Liverpool FC Forum

[whylongball?]

Translate all the big teams' style into chess
Liverpool under Rafa is very much positional
Arsenal very tactical
Man U a bit of both
Chelsea new manager = no comment
Rafa's style is to kill teams slowly..dont be surprised if rafa win the league in the last game

To answer the topic, this team is more than good enough. You dont need a team of Real Mandrid stars to win

[Rush Job]

Top post S@int. Thing is though i cant see us signing link up type striker as im sure Rafa thinks he already has two in Voronin and Kuyt, maybe in the summer if one leaves.

[Rush Job]

Translate all the big teams' style into chess
Liverpool under Rafa is very much positional
Arsenal very tactical
Man U a bit of both
Chelsea new manager = no comment
Rafa's style is to kill teams slowly..dont be surprised if rafa win the league in the last game

To answer the topic, this team is more than good enough. You dont need a team of Real Mandrid stars to win

What do you mean by positional? never been that good at chess, though i can beat the misses but then thats not sayin much.

[whylongball?]

I play chess a bit but not good either
There are books devoted to that positional chess but here are a few points i could think of in comparison to our Rafa's tactic. Very much imho:
1. The centre on chessboard is probably the most important positional concept. Obviously it offers highest number of possibilities. On the pitch, its pretty much the same. You control the centre you control the game. And you should create higher number of chances than your opponent. Maybe thats why Rafa likes to buy/retain good CM. How many CM do we have ?
2.Space. If you can devoid your opponent space on board you limit him the number of possible squares, leading to difficult maneuvering of pieces, hence increase the potential of making mistakes due to pressure. Rafa likes his team to press high up and close down as quickly as possible. This similarly puts the opponents under pressure and forces them into making mistakes.
3.Build-up. When someone plays positionally like opening with d4, he tends to develop quietly, taking up the important squares. There seems to be no danger. But once he attacks, its swift and is hard to resist. Rafa imo likes his team to to build up slowly(in comparison with other EPL teams), keeping possession, gaining space into the opponent's territory where mistakes are costly. Once opportunity arises, you would see SG making a through balls(SG to Torres against Chelsea) or Alonso diagonal balls(cant remember any right now), risse quick throws (for Vororin who in turn assisted Bayanoun recently).

Of course these are 2 different sports but its tiring at work so ...

[NJD83]

I feel we will fall just short this season due to being a couple of World class match winners short of Man U.

LFC Vs Man U

Keeper - Just as good if not better

Defence - Just as good if not better (when Agger is fit)

Midfield - Better in the middle but missing a Giggs and Ronaldo of our own

Attack - Torres class (thats it), Rooney & Teves both class

Match Winners

Gerrard & Torres (Maybe Alonso) against Rooney, Giggs, Teves, Ronaldo and Scholes when fit.

So to sum up we will allways fall just short unless we get two or three more class match winners in the team.

[bigmick]

Some interesting points, and I must confess I'm going to sit on the fence a little bit. I've gone on record as saying I consider our title challenge to be hanging by the slenderest of threads (infact no point in fence sitting on that particular issue, I think it's as good as over TBPH) but as to whether we were/are actually good enough to win the thing given a clear run at it, I'm not so sure and I think I'll need to see a bit more of the season before I could really make my mind up.

Such has been the impact of Torres, (who is an absolutely fantastic player lets be honest) that his aquisition alone means that we have improved this season in my opinion. Added to that, Benayoun is obviously better than Zenden (so am I, but I digress) and with one or two other additions I would have thought we have improved since last season by a fair bit. It would be by a lot but I am fairly certain that Bellamy is a considerably better player than Voronin and quite possibly Kuyt as well, while Hyppia despite some stellar recent performances has declined markedly so we probably didn't strengthen quite so much as it sometimes seems.

