Liverpool FC Forum

[JoeTerp]

why do other team get the bigmick excuse pass for injuries and things, yet we dont?

you say how can  a team with gerrard, torres, etc.  but we really aren't a team with them. they have been hurt or half fit for the vast majority of the campaign.

[Scottbot]

After another round of matches,we find ourselves at the half way stage of surely a historically weak Premiership. What do we find?

Incredibly, the Mancs find themselves within two points of the top of the table, despite being not a patch on the team which won it last season, despite selling the World player of the year in the Summer, and despite having the whole back four other than Evra injured. It's amazing to me how they've done it, they aren't even a very good team never mind a great one, yet here we are with the distinct possibility they could overtake us in league title wins.

Despite comfortably being the best team in the division, Chelsea seem hellbent on giving it away. After a good start Ancellotti worries me, and it appears he's worrying the Chelsea players as well. Constantly mentioning how "tired" they are after "so many matches in quick succession" gives me overwhelming feelings of deja vu, and seems to be now filtering through to their players as inevitably it must. Previous managers of the same team would probably have talked about how the FA were "desperate for Chelsea not to win it" and were doing everything in their power to put obstacles in their way. Those same managers would have moaned that the football establishment was lined up against his team, but would have assured all and sundry that it made no difference, the best team wins the league and Chelsea are the best team. It worked for him anyway.

Arsenal are now within range too. Despite being powder puff down the centre of defence and despite having a goalkeeper who our own Leon could give a run for his money, they are right in the mix. They sold their best striker and best defender in the Summer, have their best striker still at the club inured for the whole season but still are right in with a shout.

Meanwhile we are long since out of it. Long since have we lowered our sights, looking for that top four slot. Our rivals aren't currently the Mancs, Chelsea and Arsenal, but are Villa, Tottenham and Man City. The more optimistic amongst us won't hear of the possibility of us finishing below Birmingham, Fulham, Stoke etc, but we are still in a four way dogfight for fourth spot. We could still conieveably finish in seventh spot, even if we do see off the challenge of mighty Birmingham and Fulham.

How did it ever come to this? How does a team which includes Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Pepe Reina, Javier Masherano and the like find itself in such a jam? Will we ever forgive if this Manc team, with all it's vulnerabilities wins the league? I know I couldn't, not in a million years.

To be honest mate, I can't help but think this is a complete re-working of every other thread we've had to say 'look how much we've fooked it up this season, how did it happen!?'. It does seem like no-one has got the balls to go and win the league this season and depressingly enough, that is/will play completely into the mancs hands. The crazy thing is if we'd turned just two of those 7 defeats into victories into we'd actually still be in the running!

[bigmick]

why do other team get the bigmick excuse pass for injuries and things, yet we dont?

Because they have the excuses yet STILL get results Joe, that's the difference. Despite being sh!te, plainly obvious to see sh!te, and despite having no defenders to pick from, the mancs are within two points of the top. Despite losing their best midfielder, the bloke who dictated the tempo, arguably the most important player in their team, Villa are well above us. Spot the difference between these teams and us.

Our excuses are legitimate. if we were to challenge all year and fail at the final hurdle due to the squad not being quite big enough fair enough. If we were right up there, fair enough. To be down with the likes of Fulham, Birmingham, Stoke, Sunderland and the like though is a disgrace of an effort.

[bigmick]

And scott it won't seem quite so bad as longas the Mancs don't win it. If they do though, feck me.

[dawson99]

I agree with some of what you're saying Mick, but not on Villa. They looked awful today, and I really think there position is flattering them and they wont even be top 8 come end of season.

Oh and I'd put Everton lower lol.
got us and Birmingham spot on tho

[account deleted by request]

Our shocking performances and the way we have rolled over in games does for me make it all the harder to swallow when you consider the overall standard of the opposition.

Fergie today stated its a harder league this year, you can see that by how many points the top four have dropped and how many games they have lost.
While i agree, Spurs City and Villa are stronger, i think its more to do with the top four going backwards.
United have lost 5 times and Chelsea 4 i think.
Aresnal look great at times but were overwhelmingly battered at home by Chelsea.

This should have been the season where we moved from a very close second to united and kicked on, putting pressure on the others to keep stride.

