Liverpool FC Forum

[loopyliverpool]

I'll paraphrase it for you Reg. There's a combination of reasons the squad is thin. It's 40% that we've bought the wrong players, 40% that we've sold the wrong players, 20% that we haven't thrown enough money at it.

I love it when you paraphrase Mick!
There are always going to be a number of reasons but the primary one for me is that our second string of players are woefully short of the quality required. Football has moved on from our heyday of the seventies and eighties when a nucleus of 14 odd players saw you through the season. Apart from a decent first team and a couple of impact subs like Benayoun we just do not have any quality in our squad it is as plain as day to anybody. Yesterday exposed this and bar a goal mouth scramble at the end of the game I don't think we created one opportunity... I may be wrong there but that is a sad indictment of a team that had aspirations for the title... I say had cos I reckon from what, as a life long fan, I am witnessing we have a cat in hell's chance.
Moving on to apportioning blame, the manager has to take responsibility. Ok he hasn't had the money he would have liked but he's been at the helm for five years and in that time he should have built up a 'squad' not shoddy representations of players like: Lucas, Voronin, Ngog and a whole plethora of very mediocre players (take your pick Gerrard, Torres and Reina aside). I know people are going to say: money buys quality etc. but a certain manager in north London doesn't seem to struggle bringing players through. Benitez has always added foreign youth imports into the squad but they never seem to develop into anything.
Rafa has ridden a certain amount of luck as our manager but that luck has run out imo. The thing is the board cant afford to sack him!

[Thinkpad]

Some good points here..
I chose Rafa and the owners because no matter how much Rafa is to be blame the clowns are in it too.
So they share the blame, if they think Rafa is good enough there is little supporters can do.
So the percentage of blame is such Rafa takes 80% and 20% goes to the owners.
20% for
1) A lack of ambition for Liverpool, guess they are more interested in earning as much from selling the club.
2) Not giving some money to Rafa for emergency cases. Yes Rafa is at fault but in emergency cases just give the damn money. The club has to come first.
3) For creating a divisive environment that might inhibit great players from signing for Liverpool.
4) For creating an environment that says Liverpool is in serious financial position and thus a diminished title ambition.

Rafa has to take the remaining 80%
1) For all the reasons already stated
2) For buying decent and good players only to turn them into mediocrity.
3) Transform players that can dribble, hold on to the ball during challenges to .... you fill up the rest
4) Not practicing dead ball especially corners. How threatening are we from corners after Rafa took over?
5) Playing football using rugby tactics, in order to advance must first pass the ball backwards.
Okay, I got to go out so cannot finish the rest. But we all know what those are.
Rafa must start taking some of the blame and the owners must start asking questions.

[Penguins]

Let me make one prophecy:

As long as the owners we have stays we will never win the PL
no matter if we have Saint Peter as manager.

And sure, Rafa has wasted some money, but so have all managers who have been at a club for some time.
But they weren't that super expensive.

Name one really big buy Rafa had made that hasn't been a success for us??

Then when Fergie of Maureen buys Veron and Ferreira/Shevshenko/Thiago etc for many times more then
they can just swop that under the rug and pretend nothing
happened. Because it's not fatal. If Rafa would make such a mistake we would be ruined, both financially and on the field.

And I don't give a what manure, chelski does, I care about what we do.

I knew we needed that extra spice to our team this summer to get us over that last hurdle and what do we get?
Jack that's what!

Only excuses that wage increases takes a big bite out of our transfer budget...

[maypaxvobiscum]

Then when Fergie of Maureen buys Veron and Ferreira/Shevshenko/Thiago etc for many times more then
they can just swop that under the rug and pretend nothing
happened. Because it's not fatal. If Rafa would make such a mistake we would be ruined, both financially and on the field.

[Bammo]

I voted others.

I find it difficult to believe sometimes that people on numerous forums were praising the squad last year, now it's the weakest ever under Benitez and he's a terrible manager. We lost Alonso/Arbeloa and gained Johnson, it's not like we lost half the squad. Rafa has made mistakes but that's not the main reason we're not winning.

