Liverpool FC Forum

by **Reg** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:14 am

Reg wrote:"You´re all taking the Mickey but if they're as good as Wolves we´re in trouble........."

My prematch comment.... so was I wrong?

by **made in UK** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 5:50 am

I've been struggling to put into words what it is about Liverpool this season and last night whilst watching the game it suddenly struck me ............ We don't excite anymore

Crikey! You go to the games and see 50% more apparently than what we (us, "armchair" fans) see on TV and you've only just come to that conclusion?

by **radun5** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:53 pm

Well my fellow LFC supporters, long time no hear. But as I finally had to watch an LFC game and I can tell you a lot more on the context of the opposition team, here I go:

First of all, yes, Romanian league is a sh8t league, but it is not the sh8ttiest in Europe, and Romanian clubs had decent European cup runs in the last years, including knocking out of several German teams and a good run of CFR Cluj last year in the beginning of the CL group stage (two great results: a 2-1 at Stadio Olimpico and a 0-0 against the allmighty Chelsea).

Unirea Urziceni (by the way, Unirea means Union and is a reference to the national Union in 1918) is a team that was in our 3rd division about 5 years ago. The home town is only 20.000 inhabitants and has absolutely NO football history. Then, the club was bought by a quite wealthy (by Romanian standards) business man with a good management philosophy (he is not interfering with the management of the club, he only chose some right stuff and lets them do their job) and they managed to promote and then qualify for UEFA cup in their first season of first league.

Mind you, all this was possible by buying hard-working people (no Romanian star was brought to this team and no high transfer fees were splashed) and a good young coach (former international Dan Petrescu).

Their good form continued with a decent UEFA Cup run last year (they lost to Hamburg on away goals rule - at the time Hamburg was the German team in form) and with good results against a highly competitive league (I'll repeat, it is a sh8t league but at least it is competitive, some 4-5 teams were separated by not more than 5 points sometimes in the second part of last season - and this continues to be the case this season as well.

I don't follow our league as it is poor, but from the comments I know they were always very well prepared and hard-working and this mentality helped them win the title - which was in itself a small miracle.

Youi know the results in the Champions League this season, now the win against Rangers was not that inexpected (only the proportion was surprising), but the good result against Seville was really the proof that this is a group of hard-working players with a good motivating coach and a great stability in the club.

The coach left however surprisingly in the winter, so I don't know many details about the new man in charge, what I do know is that as manager of Maccabi Haifa he gave LFC a rough time a few years ago as well.

Now about the winter break, Romania has no choice but to wait during the winter, as snow is falling often and actually this last week there were talks of postponing the first matchday of the year - in the end it was played so Unirea will play another official match before the second leg against LFC. Indeed it is an advantage for us, but let us not forget Unirea's mission was to keep the draw, and it was not like the match was played just after Christmas or the players were celebrating the New Year, they had a few weeks when they only prepared for the LFC match and they had sufficient physical trainings to be in good shape for the match.

----------

Sorry for all this walltext, now to get to the game if any of you is still following. I thought the match was far from what I expected and wanted, but it was not so poor as you tend to make it. The Romanian comentators were always reliefed that the LFC pressure was not capitalized, but my impression was we created a few good chances against a very well organised defence.

The substitutions were late as usual, but I thought they proved effective. To me Babel was much more effective against those tireing legs than if he was in from the first minute. Pacheco was introduced maybe late but he still got enough time to contribute to the goal.

The final score is enough for Liverpool, even though they will need to dominate the home side when they come to Bucharest (by the way, beware, even if they do not play in their home town they will get a lot of support - as they have no history there are no rivalries against them and the Steaua supporters will encourage them greatly).

Anyway, I agree with Joe Terp's remarks on the game, I think it was simply a case of too much expectation and maybe a disconsideration of the opposition (please tell me what a Pikey is

) but it was job done to me and even if the performance was a bit dull I was happy to watch the Reds in action after a lot of time.