Unfortunately for us though, everybody else barring possibly Chelsea (and even there the juries still out) has improved as well. Arsenal obviously have come on in leaps and bounds. Yes they've been helped by a kind fixture list (mind you so have we) but unlike us they have made full use of it, establishing momentum early and have now arrived at the enviable position where such is the quality of their football, most teams they play against get ten behind the ball and try and hang on for the draw Home or Away. Whether they have been hugely helped by a lack of rotation or whether they're just a year older and wiser or whether it's some other reason, they are clearly a completely different proposition to the one we saw last season.

Manchester United look a better outfit to me as well. Rooney and Tevez after a difficult start are now playing as well as two top-class players ought to, while their back up players like Saha look better than our third choices. They also of course still have all their good players, and the decline of people like Giggs and Scholes seems to be maddeningly slow to take hold.

It is worth remembering that despite my claims that we were good enough to challenge last season, the bare facts are that we finished off the season twenty one points behind the Champions so clearly we were either going to have improve by a bit (which we have) or not make the same mistakes as last season IMHO of course, visa-vis team selection (which we haven't quite managed unfortunately).

The inuries of course have come along in a bunch as they have a tendency to do, and this will make the waters even murkier as the season unfolds. It's quite feasible that we'll end up closer than last season but not close enough, but with many fans feeling the reason for our ultimately falling short was more the injuries than any lack of quality of selection issues.

I'm not sure I really buy that though to be honest. We've been a bit unlucky yes, but the squad (with the exception of at centre half) should be big enoguh to cope I would have thought. Equally, it would be a bit rich given our selection policy to start using the fact that we had to constantly change the team due to injuries as an excuse. The manager to his credit has never done that to the best of my knowledge and I wouldn't expect him to start now.

Like I said I'm kind of sitting on the fence. My feeling is though at this stage of the season if you held a gun to my head, although obviously I have issues with the selection policy I suspect that those that think we are a player or two short probably have a point.

I don't necessarily blame Rafa for this, Arsenal's rapid improvement and Man Utd maturing as a team can hardly be construed as his fault, and like I say I do genuinely think we've improved by a bit ourselves. It could be us next year who do an Arsenal, with the likes of Babel and Lucas (who actually looks like an Arsenal type player to me in a funny way) suddently improving, Fabregas style, out of all recognition. With this in mind and given the prices being quoted for Carson only going to prove once again the managers shrewdness in the transfer market, I would be inclined to support rafa should we ultimately fall short this time around. This is of course with the provisio (and sorry but it has to be said) that we can bring ourselves to adopt a policy of team selection which is somewhat more conventional.

[Leonmc0708]

Some interesting points, and I must confess I'm going to sit on the fence a little bit. I've gone on record as saying I consider our title challenge to be hanging by the slenderest of threads (infact no point in fence sitting on that particular issue, I think it's as good as over TBPH) but as to whether we were/are actually good enough to win the thing given a clear run at it, I'm not so sure and I think I'll need to see a bit more of the season before I could really make my mind up.

Such has been the impact of Torres, (who is an absolutely fantastic player lets be honest) that his aquisition alone means that we have improved this season in my opinion. Added to that, Benayoun is obviously better than Zenden (so am I, but I digress) and with one or two other additions I would have thought we have improved since last season by a fair bit. It would be by a lot but I am fairly certain that Bellamy is a considerably better player than Voronin and quite possibly Kuyt as well, while Hyppia despite some stellar recent performances has declined markedly so we probably didn't strengthen quite so much as it sometimes seems.

Unfortunately for us though, everybody else barring possibly Chelsea (and even there the juries still out) has improved as well. Arsenal obviously have come on in leaps and bounds. Yes they've been helped by a kind fixture list (mind you so have we) but unlike us they have made full use of it, establishing momentum early and have now arrived at the enviable position where such is the quality of their football, most teams they play against get ten behind the ball and try and hang on for the draw Home or Away. Whether they have been hugely helped by a lack of rotation or whether they're just a year older and wiser or whether it's some other reason, they are clearly a completely different proposition to the one we saw last season.

Manchester United look a better outfit to me as well. Rooney and Tevez after a difficult start are now playing as well as two top-class players ought to, while their back up players like Saha look better than our third choices. They also of course still have all their good players, and the decline of people like Giggs and Scholes seems to be maddeningly slow to take hold.

