Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

You could say that this is cultivated by the casual approach the manager has to pre-season. Playing Reina in midfield a couple of season agos in a pre-season friendly was a prime example of this.

I don't know if this Cavallieri blokes any good we could be giving Reina another go in midfield before too much longer

[Owzat]

Does anyone else feel that we missed CL qualifying? We fought our way through a spell where we were winning despite not playing well, perhaps this season is only different because we haven't won while not playing well and two games were CL qualifying where not winning is not so costly. Don't forget we only beat Standard Liege after 210 mins of a struggle, saved by Super Dirky Boy in extra time. So while we did win three of our first four league games, and got into the CL proper, we were far from playing flowing football like at the end of the season.

We also still had Alonso, is it possible to replace him? A poor pre-season didn't help, but it's not as if we play great football from the off every season

[Bad Bob]

Does anyone else feel that we missed CL qualifying? We fought our way through a spell where we were winning despite not playing well, perhaps this season is only different because we haven't won while not playing well and two games were CL qualifying where not winning is not so costly. Don't forget we only beat Standard Liege after 210 mins of a struggle, saved by Super Dirky Boy in extra time. So while we did win three of our first four league games, and got into the CL proper, we were far from playing flowing football like at the end of the season.

We also still had Alonso, is it possible to replace him? A poor pre-season didn't help, but it's not as if we play great football from the off every season

I've wondered about it, TBPH.  Impossible to prove of course but maybe those early CL qualifiers year after year were part of our tune-up process at the start of the season.  Sure, we made hard work of it last season but the season before was a virtual penalty kick against Tolouse (IIRC).  Maybe those games against Europe's lesser lights served their purpose?  With that said, I'm glad we missed out this time around given the format change.

[akumaface]

i think last season we have several lack lustre games but we managed to squeeze out the point we needed. But this year, it seems our defense especially in the air is worse than last year. Or maybe we are just not prepared as it seems we were caught by surprised as to how good the opponents were. Our defense is being exploited and have no remedy so far and is losing valuable points while going down without a fight....Seems their attitude had changed...

[ConnO'var]

I was bitterly disappointed with our showing in the game against spurs. Against Villa, I thought we were not too bad at first but failed to take our chances early on and ran out of ideas towards the end.... largely because our 2 biggest goal threats decided to have off days at the same bloody time. These things happen..... Perhaps it'll be the proverbial "swift kick up the @rse" that we need and we'll push on from there. A setback certainly, but by no means the end of the world as yet.... Having said that, we've snookered ourselves early in the campaign.... something we could do without.

If there's any criticism I have of the team selections to date has been the inclusion of Babel in the game against Spurs, the non-inclusion of Riera in the 1st team and the selection of Skrtel when he's obviously (imo) not match fit.

I also felt that we should have pulled Gerrard back into the midfield instead of persisting with the Lucas- Mascherano tandem as we need to control the midfield before we can dictate the tempo....... Lucas and Mascherano are ok as a midfield pairing but Masch is way off form at the moment and Lucas cannot be expected to carry the burden of the midfield alone. To be honest, I thought that he'd been playing ok and was improving every game.... though not by quantum leaps as most would like. The problem is really Masch..... he's well below par and needs to be benched for a game or 2 to screw his head back on right.....

As usual, we have not strengthened the wings this year again... though the purchase of Johnson has given us better width down the right. We'd do well to utilize the extra space and not clog up the midfield as we've been doing..... Which is why I could not fathom the exclusion of Riera.... unless of course, there are things going on behind the scene.

Not a good start obviously..... but now's not the time to aportion blame.... Rafa has to shake things up and not be so rigid.....

[JoeTerp]

plus this year the last qualifying round started AFTER the start of the prem.  And although I don't like the extra fixtures, they do seem to lie in nice place inbetween pre-season friendlies and the start of the league