Liverpool FC Forum

[Number 9]

Today we were fuc'king dire for the first 20 mins,absolutely cr@p!
After that we picked up and played some great football...we looked like LFC,no where near how goood we can be but a lot closer!
Am I having fanta?
Yes..Been drinking all day,had about 18 tins and a few JDs,will I let it make me nasty??No way

[Bam]

I'm scratching my head here

Rafa did tinker a little yesterday not just in personel but the formation to, when I originally saw the line-up I wondered how the lads would fair during the game because of this. They did well in all, although I share S@ints view that we do look prettty slow in coming out of the blocks. But anyway the changes made didnt do us any harm and infact you'd still expect a Liverpool team with two players rotated and a formation change to beat WBA. But we know from past experiances you cannot "expect" to beat any team in the Prem with or without implementing rotation.

I wondered if Rafa shared my view as he played two upfront. I think the last few matches (even the Chelsea one)  has shown that Keane's forte isnt playing upfront on his own. I think its made Keanes task recently even harder to find his form and find the onion bag. Kuyt and Keane looked pretty good yesterday, the movement from both of them was really good. You could just see playing Kuyt alongside Keane favoured the Irishmans game. Kuyt will foil, work and link up with any player he's partnered with and Keane used that to his advantage.

[maguskwt]

This is not a dispute about rotation, to tell the truth it is a nonsense. For some reason, this particular poster has decided to get into a point contained within a perfectly innocent post, and try and dissect it to the nth degree...
Anyway, this is the rotation thread and we ought to debate rotation on here, that is what the thread is about.

I refer you to my original reply to your post (the one that I quoted line by line)... my reply WAS ABOUT rotation... you chose to focus on A PART of my reply which hurt your feelings and YOU chose to dish out indirect jibes at me with that little "idiot" comment of yours... and now you know your original post didn't make any sense and you chose to harp on me not having watched the AM match and picking an argument with you.. which wasn't even the point of the discussion. Your original post that i responded to was asking people about momentum. My reply was exactly about that. SO I missed one game and I don't know how LFC's form is anymore? so now you're insisting your comment about "last couple of weeks" is actually the chelsea game? So i asked you what's the point of comparing our recent peformances or form against a single game? did I get an answer from you? no... instead you harp on the fact that I haven't watched the AM game... you've been avoiding questions bigmick and you know it ... Number 9 had admitted he hadn't watched the Spurs game but watched the AM game and he readily agreed to my point. And yet you didn't give out sarcastic comments to him. You're one of the most tedious posters on earth and now I know you're one of the most hypocritical... you say "here have the last word" then you post 2-3 essays of your "last word"  ... well you can be sure that these are the last words from me regarding this discussion or this "picking an argument"... I will think twice about replying to your posts next time and let you insist peacefully on your points about rotation... 

[bigmick]

You're one of the most tedious posters on earth

Ah well. Good post anyway 

[Rafa D]

shutta yer face, ya wee wallopers.   

i've just read through the last 8 posts and dont have a clue what you lot are going on about.

[Leonmc0708]

shutta yer face, ya wee wallopers.   

i've just read through the last 8 posts and dont have a clue what you lot are going on about.

People on here take discussion to the nth degree.

Sometimes htey feel like they must disagree with some part of some posts.

[bigmick]

I suppose there are a couple of positives from the defeat toinight, the first one being that's it's only the Carling Cup. The second one is that it wasn't in a league game, how times have changed.

Eighteen months ago we'd most likely have fielded a team for a league game which was not dissiimalr in terms of supposed quality to this one. We'd have been happy enough with Torres up top, Agger and Hyppia, a guy who cost seven million quid at left back, a guy who cost eleven million quid at left mid, Lucas, etc etc. People would have been claiming until they were blue in the face that the team which took the field was plenty good enough to get a result. Thankfully though we know a bit more now. firstly we know that the so-called squad players are by and large an ordinary bunch and probably not up to it. Secondly we know that if you simply bung a load of blokes together and expect them to play as a team you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.

For my part I think the result is an irrelevance as far as our season is concerned, and I think Rafa did absolutely the right thing in picking a severely depleted team. We learnt many things no doubt, most probably chief amongst them being that we should collectively cross our fingers and hope that our best players don't pick up any serious injuries.

[heimdall]

I suppose there are a couple of positives from the defeat toinight, the first one being that's it's only the Carling Cup. The second one is that it wasn't in a league game, how times have changed.

Eighteen months ago we'd most likely have fielded a team for a league game which was not dissiimalr in terms of supposed quality to this one. We'd have been happy enough with Torres up top, Agger and Hyppia, a guy who cost seven million quid at left back, a guy who cost eleven million quid at left mid, Lucas, etc etc. People would have been claiming until they were blue in the face that the team which took the field was plenty good enough to get a result. Thankfully though we know a bit more now. firstly we know that the so-called squad players are by and large an ordinary bunch and probably not up to it. Secondly we know that if you simply bung a load of blokes together and expect them to play as a team you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.