Now make sure you win against Man City! I would settle with a similarly dull 1-0 :buttrock

by **woof woof !** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 12:02 pm

Good post Radun

ps, a "pikey" is an english slang term for a Gypsy .

by **shanks72** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 5:31 pm

Soz haven't read any other posts in this thread apart from a quick squizz at this page.....

My initial excitement at watching this match turned to disappointment as the game turned out to be dull indeed.

It was a shame Kuyt couldn't bury his shots....

And for me, shame Benayoun was injured and couldn't play and Torres of course.

We put out a good, strong side, on paper at least....

But as has already been said the excitement has gone from our game. I wonder also if it is a lack of confidence, maybe in the management as much as anything.

Turnaround came when Babel came on...good things for us always seem to happen when he is brought on IMO.

Ngog got his well deserved goal...thought he had a good game.

Hope we can hold onto this lead in the second leg. Rafa seems to be willing to put out a good team and to be taking this competition seriously, prob because, unfortunately, it's the only one we're left in.

by **Owzat** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:35 am

radun5 wrote:Anyway, I agree with Joe Terp's remarks on the game, I think it was simply a case of too much expectation and maybe a disconsideration of the opposition

He said that of the tripe that was in our CL group as well, not only should we be expecting to beat those sides and qualify, but they are also doing poorly in their domestic leagues. Lyon and Fiorentina went through, both were way off the pace in their respective leagues. Both beat Debrecen comfortably, we beat Debrecen 1-0.

It's not underestimating the opposition, it is playing sh 1te and there is a world of difference. Underestimating them assumes they are better than we think, which they ain't, playing sh1 te is us playing well below our capabilities which is the case as proven with losses to bottom of the table pompey, to struggling Championship side Reading, not beating Wolves or Stoke and not scoring more than one goal in any of ELEVEN cup games this season. So JoeTerp is well, erm, WRONG.

We summed up our opposition quite nicely, Lyon and Fiorentina are ok sides but ones we would have beaten had last season's side/form played them - especially given how ordinary they've been in their domestic leagues. We might have lost and drawn away as we did this season, they aren't so ordinary they couldn't get a result against us at home, but we should have beaten both of them at Anfield and qualified - that is nothing like underestimating them, maybe if anything it is overestimating ourselves

As for pikey united, they were ordinary indeed and again we should have beaten them, comfortably in this instance. We didn't, that doesn't make them better than we think they are.

by **stmichael** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:22 pm

we'll just use this thread for all the second leg discussion aswell.

by **Roger Red Hat** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 2:50 pm

i predict ...

...boring 1 - 1

yaaaaaawn

by **dawson99** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 3:27 pm

4-0 us!!!

by **metalhead** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 7:11 pm

another

performance away from home, but we will win 1-0 or it will be 0-0

by **radun5** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:44 pm

My guess is we will score easier in this game, as Unirea will try and go for glory. Probably we'll end up conceding as well, because they are not the mugs some think they are.

2-1 for us !

by **Fan** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:30 pm

Hi there guys! I'm from Romania:D...good luck tomorrow but i hope we'll win this match and we'll qualify for the next round...although it is almost impossible...but we believe that we canbeat the impossible...because our players will "never walk alone"...so... see you tomorrow! Greetings from here!

by **kunilson** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:16 pm

i reckon we'll win this 3-1. them scoring when its 2-0 to us....then us finishing them off when they try to push for another.

by **Reg** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:25 am

Well if Tony Barret is right in The Times, the pikeys mean business..... 4-1-4-1 is hardly defensive.

Liverpool (possible; 4-4-1-1): J M Reina — J Carragher, M Skrtel, D Agger, E Insúa — D Kuyt, Lucas Leiva, J Mascherano, R Babel — S Gerrard — D Ngog.

Unirea Urziceni (possible; 4-1-4-1): G Arlauskis — V Maftei, G Galamaz, B Fernandes, P Brandán — S Paraschiv — M Onofras, R Paduretu, I Apostol, S Frunza — M Bilasco.

Referee: S Johannesson (Sweden).

by **Madmax** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 4:14 am

Unirea will have to go for it so im sure they won't play defensive... I think we will just cut them out a go for a single goal.. Will be a boring 0-1 win to us..

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