Liverpool FC Forum

[Wilhelmsson]

How's that?

Given Houllier's penchant for signing decidedly average players and then sticking with them come hell or high water, I would also think we would have struggled mightily to stay in the UEFA places, let alone qualify for the Champions League if he had remained in charge.

I don’t want to debate on Houllier, but that’s deeply inaccurate.

It’s ironic that I had more optimism under Houllier than I do under Benitez, not that there’s a huge difference in the optimism I beheld under Houllier and the optimism I behold under Rafa’s tenure.

[account deleted by request]

A couple more years under Houllier and we would have been a top ten team by now.

I think you’ve lost the plot with that statement.

How's that?

Given Houllier's penchant for signing decidedly average players and then sticking with them come hell or high water, I would also think we would have struggled mightily to stay in the UEFA places, let alone qualify for the Champions League if he had remained in charge.

I agree that Houllier stuck with his failures too long(probably because he had to, no one else fkn wanted them ) but he did sign some good players among the dross. I would say about a quarter of Houlliers buys were good to excellent, with Rafa averaging about the same, but with importantly much less dross, and more average to good players that we could move on with relatively little damage done. (I have ignored Rafas youth signings as who knows if they are good ,bad, or indifferent)

I doubt if we would really have dropped much lower than we are under Rafa, Houllier for all his faults was a decent manager, as he has since proved at Lyon.

The problem with Houllier from my prospective is,  he had taken us as far as he could, I don't think he would ever have bridged the gap to the title. Hopefully Rafa will.

[jeff capes]

i was pleased with the effort they put in for the 1st half, despite looking like junk.

lets face it liverpool is the chuck norris of football, not the most flexible or talented and not very flash but the get the job done somehow.

where as manu ,asrenholes and now chelsea are more like tony tony jaa or jet li.

they do fancy things with ease and loads left in the tank, to be called upon.

there is no limit or cap on their talent, they could move to another level again.

the question has to be asked,do the liverpool players have much a lot more talent to spare.

i can see them improving a little but i can't see any excess talent hanging about the place.

the same things about liverpool have been bugging me for the last ten years, so its not just a benitez thing.

our players seem to be physically nothing special,they have bad reflex reaction times and they are slow thinkers.

these faults were there even before benitez,but with different set of players.

i ask myself how these types of players keep ending up at liverpool, while other clubs have at least 2 gifted players.

how has liverpool ended up with a team that is physically out of condition, that they have to be rotated .

last season we was meant to be fresher against chelsea in the champions league.

they were going after 4 trophies by reaching 2 cup finals and still hunting the prem.

liverpool was out of everything except the champions league. .

yet in that match with chelsea we looked shattered and they look stronger....so much for the rotation system.

i don't know who in our team is meant to be the thinker the plotter.

at the start of the season i was not happy we was depending on the guy from west ham, but i'm happy to admit i was wrong about him.

i like the way he weaves his way around the field and the rhythm to his play.

when liverpool is playing well there is a rhythm to the whole team rather than just on or two.

we all saw on sunday what rhythm in play can do for you.

the way arsenholes moved the ball around was rhythmic and in sync.

i see no synchronization to liverpool's pattern of play...come to think of it i don't even see a pattern of play.

[Sabre]

How's that?

Given Houllier's penchant for signing decidedly average players and then sticking with them come hell or high water, I would also think we would have struggled mightily to stay in the UEFA places, let alone qualify for the Champions League if he had remained in charge.

I don’t want to debate on Houllier, but that’s deeply inaccurate.

It’s ironic that I had more optimism under Houllier than I do under Benitez, not that there’s a huge difference in the optimism I beheld under Houllier and the optimism I behold under Rafa’s tenure.

Yes, but you were a teenager back then, and thus more susceptible to optimism.

We cannot talk about accuracy or losing the plots when we talk about alternate realities, we just can speculate. My speculation is only slightly more optimistic than Bad Bob's and Bigmick's. my speculation is that we'd be a team that on a good season they'd get what we got 2 years ago, 1/16 in the CL, maybe a minor cup, and third in the league, and in a bad season we could be perfectly sixth after a Tottenham.

The speculation is based on the fact that we could not compete in terms of money with the other top clubs, and we hardly could have brought a better set of men than Rafa has. We give a lot of things for granted, but we're lucky to have found for instance a great keeper, that's something that Barcelona for instance has been looking for for ages! -- and to think they offloaded Reina!

Hiddink? it's the second time I see him mentioned, and this time it has been mentioned by ConnO'var who doesn't speak shíte. I'd like to ask him what he finds interesting about the man, whether he want to answer here, in PM or another section of the forum, is his choice! -- or not answering at all of course is another option.