It is worth remembering that despite my claims that we were good enough to challenge last season, the bare facts are that we finished off the season twenty one points behind the Champions so clearly we were either going to have improve by a bit (which we have) or not make the same mistakes as last season IMHO of course, visa-vis team selection (which we haven't quite managed unfortunately).

The inuries of course have come along in a bunch as they have a tendency to do, and this will make the waters even murkier as the season unfolds. It's quite feasible that we'll end up closer than last season but not close enough, but with many fans feeling the reason for our ultimately falling short was more the injuries than any lack of quality of selection issues.

I'm not sure I really buy that though to be honest. We've been a bit unlucky yes, but the squad (with the exception of at centre half) should be big enoguh to cope I would have thought. Equally, it would be a bit rich given our selection policy to start using the fact that we had to constantly change the team due to injuries as an excuse. The manager to his credit has never done that to the best of my knowledge and I wouldn't expect him to start now.

Like I said I'm kind of sitting on the fence. My feeling is though at this stage of the season if you held a gun to my head, although obviously I have issues with the selection policy I suspect that those that think we are a player or two short probably have a point.

I don't necessarily blame Rafa for this, Arsenal's rapid improvement and Man Utd maturing as a team can hardly be construed as his fault, and like I say I do genuinely think we've improved by a bit ourselves. It could be us next year who do an Arsenal, with the likes of Babel and Lucas (who actually looks like an Arsenal type player to me in a funny way) suddently improving, Fabregas style, out of all recognition. With this in mind and given the prices being quoted for Carson only going to prove once again the managers shrewdness in the transfer market, I would be inclined to support rafa should we ultimately fall short this time around. This is of course with the provisio (and sorry but it has to be said) that we can bring ourselves to adopt a policy of team selection which is somewhat more conventional.

Quit with the one liners mate, if you are going to paste then try and think it through first.

[66-1112520797]

Looking at the broader picture and for a minute here getting away from rotation, which for me plays a large part on our form. I'd say we're still not quite there in terms of having the substantial quality in our team to win the league. I get peeved off with myself and other fans who keep saying "we're not quite there yet" we seem to say this almost every season, and its worn thin after all these years, and poor old Rafa gets the brunt of the critisim now as we're impatiently waiting.

But I'll be honest here and say I dont think the managers style and to a slightly lesser extent his transfers have helped him along the way. Firstly he has brought in some very good players, but IMO he has also brought in some average players who for me just arent that good enough to churn out league titles. Most definately his better buys outweigh his poorer ones, but when the likes of Voronin, Kuyt and even Pennant who just lacks end product seemed to get picked week in week out, the mind really boggles and I get frustrated week after week seeing the same players Kuyt particulary getting picked.

The signings just mentioned, my average ones. Really for me typify Rafa's style too in terms of the kind of style how he likes his teams to play. Grafters would be the perfect work, and I dont think he's got the right balance in style amongst the players in the team. Its too rigid, workman like (which soley isnt a bad thing) industrial and over all to cautious. Yes he's brought in Torres the kind of striker we've needed since Owen left, he's a goal getter and flambuyont we need a few more players like him in the squad.

I've read rumours of David Villa becoming available at Valencia, would Rafa be bold enough baring in mind he's spent 20 odd million in the summer on Torres to go out an buy another in that range of quality and price ?
Would Rafa be bold enough to pair Villa and Torres if he did sign for us on a regular basis ? I have my doubts, I cant see Rafa playing to out and out strikers with possibly Kewell on the left and Babel/Pennant/Yossi on the right. Its to attack minded for me to think Rafa would.

Anyway back to the subject on hand YES I dont think we're a 'yet again' couple of players short to battle out the title. We're good but not that good, the league has told us this for years, nevermind Europe ts domestically where we keep falling short.
But ontop of being a couple of attackminded quality players short, rotation is a liability to our teams hopes of winning the league. So even if Rafa did sign the quality needed they'd be no guarentee these players would play to get into the groove most players needed.

