Liverpool FC Forum

[112-1077774096]

so is rafa a tactical genius or not?

he has got it wrong on many occassions, even the champiopns league final he had it wrong in the first half, and then other games he get it right.

my concern is he gets it wrong in the games where we could be expected to win, i think he underestimates the oppositions ability and desire and plays an understrengh team

[66-1112520797]

Watching the game today and the utterly disjointed performance, I couldn't help but cast my mind back to the first couple of months of last season when seemingly endless rotations of personel was one of the reasons for wild fluctuations in our levels of performance.

At the time many of us on here were pleading with Rafa, play your best team FFS and lets forget about rotating until we string a few results together and get the momentum rolling. Eventually, around the time of the Home game with West Ham Rafa seemed to concurr and consistency of selection was followed by consistency of results and performance. We climbed up the table, stopped conceding goals from set-pieces and everything seemed good again.

To be perfectly honest, the roots for todays display were actually sown IMHO in the lethargic and uninspiring Home display against Macabi Haifa. Failure to get a significant upper hand in that game never mind put the tie to bed meant that we had to hold some players back for Tuesday in the game today and ultimately paid the penalty.

I have always thought that the opening five minutes of any football match are crucial, not in that the most important goals are scored in that period but in that the declarations of intent are lodged here, the tempo set and the gauntlet thrown down. It seems that in the early part of last season and sofar in this (with the exception of the charity shield) we aren't getting out of the blocks early doors.

Ultimately, it is my contention that Warnock can tell his players as much as he likes to "believe in themselves" and to "fear nobody" etc etc, but deep inside their hearts the Sheffield Utd players would expect to lose to Liverpool. A fast start from the men in yellow would merely confirm this and you would end up with a situation where they would settle for a 2-0 defeat as being "not too bad" under the circumstances. If on the other hand it takes you twenty minutes to have a shot, half an hour to rouse yourself out of your slumber and the concession of the opening goal to fire you up then you run the risk of what happened to us today. Thank God for the referee because of course it wasn't a penalty and it could have been a whole lot worse.

In conclusion I hope we begin to pick at the very least the nucleus of our strongest team available so we can get the ball rolling. In all honesty part of me wishes that maybe Rafa could be a tad more gracious in situations like today, perhaps even accept that we were a tad fortunate with the award of the penalty kick. Having said that, maybe I'm just being a little old fashioned.

Mick, I dont know what thread it was but in it one you came up with the idea of dropping Gerrard and Alonso. Resting them for the Maccabi game.
So now are you retracting that statement, as you thought we could beat Sheffield United with our "squad" players. Or do you believe Alonso should have started or still stand by what you said ?

In the other thread I was going on about playing our strongest team and saying Alonso should of played, but IMO we didnt lose just because Alonso didnt play. I actually thought Zenden did an okay job. We lost as you said because we were disjointed and lacked co-hesion. One other point I'd like to make, is that I would have thought this game would of been taylor made for Crouch. And would of started him up alongside Bellamy.

[aCe']

rotation is no good for liverpool ! Arsenal can pull it off because of the quality of their players ! they'r all attacking minded and have great skills on and off the ball ! liverpool are not as fortunate when it comes to players ! against a club like sheff, i thought we would struggle to break their defences but the way Rafa played it, we werent even attackin them the way we should have ! I thought the starting midfield line was a huge mistake by Rafa, we made some new buys in the summer and i would have loved to see the likes of pennant and gonzales out there yest.... attacking midfielders...wingers.... our starting midfield lineup had Gerrard as the only attacking midfielder out there, even aurelio wasnt all that good at LM... cant blame him... not his position ! i dont give a fcks if "riise is injured and was subbed so it dont make much difference cuz gonzales came on anyways" ! Rafa SHOULD have started some attack minded players against a team like sheff. ! rotatin the squad on day one isnt quite the best start for out team.... that draw wasnt either! i think  8 or 9 of our starting 11 are pretty clear :

Reina, Finnan, Carra, Hyypia, Gerrard, Alonso, Sissoko, Kuyt

Hope we start most if not all from now on whenever possible... dont mean cup games... league games !

[bigmick]

Mick, I dont know what thread it was but in it one you came up with the idea of dropping Gerrard and Alonso. Resting them for the Maccabi game.
So now are you retracting that statement, as you thought we could beat Sheffield United with our "squad" players.