[Bad Bob]

I don’t want to debate on Houllier, but that’s deeply inaccurate.

I don't particularly want to debate about Houllier either--as I think the progress question has little to do with him at the end of the day.  But, I am curious as to just why you think my view is so "deeply inaccurate"?  Care to enlighten me a little?

It’s ironic that I had more optimism under Houllier than I do under Benitez, not that there’s a huge difference in the optimism I beheld under Houllier and the optimism I behold under Rafa’s tenure.

Well, I can sort of see where you might be coming from here because, arguably, the league was easier to win under Houllier--before Abramovich showed up and built another team besides Arsenal and the Mancs to compete with.  But, I'm not sure that's what you were implying...

[Bad Bob]

A couple more years under Houllier and we would have been a top ten team by now.

I think you’ve lost the plot with that statement.

How's that?

Given Houllier's penchant for signing decidedly average players and then sticking with them come hell or high water, I would also think we would have struggled mightily to stay in the UEFA places, let alone qualify for the Champions League if he had remained in charge.

I agree that Houllier stuck with his failures too long(probably because he had to, no one else fkn wanted them ) but he did sign some good players among the dross. I would say about a quarter of Houlliers buys were good to excellent, with Rafa averaging about the same, but with importantly much less dross, and more average to good players that we could move on with relatively little damage done. (I have ignored Rafas youth signings as who knows if they are good ,bad, or indifferent)

I doubt if we would really have dropped much lower than we are under Rafa, Houllier for all his faults was a decent manager, as he has since proved at Lyon.

The problem with Houllier from my prospective is,  he had taken us as far as he could, I don't think he would ever have bridged the gap to the title. Hopefully Rafa will.

I agree, mate.

I agree that Houllier did bring in some very, very good players (the ones still with us, in fact, plus Hamann) along with the dross.  I also agree that Rafa's brought in players of that calibre while generally steering clear of dross (although the "in between" player is proving not quite what we need to truly challenge).

And, I agree that Houllier had taken us as far as we could go.

In fact, it's that last bit that had me speculating that we might have struggled to stay in the UEFA places had Ged stayed on.  Here was a manager out of ideas and a team that had plateaued and was starting to backslide.  Owen would still have walked, Gerrard may have followed and I have no confidence that the "replacements" Houlier would have brought in would have done the business (although, I would have been curious to see how Cisse would have played for a manager that rated him and alongside Heskey...just as an experiment).  Given that we were already struggling to stay amongst the CL places at the end of his tenure, I could seriously see us having to really battle the likes of Blackburn, Tottenham, Portsmouth and, yes, Everton for the UEFA places.  No disrespect to the man but we were a pretty rudderless ship there at the end.

[Wilhelmsson]

Sabre, I ‘m still a teenager, though I see what you mean, naivety is a blessing in youth, sadly I am still naïve and that shall be my ruin, but lets make this topic into a Jeremy Kyle show, I am far too affluent to be on such crock.

You are optimistic, which is pleasing to see, I try and strike a balance and I get called downbeat and depressing and get jibes thrown in my wake, but like a warrior from Outer Mongolia I swing low and ride on my sweet chariot into the sunset ready to fight another day on this forum.

Bob, you are inaccurate because Houllier was a top class manager, he wasn’t by any admission the best, but there is absolutely no way he would have taken us to mid table mediocrity, after all Souness didn’t manage it.

Not only was the league easier, but Houllier knew how English football works, I am afraid Rafa is still rather naïve in his thinking and evaluation. Houllier was naïve in believing his players were good enough, there lies the difference. Other than that there’s not much between the two, the board has just replaced Houllier with a better version IMHO.

[LFC2007]

but lets make this topic into a Jeremy Kyle show, I am far too affluent to be on such crock.

[bigmick]

Wills no doubt you've got your own perspective on Houllier and his achievements, and fair enough. He did great things in "professionalising" the club after the spice boys era, steadied the ship and managed the club with dignity. Unfortunatlely when push came to shove, he wasn't up to taking us forward to the next level, and unfortunately in football if you don't move foirwards you move backwards. We were moving backwards when he left fella, make no mistake about that.

As for Rafa, he too has pulled us out of the tailspin and moved us back up there. The question of course now is, can he take us to the next level? Will we challenge for the Premiership and ultimately win it quicker if we leave Rafa in charge and let him go about things his way, or would we short cut the process by bringing somebody new in? I'm by no means advocating him, but would we for instance challenge for the title in a shorter period of time if Mourinho came in to replace our man?