It started with a woeful pre-season where we started the season imo unfit and nowhere near ready.
Rafa over protecting the players imo - worrying too much about the season and not plotting a barnstorming start.
We had a difficult opener of that there is no doubt. But for me, you get the players ready for it and go to Spurs to win.
Win that and you set down a marker for the rest of the league.
Suddenly united and Chelsea sit up and think, sh!t these mean business this season.
But no, Rafa doesnt do short term and imo hasnt any clue about the positive effect a good start could have had. The word momentum needs spelling out to our manager.
We started poorly and got steadily worse.

The players should shoulder alot of the blame, but the manager this season has lost the plot imo.

spot on mate

[J*o*n*D*o*e]

well to win it there going to have to be the first team to do so after losing 5 games before christmas, my money is still on Chelsea, they might be slipping a bit at the minute but i think they`ll be too strong over the whole season.

still not sure how you make out a team that has won 3 titles on the trot are not even a good team.

[Kharhaz]

But no, Rafa doesnt do short term and imo hasnt any clue about the positive effect a good start could have had. The word momentum needs spelling out to our manager.
We started poorly and got steadily worse.

The players should shoulder alot of the blame, but the manager this season has lost the plot imo.

But no, Rafa doesnt do short term and imo hasnt any clue about the positive effect a good start could have had.

To be honest, I am struggling to find what Rafas goals are. He does seem to put more effort on his selections when it comes to the champions league, but is this rafas choice or the pressure put on him, knowing that the champions league makes a lot of money, especially when you do well in the competition. In Rafas mind (pre-season) he had an idea of what players would be more involved, and used these matches to see if they would work, they didnt. Our pre-season was awful. But nothing was done. It was too late. Rafa had to make these players click, and as this season has shown, he just doesnt have it in him, personality wise, to communicate with the players he has to make them perform.

The word momentum needs spelling out to our manager.

The word "TEAM" needs spelling out. We are lacking quality in areas of the pitch because Rafa has put his preferences ahead of the team. The quality of players we have lost because Rafa has personal grievance over them is shocking. The TEAM comes first, not personal feelings. Or at least that used to be the case.

We started poorly and got steadily worse.

In fairness, we started poorly and have remained at the same level.

The players should shoulder alot of the blame, but the manager this season has lost the plot imo.

The players do have to stand up but when the tactics and formation are not working, its down to Rafa, as the manager, to make it happen. Against Arsenal, he tried to, but you have to accept, were it not for Rafas preferences, we could have had better players to bring on that could make a difference (match winners). As it is now, the players are low on confidence, as are the supporters because we look at our bench and pray to christ our strongest starting eleven can do the job, and so many games, when the opposition pack their defence, we just cant get that breakthrough. Torres is frustrated, Gerrard is hounded and we then just lose confidence.

This is down to Rafa, the good run we went on last season surely placed in the players the belief that he would go out and sign another quality player or two attack minded during the window. He did but not in a way we were expecting. We expected a winger and a striker.
We got a right back for £17 million and a cripple for 20.

No bloody wonder the season has gone so wrong. At the first sign of signing Aquilani, he should have thought about what happens if Gerrard gets injured, or Mascherano, he didnt. He went ahead and took the risk. By not signing a striker he should have asked the same question with regards to Torres getting injured, he didnt.

He hasnt put the team first, he has put his preferences above the supporters, the players and the club. And this has cost us all.

If the mancs overtake us, I will put it down to Rafa putting himself first above everyone else. Especially the club.

[Owzat]

After another round of matches,we find ourselves at the half way stage of surely a historically weak Premiership.

CHAMPIONS* AFTER 19 PREMIERSHIP GAMES (38 GAME SEASONS)

BEST

1. 05/06 P19 PTS 52 (GD +30)
2. 06/07 P19 PTS 47 (GD +31)
3. 04/05 P19 PTS 46 (GD +30)
4. 07/08 P19 PTS 45 (GD +27)
5. 03/04 P19 PTS 45 (GD +23)

WORST

1. 97/98 P19 PTS 33 (GD +22)
2. 96/97 P19 PTS 34 (GD +16)
3. 98/99 P19 PTS 34 (GD +16)
4. 02/03 P19 PTS 35 (GD +12)
5. 95/96 P19 PTS 35 (GD +14)

Chelsea's 42 points from 19 games sits smack bang in the middle, seven Premiership Champions have had more points at the halfway stage, seven have had less.