Quite right mate, I did predict that Rafa would go with a much changed team. I haven't checked it out yet yet but I think it's in the early stages of the "Liverpool v Sheff U" thread. I'm not going to change or edit it so if I called it wrong then hey, that's life.

What I would say though is that I started a thread about the new players, "it's a question of balance" where I advocated some rotation but not too much. I personally believe that for a football team to function properly, balance is everything and yesterday we were a long way off.

If I've changed my mind on my orioginal selection it's based on the hindsight of yesterdays performance. I won't go into my views on Zenden again here, but given that he was paired with Sissoko (who is a fantastic player IMHO) I think you have to then play Crouch uptop. This is purely to give the two guys in Central midfield who aren't the best passers in the club, somebody to hit. Similarly, their inability to get Gerrard into the game from his starting position on the right would be negated by Stevie being able to cut in and feed off the big man.

On another tactical point, as Jagielka (who proved that he is good player yesterday) was dropping so deep as to be almost playing as a fifth defender, I would have liked to have seen one of our front men dropping in deep to pick the ball up in front of him and pull him around a bit. I think due to a lack of movement we allowed them to defend in lines too much, we needed somebody dropping in from up top and pushing on from central midfield to break up the patterns. Because we failed to do this, the central defenders had nobody to hit (Crouch again) and as Sissoko and Zenden are reluctant to come and get it Alonso style, they were left the only option of lumping it and conceding posession.

Leaving Pennant out if Crouch or Kuyt don't play is fair enough as there's not a lot of point of him pinging crosses in to two little fellas, similarly selecting Aurelio with Riise was understandable as the obvious limitations of Gonzales were demonstrated when he appeared and had little or no influence on the game.

My one criticism would be the lack of a focal point to the attack. Crouch would have glued the whole thing together in my opinion, and with Fowler or Bellamy alongside him my feeling is that we would have won the game comfortably. Still, that's life and I guess I'd better check on what I wrote earlier.

[taff]

Ok another good post by bigmick and something to think about but who else would you have chosen considering Finnan and Alonso werent fit

Guess in finnans absence we were stuck with Kronkamp at RB , which on todays performance is a bit worrying . As for a replacement    for Alonso , I've heard that Steven Gerrard can play quite well at CM and there's a rumour we signed a fella called Pennant who given the opportunity can play a decent game at RM .

Wake up Taff .   

Ok woof but Zenden replaced Alonso but him and Momo didnt have the best of games, Gerrard is dangerous roaming on the right and I would assume that substitutes would have been made if it wasnt fo two injuries early on.

I think this was more or less a strong team its just that some players didnt turn up yesterday till they scored and I am annoyed and frustrated but we have to move on or the cats in trouble

[Kopite-Jud]

Thats the thing with Benitez, he does change it too much.

MIght confuse a few players, and you might not get good form playing that way, chopping and chaging.

How many times did you see great Arsenal Sides of the past few years play Henry in another position, drop Pires, or play Ljunberg Centre Midifeld?

Wenger never changed it very much.

Benitez doesnt change too much atall , today he had no option , with finnan injured we have no other choice at right-back other than kromkamp . And leaving alonso out , i dont think he is 100% fit yet, he tried to leave Gonzalez out aswell but he was forced  to make the change when Riise got injured. If Riise and Carragher never got injured Benitez would With out a doubt have brought Pennant and Crouch on which would have changed the game compleately.

[taff]

Thats exactly how I see it

[Cool Hand Luke]

I think it is vital that we start this season with a team as close as possible to the one that finished last year. Results are so vital this early one, I agree that we should be looking to build some momentum and rhythm before we go gung ho and with introducing new players. If Finnan and Alonso were not fit enough yesterday then I think that Rafa made a mistake not playing Gerrard in the centre alongside Sissoko and Pennant on the right, but an even bigger mistake was not to play Crouch, like Mick has pointed out. A focal point to the team is vital and I’m sure Crouch could have managed these 2 games against Sheff Utd and Haifa and then be rested for the West Ham game were Kuyt could have made his debut.

Rotation is a vital part of the modern game and must be used, that is why Rafa has built a squad of such quality and variety. But we must accept that were we will seek high payoffs with rotation we will also be taking risks with high consequences. As long as Rafa is getting it right most of the time (which he does) then it is definitely worth it, even though I feel he got it slightly wrong in this case. But in his defence, had those 2 injuries not occurred so early on I believe we would have won this game.