For my part I think the result is an irrelevance as far as our season is concerned, and I think Rafa did absolutely the right thing in picking a severely depleted team. We learnt many things no doubt, most probably chief amongst them being that we should collectively cross our fingers and hope that our best players don't pick up any serious injuries.

Totally agree BigMick, we are severely lacking in depth despite having a squad of 42 players!
Something is clearly wrong with the youth and reserve team setup becuase surely most of these lads play regularly together, don't they?

[account deleted by request]

Thankfully though we know a bit more now. firstly we know that the so-called squad players are by and large an ordinary bunch and probably not up to it.

This point is spot on Mick (the rest of your post was good too btw )

I think we have finally been able to see just how poor some of our squad players really are, after wondering all last season whether it was the players or not. Its no wonder we struggled when we rotated ...... the poor buggers who were being drafted in can't play 

To be honest they just didn't look up for the game in the first half, and no one looked like they were interested in trying to win a regular place in the team.

Making so many changes obviously didn't help, but ffs some of those players should be down the job centre tomorrow finding a new career.

One good thing came out of it though. If Rafa had any thoughts about starting his rotational larks in the league again, this will have killed them stone dead.

[LFC2007]

We'd never have fielded a team like that in the league a couple of seasons ago, at least not if we were still playing for something (i.e. at the very, very end we might have). If the  assertion is that last night's selection was typical of the kind of selection policy Rafa employed in the league in seasons past, then it's totally incorrect, IMO.

[maguskwt]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not being argumentative with this post....

this to me obviously leads to the point about wether the squad is good enough to challenge for the title or not...

rafa's seen the light? probably... or maybe because he's bought some players who he thinks are the right players to play his style of game... last season the most rotated postions were the wingers and 2nd striker, arguably the weakest positions... this season, we see keane and riera and kuyt being played consistently... less rotation? it's a given...

do we agree that riera is the best option on the left? yes... do we agree that keane is the best option we have as second striker? yes (more or less)... do we agree that kuyt is the best option on the right? yes... rafa's seen the light? I'm not too sure... he's probably just found the right players...

[LFC2007]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not being argumentative with this post....

this to me obviously leads to the point about wether the squad is good enough to challenge for the title or not...

rafa's seen the light? probably... or maybe because he's bought some players who he thinks are the right players to play his style of game... last season the most rotated postions were the wingers and 2nd striker, arguably the weakest positions... this season, we see keane and riera and kuyt being played consistently... less rotation? it's a given...

do we agree that riera is the best option on the left? yes... do we agree that keane is the best option we have as second striker? yes (more or less)... do we agree that kuyt is the best option on the right? yes... rafa's seen the light? I'm not too sure... he's probably just found the right players...

I don't see how that can be construed as being argumentative? 

It's broadly the point I've been making in this thread.

In relation to my last post, I'm merely arguing that, in previous seasons, we wouldn't have left out all of (or even a large part of): Reina, Carragher, Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso, Aurelio, Arbeloa, Riera, Kuyt, Keane, if it was a league match and we were still playing for something (even if it be UCL qualification).

[maguskwt]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not being argumentative with this post....

this to me obviously leads to the point about wether the squad is good enough to challenge for the title or not...

rafa's seen the light? probably... or maybe because he's bought some players who he thinks are the right players to play his style of game... last season the most rotated postions were the wingers and 2nd striker, arguably the weakest positions... this season, we see keane and riera and kuyt being played consistently... less rotation? it's a given...

do we agree that riera is the best option on the left? yes... do we agree that keane is the best option we have as second striker? yes (more or less)... do we agree that kuyt is the best option on the right? yes... rafa's seen the light? I'm not too sure... he's probably just found the right players...

I don't see how that can be construed as being argumentative? 

It's broadly the point I've been making in this thread.

In relation to my last post, I'm merely arguing that, in previous seasons, we wouldn't have left out all of (or even a large part of): Reina, Carragher, Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso, Aurelio, Arbeloa, Riera, Kuyt, Keane, if it was a league match and we were still playing for something (even if it be UCL qualification).

yes, I was referring to an earlier incident on this thread...  

[Bad Bob]

but ffs some of those players should be down the job centre tomorrow finding a new career.

One good thing came out of it though. If Rafa had any thoughts about starting his rotational larks in the league again, this will have killed them stone dead.

Absolutely spot on.  Some of the lads who played last night looked so disinterested it was untrue.  Did anyone really set out to give Rafa a selection problem or were they all content to go through the motions?  Babel, in particular, is regressing at an alarming pace and I don't see from him the attitude that suggests he'll turn it around.  We are seriously fooked if we have to rely on several of these lads for any stretch of the season.  The only bright spot, I thought, was when El Zhar played just behind Ngog and showed some tidy work on the ball in tight spaces.  I cannot get over how little bottle that group showed last night.  Rotate them into the mix?  No thanks.

[zarababe]

It's all relative - as a team they were awful, in a mix with the first team squad - sprinklings off that is - it would be ok.

How true that a few seasons ago this would have been our first team - we've moved on.

Some of these will have had been rolicked no-doubt - won't be knockig on any doors this lot.