Liverpool FC Forum

[shakey]

I must admit I am not at all bothered with the performance or result of this match. If we won great, this thread would be shorter but we lost so again more positives. Yes the players should have performed better but lets be honest, as John Craig put it, it was a makeshift squad for a poor cup competition. Win or lose, its a joke of a cup for the top half of the premiership as the goals are set higher than winning a cup with three handles ! That in itself is wrong !

I find the attitude of people happy to accept defeat simply because "it's only a mickey mouse cup" disgraceful, if you're happy to lose then there's a club tailor made for you not too far from Anfield. Not picking on you, just happens to be one of the first I've come across not commenting on the match, do us all a favour people who don't care about this competition and feck off out of the thread instead of repeating the sentiment. You're not interested, stay out of the thread.

Easy enough concept, we don't need to hear you justifying the fact that you only support Liverpool FC when it suits you

Couldnt agree more, i also find it hard to believe people were just joking & not worried that we were getting stuffed,
Should want to win EVERY match...... no matter what !!!

[tonyeh]

Pathetic performance. Enough said.

[SouthCoastShankly]

No pennant shouldn't of started he should of been brought on as a sub, right?

he wasnt on the bench i get ur point...
he should have started though it was men against boys out there !

The team selection was godawful, neither kids nor an XI looked capable of winning. Those who think we can sell off our fringe players and bring in quality should consider THAT was our reserves and how bad were they? OK spudz probably are the best side outside the top four, who knows how Ramos did so little with them, and we won't play them away every week. BUT if Plessis, Lucas, Degen and N'Gog are required to play much then those writing off this cup should write off the title as well. We won't get much for them, we won't get much with them.

So what was wrong with the XI? Nothing much on paper - Decent CBs, but two FBs who have yet to prove they were Liverpool quality (Degen through lack of chance) The middle was key for me, Rafa should have put Alonso alongside Lucas or Plessis, and with Babel, N'Gog and El Zhar in there we were always going to struggle to win. There was nothing on the bench, as little as I rate Pennant he should have played (if fit) I'd have used Babel on the bench, there wasn't one single attacking option worth bringing on with only midfielders and defenders our outfield options.

Any which way the side should still have avoided conceding three late first half goals, but for that we might have conjured up a result. This is only the THIRD game under Rafa we've conceded 4+ goals, compared to 22 games where we've scored 4+. In 259 games conceding four in a game just three times is a good record and a shame we couldn't maintain it at just two. Regardless whether the cup is worth winning, the result still counts against Liverpool FC. Perhaps the worst result of the night was Chelsea losing on penalties to Burnley, a few extra fixtures might have tested them more than extra time and penalties. But how typical of recent fixture scheduling that we play away to spudz and then early away to Bolton. The mancs, Arsenal and Chelsea all had home Carling Cup ties.

Wonder if the FA will throw the book at Drogba for throwing the coin back....................

I agree our second string are not up to much at all, but with this said last night it was more of a hybrid of our second string and our kids.

But following on from others comments regarding not being that bothered about going out - I tend to agree. As much as you want to win every game I don't want to see us play a strong XI in a cup that has the least meaning than any other competition we are playing in.

From what I saw I think you can draw some positives out of the game -

Degen - A good bench option for Arbeloa
El Zhar - Lively. Another good bench option who I think could make an impact.
Alonso - Showing masses of confidence at the moment, came on and ran the show.
Babel - Another player who looked better than what we've seen so far this season.

...but there were some serious negatives also -

Lucas - I repeat my comment from a few days ago. what does he offer? passing is average, shooting and defending are non-existant. A liability last night.
Hyypia - Won't be getting any more extensions to his contract, a great servant but it's got to end some day.
Plessis - Maybe its lack of games at a decent competitive level but he looked short of ideas and made frequent basic errors
Dossena - Again, why did we get rid of Riise for him again? No one will convince me that was the right move.

[JoeTerp]

who delivered the corner's that we converted?  Was it Babel?

Dont want to take anything away from the lad Joe but the goals were as much down to do with dodgy keeping and poor defending as they were to good delivery`s.

They were bad defending but he whipped the balls in better than I've seen Gerrard and Aurelio do.

Oh I agree mate he couldnt have put them in any better.

was asking for stat keeping purposes

[puroresu]

I thought Riise needed replacing but we really screwed up with Dossena.

[neil]

..Dossena - Again, why did we get rid of Riise for him again? No one will convince me that was the right move....

Riise was cr4p for the last 2 years, overweight and lethargic, Arsenal identified him as the weak link and put 9 passed us in 4 days on the back of it, he also beat us single handed in the euro cup semi. I cant justify Dossenas purchase though.