On the whole, we should be trying to start with a team that resembles the one that showed such fantastic from last year, and then bed in the new players once we have some momentum and rhythm.

[account deleted by request]

I think it is vital that we start this season with a team as close as possible to the one that finished last year. Results are so vital this early one, I agree that we should be looking to build some momentum and rhythm before we go gung ho and with introducing new players. If Finnan and Alonso were not fit enough yesterday then I think that Rafa made a mistake not playing Gerrard in the centre alongside Sissoko and Pennant on the right, but an even bigger mistake was not to play Crouch, like Mick has pointed out. A focal point to the team is vital and I’m sure Crouch could have managed these 2 games against Sheff Utd and Haifa and then be rested for the West Ham game were Kuyt could have made his debut.

Rotation is a vital part of the modern game and must be used, that is why Rafa has built a squad of such quality and variety. But we must accept that were we will seek high payoffs with rotation we will also be taking risks with high consequences. As long as Rafa is getting it right most of the time (which he does) then it is definitely worth it, even though I feel he got it slightly wrong in this case. But in his defence, had those 2 injuries not occurred so early on I believe we would have won this game.

On the whole, we should be trying to start with a team that resembles the one that showed such fantastic from last year, and then bed in the new players once we have some momentum and rhythm.

While I agree that Gerrard should have played central midfield, I am not so sure Rafa could afford to play Crouch. Crouch looked absolutely knackered at the end of the England game, and we have a game of even more importance against Haifa coming up.
           If Rafa had played Crouch yesterday and we had got all 3 points, but then lost to Haifa because Crouch wasnt fit, that would be a disaster. Losing 2 points while being very upsetting can ,and hopefully will be overcome in the next 37 games, lose against Haifa and we are out.

[Sabre]

I was to recover this topic at the end of last season, as it was raised last season aswell when things didn't go too well and many were criticising rotations. When we went up in the table, we didn't do so with a fixed eleven, but using rotations aswell, correct me on this one if I'm wrong, bigmick but I remember it that way.

Problem is balance. For me rotations must be of a couple of players, not 5-6 new players. We played in Sheffield with Kronkamp (not regular), Zenden (not regular), Bellamy (new), Gonzalez (new), Fabio Aurelio (new), and what's more important without the line of defence playing together. Carra and Hyppia are strong but when they work together, and they need matches to get that coordination. That hasn't happened so far, because Rafa preffered to give minutes to everybody so that they tune up.

What I mean is that rotations are not a problem. The problem wasn't that we didn't play Alonso. It probably was a good idea to drop him for once, the problem is when you play with 5 or 6 players that haven't played together for some time. But in all fairness I must say that the rotations applied by Rafa last season were a success, because they were balanced.

[account deleted by request]

Just a quick thought on rotation. Liverpool won all their last 12 games last season, could rotation and resting players earlier in the season have helped at the end?

[Bad Bob]

I hear what people are saying about squad rotation but that really wasn't the whole story yesterday.  As many have noted, injuries forced 3 changes on Rafa: Kromkamp for Finnan, Agger for Carragher, Aurelio for Riise.  Given that kind of shake-up to our regular back four (where Rafa tends to tinker the least when all are available for selection) I'm not surprised we conceded a goal--especially from a set piece.  Had we not conceded, I doubt there would be near as much hand-wringing about squad rotation, etc. as we would have likely won 1-0 or 2-0.

Injuries aside, however, there were two curious choices made by Rafa.  Starting Zenden in the middle and pushing Gerrard out wide seems a strange choice on the surface.  I'm glad Rafa went for 4-4-2 but I would prefer Gerrard in the middle in situations where Alonso is to be rested.  That would mean Pennant out wide on the right, which would have made sense yesterday as the kid had no midweek action and has Premiership experience with newly-promoted teams like Sheffield United.  I can only imagine that he wanted Gerrard on the right for two reasons: 1) he had a strong game there for England midweek and wanted him to continue building on that and 2) he intends to play him there against Maccabi Haifa.  In any event, it didn't work particularly well yesterday--partly because Kromkamp didn't fill the space Stevie left very well and partly because Sissoko and Zenden failed to provide the attacking impetus through the middle, forcing Gerrard to drift all over the pitch in order to start moves quite a bit.

