposal. Had he have known before the season started that he was going to have the best part of feck all to spend from now on, would he have spent 20 million quid on two prospects for the future like Lucas and Babel before the start of the season, or would he have spent that cash on a couple of first team players? My guess is it would have been the latter. Similarly, had he have known that he was going to come under severe pressure to get close to the title THIS season and that there would be speculation visa vis his position, I feel fairly certain he would have used those funds differently. Rafa can't be blamed for the change in tack from the ownership, and I feel sorry for him for that.

Similarly, I feel aggrieved that while we are patently obviously short of quality up front (although I must say that to some extent that shortage is self-inflicted by our refusal to play the bloke who is fairly obviously our second best striker) Man Utd are able to talk about paying twenty odd million for Berbatov while Chelsea are going to buy centre half cover and Nicolas Annelka for a combined fee in the twenties. At this present moment in time, all the mentioned players would walk straight into our first team should they be on their way to Anfield, but alas the funds, the will or both appear not to be there to make the purchases. Rafa is not quite doing the job with his hands tied behind his back but clearly he is restricted in being able to compete on an even playing field.

The direction thing is quite simply this. Do the people that matter believe that Rafa will ever win us the Premiership? That's the key. If he was given oodles of cash, would he be buying "possibilities" and players who give "options" or would he be buying first teamers? Will we be adopting a "win at all costs" mentality, or will we continue to prize the draw and not be prepared to risk defeat to grasp the three points?

If the playing filed really has changed to the extent that there is no more money or practuically no more money, then perhaps the powers that be may feel they are infact better off sticking with Rafa to give him chance to develop the apparently excellent crop of young players he has put together. There are many variables, and it's all about direction from now on for me.

[account deleted by request]

I really think we should now forget all the silly squad strengthening type signings, and start to buy less players but buy the best. I mean Wayne fkn Bridge! He's no better than we have now.

Get a top class creative support striker, play 4-4-2 with a little less rotation. Then get rid of all the players that seem too easily satisfied with their form. Players like Kuyt,who seemed to think he was playing better than anyone earlier in the season , or Pennant who thinks that he should be playing for England.

If we haven't got the players or the money, sell a few of our squad players that just arn't good enough for a team with title ambitions (for next season   ) but ffs buy quality.

Maybe Rafa has to take his fair share of the blame for this for wasting time on Heinze and not sorting out a backup for if the deal fell through. For buying and sticking with Kuyt when everyone can see he's never going to score enough, for playing 4-3-3 when we never play well when we play it.

The sad thing is I think we  are going to find it difficult to sign quality players now.Who wants to go to a club with a manager who has an axe dangling over his head, and who show such a lack of ambition that they have a great player on loan and let him walk away (Shades of Houllier and Anelka?)

I said awhile ago that I was worried that this season might be a repeat of 2003, well we scraped through the CL rather than failing like last time and we had a slightly longer title challenge (or maybe we were just fooling ourselves all along? )but its certainly starting to hurt in the same way.

We need more matchwinners , Torres and Gerrard can't do it every week.

[mungi]

i think nothing should change. we try and win every league game with the team rafa sees fit. maybe incorporate lucas and co more often. but dont change the team too much. what we do from now this season could help a long way towards winning the title next season.

[JamCar05]

Take each game as it comes and try and win every one.

Are you Rafa in disguise   

Anyway, I actually happen to agree. No need to already practically start throwing away games. We need to at very least stay in the top four to maintain champions league footy next season, and let's see if we can win Ol' big ears a long the way, shalln't we 

[66-1112520797]

I really think we should now forget all the silly squad strengthening type signings, and start to buy less players but buy the best. I mean Wayne fkn Bridge! He's no better than we have now.

Get a top class creative support striker, play 4-4-2 with a little less rotation. Then get rid of all the players that seem too easily satisfied with their form. Players like Kuyt,who seemed to think he was playing better than anyone earlier in the season , or Pennant who thinks that he should be playing for England.

If we haven't got the players or the money, sell a few of our squad players that just arn't good enough for a team with title ambitions (for next season   ) but ffs buy quality.

Maybe Rafa has to take his fair share of the blame for this for wasting time on Heinze and not sorting out a backup for if the deal fell through. For buying and sticking with Kuyt when everyone can see he's never going to score enough, for playing 4-3-3 when we never play well when we play it.

The sad thing is I think we  are going to find it difficult to sign quality players now.Who wants to go to a club with a manager who has an axe dangling over his head, and who show such a lack of ambition that they have a great player on loan and let him walk away (Shades of Houllier and Anelka?)

I said awhile ago that I was worried that this season might be a repeat of 2003, well we scraped through the CL rather than failing like last time and we had a slightly longer title challenge (or maybe we were just fooling ourselves all along? )but its certainly starting to hurt in the same way.

We need more matchwinners , Torres and Gerrard can't do it every week.

I agree Saint, I'm still not sure though about Rafa buying quality over quantity. I think Mick maybe wrong in his assesment that Rafa may of brought more 'instant' quality into the side rather than 'futuristic' ones, Lucas and Babel, before he knew the score so to speak. It still was an important summer in spending regardless who owned the club.

Its great to see a manager building up the reserves and the squad for the future. But with all those young signings we've made I dont see any becoming any nearer to the first team than before, so whats the point ? Money has been spent on the kids and periphial ? players like Lucas and Babel, when more importantly IMO it should of gone on immediate impact players ala Torres.

Dont get me wrong I like Babel and the look of Lucas, whats spent there though ? Around 17 million pounds. Thats good for the future prospects of the club, but good enough for the manager to keep himself in a job for longer, hmm. Maybe, maybe not.

It doesnt matter about the Yanks, Rafa knew before the season kicked off that this was going to be a real test for him, no matter if Moores was incharge or the Yanks.
We all said, well I did that its going to be an important summer of spending for Rafa, Torres came in GREAT, but maybe he should of been looking at that type of class out on the wings, Babel isnt a winger BTW and isnt the kind of class I'm taliking about, for the future maybe. But Rafa persisited with quantity, then had no back up plan for the Heinze deal, which IMO was bad management.
Since then Agger's been injured, Hyypia of late and that Heinze debacle has come back and bit Rafa on the @rse.

So in that respect I dont feel sorry for him, he had the money picked the players he wanted and as of yet they havent done the job, notably Kuyt, Voronin free,but wages still, Babel, Yossi, Pennant, Lucas, Aurelio free I think, Momo sissoko.

The rest are from his good buys, Alonso, Reina, Torres, Crouch, Agger, Arbeloa. Mascha would be included but I cant see him honestly staying.

And the rest of the first teamers were still Houllier players.

[Big Niall]

He is there four years now and has spent loads.

WEnger rebuilt a team from scratch with no money in three years.

Kuyt, Crouch(who he never plays), pennant,Babel cost about 35million in total and contribute nothing.

I think we will have a new manager to start next season.Rafa will never win the premiership as his surrender to the mighty REading showed.

Carragher and Gerrard and Finnan were all there when he came

Torres,alonso,agger and Reina were good buys but they are only four good enough to play in league winning team - one a year is hardly a good record for a big spending manager.

[Bermenstein]

"We're still in it!!!" quote Rafa Benitez

Here's the equation.

If Rafa's Lpool can get 7 points from the 3 away games at Man U, Chelsea & Arsenal, imo he will have redemed all of his selection and tactical mistakes, and he will be in the Realm of Genius.




If we fail in gettting any points in those crucial 3 games, well just Like his players, Rafa will not be good enough.

Simple Mathematics!

Adios Amigo