Shows our best opportunities lay around the time Evans and Houllier were in charge, as for letting the mancs have an easy time should apply to EVERY PREMIERSHIP SEASON they have won the title. No good arguing title 19 was soft, most of them were soft. Only Abrahamovic's arrival brought a consistent rival, Wenger did very well but Arsenal never had the resources to be a dominant force. They may yet surprise a few and win the league, despite many writing them off they are four points off the lead with a game in hand. They've played the mancs and us away, Chelsea have played the mancs and us at home so the reverse fixtures could favour Arsenal - and/or the mancs

What history does show us is we missed a big opportunity to win league titles when they were at their weakest, it wasn't until points totals starting increasing that we surpassed 80 Premiership points - three times since 01/02 - and temporarily split the top two (twice) For the record, in 01/02 the champions managed 36 points from their first 19 games, but then picked up 51 from the last 19. We were within two points of them as far in as 27 games. It wasn't until game 36 that they established the seven point margin that was maintained through to the end. We were even six points clear of them after 14 games, but we went behind and stayed behind after game 20.

[Owzat]

I think too many get carried away with last season, the first time we exceeded 77 points in three seasons.

Firstly our start was far from convincing, even if we were top. We needed late goals to beat boro 2-1, drew at home to Stoke and away to villa 0-0, needed red cards to help beat Wigan and Citeh 3-2 and a lucky deflection to get three points at the Bridge. In our first 10 games in which we were unbeaten, we won only ONE game by a margin of 2+ goals - a 2-0 win over the bitters. Sure after the spudz defeat we beat WBA 3-0 and Newcastle 5-1, but both of them were RELEGATED. We put five goals past Bolton without reply, and beat rovers 3-1, but they were also both poor, finishing on 41 points and above the drop zone when 35 points was enough to survive.

As I recall hearing in the media, the number of red cards we benefitted from was 10 last season, possibly 11. So here are how the ones I can find/recall helped us.

MNU (h) W2-1 > W2-1 : red card came 13 minutes after the winner so no influence other than them not getting an equaliser maybe
EVE (a) W2-0 > W2-0 : red card came 18 minutes after our second, they wouldn't have got back into it
MNC (a) L1-2 > W3-2 : red card came six minutes before our second when we were 2-1 down, arguably lifted us and helped get two goals to win
WIG (h) L1-2 > W3-2 : red card came five minutes before our second when we were 2-1 down, arguably lifted us and helped get two goals to win
CHE (h) D0-0 > W2-0 : red card came at 0-0, 29 minutes before we scored our first. But as I recall it was keeping errors that cost them a point
MNU (a) W2-1 > W4-1 : red card preceded Aurelio's free-kick to make it 3-1 by a minute or so, but couldn't have impacted on the free-kick going in and making it 3-1 surely?!?
AVL (h) W4-0 > W5-0 : we were 4-0 up when Friedel saw red and would have tucked the resulting penalty away against 11 men anyway
HUL (a) D1-1 > W3-1 : Folan saw red at 1-1, Kuyt scored our second four minutes later and then sealed the win in the 89th minute
NEW (h) W2-0 > W3-0 : thug saw red at 2-0, Lucas then scored late on

So I make that nine red cards and we picked up 10 more points after the red cards than we were heading for before. In some cases we might have picked up extra points anyway but equally, had opponents not had players sent off, in some cases they might have equalised or even won.


Of course the whole debate over whether a league is weak or strong depends on how you read it. Does one team surpassing 90+ points make a league strong or weak? Surely the indicator a league is strong is in the DEPTH not the top sides, that sides that are mid-table can beat the top sides (at home) Truth is it is almost impossible to tell how strong or weak a league is, even if mid-table sides do beat top sides and keep the points gap between top and bottom smaller, is that because the sides are even matched and strong, weak, average, above average or below average?!? Did Arsenal stuff villa 3-0 yesterday because there is a gulf between them bigger than one place, or because they hit form and knocked in some really classy goals?

[Judge]

a nightmare it would be

Would it?

I think it'd be the kick up the ar$e we so severely need to finally stop living just on our history, and creating some history of our own

that is the best thing youve said in 4 years dawson

sweet and to the point, and very accurate 

[roberto green]

Seriously I would be majorly p!ssed off if the mancs won it with this team this year.It must be the worst team they have had for 20 years