The main reason? Belief. Last season, no matter what the score was we believed we could win. Being 2 goals down didn't deter us. Now though, if we concede or even don't take the lead in 30 mins players lack confidence. Players like Torres and Gerrard always believe in themselves and that's what makes them world class. Squad players like Lucas, Babel, Benny, Aurelio and so on can perform amazing when they're in a winning team. What we need to do is get a win, even if it's lucky and the belief will return.

Part of the belief needs to come from Rafa but it doesn't help when big red balls get in the way

[NANNY RED]

Let me make one prophecy:

As long as the owners we have stays we will never win the PL
no matter if we have Saint Peter as manager.

And sure, Rafa has wasted some money, but so have all managers who have been at a club for some time.
But they weren't that super expensive.

Name one really big buy Rafa had made that hasn't been a success for us??

Then when Fergie of Maureen buys Veron and Ferreira/Shevshenko/Thiago etc for many times more then
they can just swop that under the rug and pretend nothing
happened. Because it's not fatal. If Rafa would make such a mistake we would be ruined, both financially and on the field.

And I don't give a what manure, chelski does, I care about what we do.

I knew we needed that extra spice to our team this summer to get us over that last hurdle and what do we get?
Jack that's what!

Only excuses that wage increases takes a big bite out of our transfer budget...

Someone with a brain. 

[lakes10]

bloody hell some on here are so blind.

[parchpea]

He sold a full back that is seen fit to play for Real Madrid and did a good job for us for no money and replaced him with a player costing £17m quid. He loses Alonso, in part through his whole attitude toward him last season, and replaces him with a player costing £20m who will not be fully fit until half way through the campaign. Maybe he should kept Arbeloa and spent the £37m more wisely by changing his system and sticking Mash and Gerrard in centre midfield (Gerrard is one of the best in world in this role afterall) and bolstering our attacking options by purchasing a top class centre forward to partner Torres. The guy is stuck in rut with a system that has failed to bring us the title and does not work without Alonso but he will not change come hell or high water and no matter how poorly we are playing.

[Greavesie]

Rafa and the owners

the scum is a MUST win game now

[NANNY RED]

An fecking loads with there head buried in the sand, an all.
im not saying Rafa dosnt make mistakes , He does , Hes also made some bad buys, them who havnt worked out or fitted in with our style of play have been shipped out sharpish, Yes there are hangers on an they need getting rid of an all i agree, But apart from one player who we have hopefully replaced for a considerably less sum that the money we got, this is practicaly the same set of players as last season, Was last season a fluke then

[heimdall]

Let me make one prophecy:

As long as the owners we have stays we will never win the PL
no matter if we have Saint Peter as manager.

And sure, Rafa has wasted some money, but so have all managers who have been at a club for some time.
But they weren't that super expensive.

Name one really big buy Rafa had made that hasn't been a success for us??

Then when Fergie of Maureen buys Veron and Ferreira/Shevshenko/Thiago etc for many times more then
they can just swop that under the rug and pretend nothing
happened. Because it's not fatal. If Rafa would make such a mistake we would be ruined, both financially and on the field.

And I don't give a what manure, chelski does, I care about what we do.

I knew we needed that extra spice to our team this summer to get us over that last hurdle and what do we get?
Jack that's what!

Only excuses that wage increases takes a big bite out of our transfer budget...

Oh how quickly we forget Keane   

I blame the owners for giving Rafa a new contract. This season is goign down the sh1tter, I don't think we'll get out of the group stage of CL and I don't thnk we'll qualify for it next year.

I wish I could be more upbeat but I don't see anything to be positive about at the moment, sorry.

[heimdall]

An fecking loads with there head buried in the sand, an all.
im not saying Rafa dosnt make mistakes , He does , Hes also made some bad buys, them who havnt worked out or fitted in with our style of play have been shipped out sharpish, Yes there are hangers on an they need getting rid of an all i agree, But apart from one player who we have hopefully replaced for a considerably less sum that the money we got, this is practicaly the same set of players as last season, Was last season a fluke then

So what's gone wrong then Nanny, has rafa lost the dressing room, is he playing sh1t tactics, playing players out of position, what is going on?