This is ultimately the question, when the time of reckoning comes, which will decide if Rafa has a few more years or not. I've banged on about the methodology of launching a title challenge for years now, and as I've said before, if Rafa was to assert that he intends changing the team next season 75 times in the first fifteen games as well, then it would be time to look elsewhere. Why? because I don't think it's possible to launch a title challenge in the Premier League whilst employing such methods. It is my belief that if we were to continue along those lines, we are just wasting time and we might as well give somebody else a go.

One or two people have alluded to the fact that Ferguson almost walked at Man Utd and he did. As I remember it was an Away win int en FA Cup at Nottingham Forst that saved his bacon. The press were circling the City Ground convinced they were about to get their man when a certainMark Robins popped up witnh a goal or two in a 2-1 win. Adrian Heath similarly rescued Howard Kendall in a Milk Cup tie at Oxford (people used to take it seriously then, we won it nearly every year). The point about these events is that in both cases, the clubs had to field teams which were dessimated by injury and yet, the players came through.

I just wonder, could it be that the raft of injuries we currently have will absolutely force Rafa's hand, hold him in a straightjacket and make him play a settled team? Could it be that our sheer lack of numbers will be what is needed to finally convince him? I hope so, because when he comes to speak to the owners at the end of the season, the questions about rotation and the way we intend to conduct our next campaign will be at the top of their agenda in my opinion.

[Bammo]

The injuries forcing Rafa's hand may indeed be what saves our season. We've looked toothless up front without Torres and it was clear that Crouch was out of favour. After his performance against Arsenal, no one would question Crouch being in the starting line up next league game. Similarly, with Alonso missing it leaves the holding role to Mascherano. Pennant out means we'll likely see Benayoun on the right wing with Babel left wing.

Then again, who knows? Kewell, Aurelio and Leto could all start making appearances, Lucas Leiva could get a run in the team and Babel could get pushed up front.

The problem Rafa has is how fickle we all are as fans. Say he sticks with a team but we don't immediately get results? He'll be criticised for losing it and playing out of form players. On the other hand, what if he picks a team and we win a few...what does he do when Agger, Alonso, Kewell, Torres etc get fit?

I'm only hypothesising and I feel under pressure   no wonder managers get paid so much!

[bigmick]

The thing is Bamm, nobody is saying that when Alonso, Torres and Alonso come back they shouldn't go in to the mix. In the meantime however, there is going to be an opportunity to get something going.

Now ever the pessimist, I'm of the opinion that we are just about hanging on to our title aspirations by a thread. That's Ok though, as long as the thread is still unbroken. What we must do while our players are out, is keep it intact. The perfect scenario next weekend is that we go to Blackburn and win, while Man Utd and Arsenal draw. I suspect we are all going to have to get used to the fact that Chelsea are going to force their way back into it, but it's vital for us that we keep it a group of four. If we can do that with a scratch team, then gradually bring the big guns back and afterwards keep a settled team then we might just stay in it till the end you never know.

[Bammo]

I think all of the negative attention is getting to the players in a positive way. Gerrard and Carragher have definitely improved in recent games (albeit if we forget Carra's wrestling moves) and Crouch will be chomping at the bit to impress. If we can grind out some wins then the confidence will return. By the end of the season we can be playing beautiful football like Arsenal

Seriously though, we're unbeaten, off-form and struggling with injuries yet we've had our best league start for years. When, and I mean when not if, we get back on form then we're in with a chance of competing for the league. As long as we're contenders then I'll be happy

As for playing like Arsenal - it's not our style. It also doesn't work when they play teams who harry them and do direct counter-attacks (like we tried on Sunday).

[puroresu]

I think all of the negative attention is getting to the players in a positive way. Gerrard and Carragher have definitely improved in recent games (albeit if we forget Carra's wrestling moves) and Crouch will be chomping at the bit to impress. If we can grind out some wins then the confidence will return. By the end of the season we can be playing beautiful football like Arsenal

Seriously though, we're unbeaten, off-form and struggling with injuries yet we've had our best league start for years. When, and I mean when not if, we get back on form then we're in with a chance of competing for the league. As long as we're contenders then I'll be happy

As for playing like Arsenal - it's not our style. It also doesn't work when they play teams who harry them and do direct counter-attacks (like we tried on Sunday).

long ball football doesnt work.

[Bammo]

There's a huge difference between long ball and direct football. Long ball means hoofing it aimlessly up front and I agree, that doesn't work.

Direct football means getting it forward quickly and not necessarily through the air. Teams like Arsenal who push a lot of players forwards are susceptable to being hiton the break. Too many times when we counter attack we slow the play down and allow teams to regroup.

By the way, I mentioned this as a way to counteract Arsenal, not to suggest we set up every game to play on the counter. Against most teams we have the quality to play free-flowing attacking football.

[Wilhelmsson]

If God had intended for us to play football in the clouds he wouldn't have put grass on the ground.