[club_Levis]

We are a leftback, left midfielder and second creative striker short to challenge for the title.

[NJD83]

I am worried that the cost of the new stadium will stop us getting the extra couple of world class Match winners we need now for a couple of years and we will end up being even further away from winning the league when the stadium has finished than we are now. Build the winning team then the stadium.

[Sabre]

Translate all the big teams' style into chess
Liverpool under Rafa is very much positional
Arsenal very tactical
Man U a bit of both
Chelsea new manager = no comment
Rafa's style is to kill teams slowly..dont be surprised if rafa win the league in the last game

To answer the topic, this team is more than good enough. You dont need a team of Real Mandrid stars to win

Indeed. When it comes to gather players, they went beyond any team of the world when they put in the same team Zidane, Owen, Raul, Figo all together.

That was my point, if we struggle beating some defences it's not because we lack quality, we have quality enough to reach a CL final. What we have to do is to sort out that problems.

As for S@int post and that list of excellent players (I haven't seen ALL of them but yes most of them) I have a doubt and it's related to my different notion of creative second striker. If you had Zinedine Zidane at his best and ready to play for Liverpool, which player of our theoretically best starting eleven would you sit down? If I get you right Kuyt is being given that role and he doesn't fulfill it and you think a Zidane-ish player would make a difference?

For the record I think that a player of that level can improve a team no matter where you play him, but I just want to understand 100% where you come from (blame the language this time)

[burjennio]

Sabre Posted on Nov. 20 2007,10:27
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote (whylongball? @ Nov. 20 2007,03:13)
Translate all the big teams' style into chess
Liverpool under Rafa is very much positional
Arsenal very tactical
Man U a bit of both
Chelsea new manager = no comment
Rafa's style is to kill teams slowly..dont be surprised if rafa win the league in the last game

To answer the topic, this team is more than good enough. You dont need a team of Real Mandrid stars to win

Indeed. When it comes to gather players, they went beyond any team of the world when they put in the same team Zidane, Owen, Raul, Figo all together.

That was my point, if we struggle beating some defences it's not because we lack quality, we have quality enough to reach a CL final. What we have to do is to sort out that problems.

As for S@int post and that list of excellent players (I haven't seen ALL of them but yes most of them) I have a doubt and it's related to my different notion of creative second striker. If you had Zinedine Zidane at his best and ready to play for Liverpool, which player of our theoretically best starting eleven would you sit down? If I get you right Kuyt is being given that role and he doesn't fulfill it and you think a Zidane-ish player would make a difference?

For the record I think that a player of that level can improve a team no matter where you play him, but I just want to understand 100% where you come from (blame the language this time)

Theres an tremendous creative talent that will be available for peanuts come January, really it depnds if you think he could be a success in the premier league

Juan Roman Riquelme

[Sabre]

His football talent only matches his lack of team work though. Not to mention the attitude problems that have led him to be separated from first team football in Villa-real.

I won't be the guy who doubts Riquelme's quality, but if you have him on the team, you must work for him, build around him the team.

[burjennio]

His football talent only matches his lack of team work though. Not to mention the attitude problems that have led him to be separated from first team football in Villa-real.

I won't be the guy who doubts Riquelme's quality, but if you have him on the team, you must work for him,
build around him the team.

I had this conversation with a friend of mine and thats the phrase I used, But i think with a free role he could do a hell of a job, only concern would be the pace of the game perhaps being too much for him

[ivor_the_injun]

We've done this in another thread, but I have a feeling that the fitness (or otherwise) of Harry Kewell will have a big say in our destiny this season.

When he's fit, we're an enormous threat from the left. When he's not, we're incredibly one-dimensional on that side. If Benayoun can maintain a high level for longer than a game at a time, between them they can make the calls for a second creative striker completely redundant.

Also, it's frustrating but at the same time heartening for me this season that what I believe is our best 11 hasn't yet played together. Fingers crossed that Alonso, Agger, Torres and Kewell are all fit and available at the same time soon, as I absolutely think there's a more attacking Liverpool style of play waiting in the wings.