One thing is for certain, the teams bad results and form can't be directly blamed on the owners if you say they are the same players as last season!

[Sir Roger]

My biggest frustration is that nothing comes here as a surprise.

I mean last season we all saw that neither Gerrad nor Torres have a sufficient Backup ,but Rafa brought no one to support them.

Last season we all saw that neither Lucas nor Babel are Liverpool material ,Rafa Kept them.

Last season we had Alonso ,which had his limitation but contributed to the team ,Rafa didn't fill his gap.

I mean all is so clear and simple yet we are all "surprised" at the downturn ,Rafa main fault is that he is stubborn and has no ability to change nor learn from his mistakes ,thus we are now stuck with little chance of recovery.

And when you think about it signing the Italian for a huge amount of money knowing that he will only be able to play on November? whats that all about?

We are hurting
We are frightened
Some of us are not surprised. In fact some have seen the writing on the wall for some time, but have been shot down by the Rafettes as being disloyal or even anti-LFC. The chickens are coming home to roost. It is no mystery why we are in the position we are. The question is will we progress? Bad luck aside we have had a fairly unimpressive start to the season. The team which ended last season on the coat tails of the skanks, and if there had been two more games at the end of the season probably could have won the league, seems to have disappered into thin air. Because Alonso has gone? Really? Was he that influential? We gained an attacking defender which gives us a different option. So why has it all gone ti'ts up?[I]

[Penguins]

He sold a full back that is seen fit to play for Real Madrid and did a good job for us for no money and replaced him with a player costing £17m quid. He loses Alonso, in part through his whole attitude toward him last season, and replaces him with a player costing £20m who will not be fully fit until half way through the campaign. Maybe he should kept Arbeloa and spent the £37m more wisely by changing his system and sticking Mash and Gerrard in centre midfield (Gerrard is one of the best in world in this role afterall) and bolstering our attacking options by purchasing a top class centre forward to partner Torres. The guy is stuck in rut with a system that has failed to bring us the title and does not work without Alonso but he will not change come hell or high water and no matter how poorly we are playing.

But you can't put it out like that!
Arebeloa didn't want to stay and was not going to sign a new contract. We needed a quality replacement and with the new rules coming out we needed quality english players and they don't come cheap.

Well, it never occured to you that Aquilani was the best player available at the price we were willing to pay AND with the structure we wanted(pay nothing now, everything later)

With the way transfers are going these days a top class forward would cost a fortune and we would be in deep **** when an unmotivated Arbeloa would leave for free the following summer.

[NANNY RED]

An fecking loads with there head buried in the sand, an all.
im not saying Rafa dosnt make mistakes , He does , Hes also made some bad buys, them who havnt worked out or fitted in with our style of play have been shipped out sharpish, Yes there are hangers on an they need getting rid of an all i agree, But apart from one player who we have hopefully replaced for a considerably less sum that the money we got, this is practicaly the same set of players as last season, Was last season a fluke then

So what's gone wrong then Nanny, has rafa lost the dressing room, is he playing sh1t tactics, playing players out of position, what is going on?

One thing is for certain, the teams bad results and form can't be directly blamed on the owners if you say they are the same players as last season!

Do you know what Heimdall if i knew mate id be the manager, but its not as cut an dried as some on here think, Yes i agree we are playing terrible an Rafa as the manager must take some responability, but fecking hell Heimdall some on here would blame him for paint drying to quick on the wall, Players need to look at themselves an all. You say plaing players out of position. What fecking choice does he SOMETIMES have,

Yes i agree Rafa is the boss ,an should shoulder some of the blame for how the team perform. but he is a boss with his fecking hands tied behind his back , finace wise, I would actualy love to see him being given a level playing field, these two gone, no off the field fiasco , Finacial backing , not having to sell before we buy, An when we do sell given the full money back to tranfer funds, Then i can make an honest judgement,

The players an the boss need us more than ever at the moment, lets show them some support eh