As Mick has highlighted, though, the major curiosity was dropping Crouch for a game he seemed tailor made for.  The big man, combining with Bellamy or Robbie, could have caused SU real problems at the back--particularly with Gonzales and Gerrard running onto knock downs and lay-offs as well.  Here I assume Rafa was resting him for Maccabi Haifa.  Why Crouch needs resting at this stage of the season, though, as somewhat beyond me--no matter how knackered he may have been on Wednesday.  I also think this is where the injuries really told, as I'm sure Crouch would have come on had Rafa had that extra substitution available. 

These were the big selection questions that look like mistakes in hindsight.  Had Robbie put his gilt-edged chance away, though, or had Aurelio's free kick been placed better (or had his marking been better on their free kick) we probably wouldn't be having this debate.  As Cool Hand Luke said in the other thread, we all would have taken an ugly win in stride at this stage of the season so why the extremely negative reaction to an ugly draw?

It seems to me that this is always an issue for us at the start of the season.  We're always rusty and we always have league games sandwiched in with vital CL qualifiers.  In these situations, as we've seen time and time again, Rafa likes to rotate the squad to keep players fresh for both campaigns.  This works well once the season's in swing, of course, and the team's rhythym been established.  At this early stage, though, we haven't found a rhythym yet and so the rotation policy can catch us out.

If Rafa were to ask my advice on the matter--and frankly I'm shocked he hasn't yet  --I'd suggest we try and keep virtually the same team together for this early stretch and build some momentum.  Surely, a core group of key players have the requisite fitness to get through 2-3 weeks of league and CL games without falling over?  Once we've got things ticking over and have a few wins under our belt, we can use some strategic squad rotations to spell those who have been going hammer and tongs from the get go.

[vlady16.1]

relax, this is only 1 game and the haifa game is far more important. for us to progress next season we must get into the group stages. its all about money. in the bigger picture 10 million is more important then 1 game.

[bigmick]

Well, Chelsea have won and Man Utd have won so no surprises there. My feeling is that we may quickly be made to pay for the extremely lacklustre home performance against Macabi Haifa and the baffling decision in that game to go with Bellamy and Garcia up front. Because we barely scraped home in that game we had had to hold players back for the second leg, and life being life one thing led to another at Bramhall Lane.

Rafa has no bigger fan on these boards than me, I think he is a brilliant manager but I think he has called it wrong here. You didn't need to be Einstein to work out that our start was not easy, and we should have been out of the blocks with an up and at 'em performance against the Israeli's. A 3-0 win there would have meant that we could have gone to Sheffield United with the intention of taking them apart, as opposed to the tentative way in which we felt our way in yesterday.

People may accuse me of over reacting but say for instance we beat West Ham at home which won't be a walkover, then draw at Everton we could be four points behind the leaders before the visit to Stamford Bridge. Defeat there would put us seven points behind and in the same position as last season, chasing shadows early doors.

Sooner later we will realise that the Premiership has changed. When teams get in excess of ninety points in a season you've got to hit the ground running, right from thr first whistle. If we had torn into Sheffield United from the first whistle with proper intent, I am absolutely certain we would have won the game comfortably.

[Bad Bob]

Sooner later we will realise that the Premiership has changed. When teams get in excess of ninety points in a season you've got to hit the ground running, right from thr first whistle. If we had torn into Sheffield United from the first whistle with proper intent, I am absolutely certain we would have won the game comfortably.

I can't disagree with that at all, Mick but my question is: is that a selection/squad rotation deficiency or a performance deficiency.  I raised my eyebrows at some of the first 11 yesterday as well but I was still confident that we had the personnel on the pitch to do exactly what you say we needed to do: rip into them from the off.

In that regard, Sissoko was a bit disappointing for me in the first half.  He wasn't his usual imperious self in midfield and I think that allowed Sheffield United to grow into the match--especially with a very vocal crowd screaming them on.  I also thought Gerrard was not quite himself and that both Hyypia and Carragher had some nervous moments in the first 20 minutes.  These are the players we look to week in, week out to set the tone for the team and start turning the screw yet they all looked a bit too tentative from the outset yesterday.

Again, I think Rafa got a couple of selection decisions wrong but  I still feel we had the players on the pitch to take the game to them and get the result.  How significant this West Ham game now becomes, eh?