[puroresu]

You know what the cheeky gets were singin

Can we play you every week

Best laugh of the night for me though was when there other keeper came on . This arl fella by me started singin hes wering his dads socks an then afew more followed. you coulnt see his knees  it mighten sound funny tellin it but it was ing hilarious.
An every five minutes the stewards kept coming up the stairs telling every one to sit down .
but then came the chant were gonna bounce in a minute . They had no chance

They do that at Spurs all the time.  I remember a couple years back this bald steward kept telling us to sit down and then he become the target.  Was so funny.

[tubby]

I hope Dossena doesnt play on the weekend. We need to win!

[Ola Mr Benitez]

I think this game showed that the gap between our first 11 and then the also rans is huge and could be a real problem.  We are carrying too many players who are just not good enough.

My real problem though is Babel, Lucas and Dossena..

Babel - no control and just runs into oppostion players, does not know when to pass backwards or sideways
Dossena - Sh|t - No good going forward, no good defending
Lucas - Offers nothing.  Has not improved since he arrived. Never going to be good enough

[lakes10]

You know what the cheeky gets were singin

Can we play you every week

Best laugh of the night for me though was when there other keeper came on . This arl fella by me started singin hes wering his dads socks an then afew more followed. you coulnt see his knees  it mighten sound funny tellin it but it was ing hilarious.
An every five minutes the stewards kept coming up the stairs telling every one to sit down .
but then came the chant were gonna bounce in a minute . They had no chance

i was up in the box last night, but we could here some funny stuff coming from the Spurs fans.

you do feel a bit cut off from the fans when you are up in one of then box seats.......and the food was bad lol.

I gave up hope of winning as soon a i see the team sheet so i was not too shock that we lost but was shock how bad our young lads were, Spurs were not even that good, in fact they were poor last night, and that shows just how bad we was .

[JamCar05]

Sounds like an embarrassingly dire performance on our part, so for once I can honestly say that I'm not too bothered about having missed a game. I just hope we forget about it quickly and get ready for Bolton, as we need to get back on track in the league, where it really counts (not that the CC isn't important, it's just not nearly AS important).

[NANNY RED]

For me it wasnt the fact that we got beat last night to be honest i wasnt expectin us to batter them with all the fringe players that were playin . But it was in the mannor in which we got beat . At least give it a go,

Its frightening really when you think the back up for Arby an Aureilio is Dossena an Degan, Im afraid id shift Darby an Insua in before them. Im prayin now that our first team fullbacks stay fit . Because if they are the replacements hell.

An ive just got to say some of them players last night should be ashamed to pick up there wage packet.

[Scottbot]

I didn't see the game (thank fook for that) and now i'm trying to forget it ever happened. I would have been happier if the manager had played the likes of Pacheco, Insua, Darby and Spearing from the start, Arsenal style (although without the style)

Only two positives I cansee from this one.

- Torres got some more minutes under his belt and would have gained some valuable confidence in his hamstring (bet he will score on Saturday) which is invaluable to us.

- Hopefully the performance of the 2nd string will re-inforce Rafa's poilicy of sticking with a fairly settled side in the league this season. none of them (by the sounds of it) grabbed the opportunity so leave them in the reserves.

[burjennio]

1st half performance last night was an embarrassment. 2nd half wasnt much better until Alonso came on. Spot on Newkit as Dossena was truely dreadful, as was Caviliari. Degen improved as the match wore on and only gets a by-ball cause hes lacking match practice. And for those who didnt see it he got injured being fouled in the box for what was a clear penalty - which when you think about it could have made the game 4-3 with 15mins left after a performance so bad it shows you what a crazy game football really is.

For what its worth i think the problem with the fringe players is that deep down they know that no matter how well they play, they are not gonna get a fair crack of the whip over some of the more established players. That would be my only critisism of Benitez since he came in and turned the club around-  we havn't promoted a single reserve or youth player since his arrival. Its definately something that needs to be looked into.

[DanAn]

1st half performance last night was an embarrassment. 2nd half wasnt much better until Alonso came on. Spot on Newkit as Dossena was truely dreadful, as was Caviliari. Degen improved as the match wore on and only gets a by-ball cause hes lacking match practice. And for those who didnt see it he got injured being fouled in the box for what was a clear penalty - which when you think about it could have made the game 4-3 with 15mins left after a performance so bad it shows you what a crazy game football really is.

For what its worth i think the problem with the fringe players is that deep down they know that no matter how well they play, they are not gonna get a fair crack of the whip over some of the more established players. That would be my only critisism of Benitez since he came in and turned the club around-  we havn't promoted a single reserve or youth player since his arrival. Its definately something that needs to be looked into.

Watching the game I thought Insua showed enough to suggest he could be promoted. I think he could do a job for us a backup LW or LB.

Perhaps Rafa can lead the way by promoting him and giving Dossena the flick.