Liverpool FC Forum

[NANNY RED]

Bill an Ben must have been quaking in there cowboy boots thinking how much they were gonna have to top up the tranfer fund after they had paid a fine for all them yellow cards ,,

[TheLad]

Good to see Nando and Yossi back.

[tubby]

We are an alehouse team now looking to scramble a goal simple as that. I think with the players at our disposal we can create something better than that and both entertain and pick up points.Unfortunately the manager will never see it that way and so it will run and run.Clearly its results at all costs with absolutely no regard for the traditions of the football club or the paying public but Benitez is what he is and thats what we asked for and are stuck with now.

I think as far as this season goes it is important to secure 4th place even if it means playing ugly every game. When the summer comes we can then assess our playing style and weaknesses.

[TheLad]

We are an alehouse team now looking to scramble a goal simple as that. I think with the players at our disposal we can create something better than that and both entertain and pick up points.Unfortunately the manager will never see it that way and so it will run and run.Clearly its results at all costs with absolutely no regard for the traditions of the football club or the paying public but Benitez is what he is and thats what we asked for and are stuck with now.

I think as far as this season goes it is important to secure 4th place even if it means playing ugly every game. When the summer comes we can then assess our playing style and weaknesses.

I do believe with Nando, Yossi and hopefully Johnson back, our play will improve, and will see some nice football of last year's Liverpool.

[The Good Yank]

I didn't think it was that poor a performance in some ways.  Possesion was good, City only seemed to threaten on the break.  To me we didn't seem that far off.  Obviously we didn't get any touches to commend in the final third.  A couple of good crosses here and there etc. 

What was very frustrating to me was Lucas being on for the entire match.  He was dire today.  I've stuck up for him before and wouldn't put myself in the "Lucas is " camp.  But today I certainly think that camp has a big tick in there column. 

In hindsight the bringing on of the WaterBoy with 4 minutes plus stoppage was a complete joke.  WTF was Rafa playing at with that one.  If Aqua was fit enough to play 4 minutes, why in hell was he not brought on for Lucas at the hour mark (or earlier, but we know that will never happen).  And to take off Kuyt with 4 minutes left plus stoppage?  To what end was that supposed to meet?

[Snake]

I didn't think it was that poor a performance in some ways.  Possesion was good, City only seemed to threaten on the break.  To me we didn't seem that far off.  Obviously we didn't get any touches to commend in the final third.  A couple of good crosses here and there etc. 

What was very frustrating to me was Lucas being on for the entire match.  He was dire today.  I've stuck up for him before and wouldn't put myself in the "Lucas is " camp.  But today I certainly think that camp has a big tick in there column. 

In hindsight the bringing on of the WaterBoy with 4 minutes plus stoppage was a complete joke.  WTF was Rafa playing at with that one.  If Aqua was fit enough to play 4 minutes, why in hell was he not brought on for Lucas at the hour mark (or earlier, but we know that will never happen).  And to take off Kuyt with 4 minutes left plus stoppage?  To what end was that supposed to meet?

I guess Rafa saw that we couldn't get the extra 2 points, so decided to prevent a last-minute concede. It'll show in the post-match interview if Rafa has intended to come out with a win or a draw.
And if Rafa likes to play players out of their positions, how about Riera left flank, and give that lad Maxi a stick by putting him on the right flank and moving Kuyt as a second striker? That'll show the Argentinian some discipline.

[Scottbot]

Only listened to the game so can't really comment on the performance. Agree it was very important not to lose so it's not the end of the world. Positives are the fact we remain difficult to beat but (unfortunately) at the expense of being able to create anything offensively. Great to have Torres and Yossi back again. How much do we need these two lads to get fit and stay fit for the rest of the season?

If Torres can stay injury free for the remainder of the season we will get 4th. If he doesn't I'd be very worried.

[tubby]

I look at it as 2 points dropped for City. They didn't take advantage of all those games in hand as much as they should have done.

[Reg]

Fact of the matter is theres no way in a month of sundays we have a squad to threaten Man Ure or Chelsea and win the league, we are average at best.

[Fauxy]

Fact of the matter is theres no way in a month of sundays we have a squad to threaten Man Ure or Chelsea and win the league, we are average at best.

What???

Average 

[Zidane]

Eh we weren't good at all but we managed a draw so you gotta look at it as a little bit of a positive I suppose.  They actually played much better but still couldn't win the game so on the bright side we can still play so much better than this.  Everything was so sloppy from us though almost every single player gave the ball away multiple times.

[akumaface]

I think Mascherano had another solid game. He was MOTM for me. One positive was that I believe the effort was there but just not creative enough. When Benni got on, you can see we got closer to the danger area. We were very sloppy especially Agger. Lucas was a non factor. He was ok but nothing special and just hope Rafa will put Maxi in the middle and take Lucas out. Maxi is too slow to play on the wing. He is more suited to spread the ball as he can hold on to the ball and had better vision. There were just numerous time that when our CM got the ball, they were looking and looking but could't do anything. I think our movement up front just not good enough or maybe the Citeh defender played a good game. We are lacking both speed and creativity. I wonder how we can address this without any significant amount of transfer money. I wish Rafa would have gives Pacheco a chance rather than Aquilani.

[kazza]

I look at it as 2 points dropped for City. They didn't take advantage of all those games in hand as much as they should have done.

I agree, they have a much harder run-in than we do and they were at home. All we have is Utd, Chelsea and maybe Birmingham away. They have to play those same teams and Spurs, Everton, Arsenal (and Villa I think). There will be more dropped points. Also the initial uphoria of a new manager might have gone as I see Bellamy is up to his usual tricks.

[Owzat]

Whats happening with this forum?

Match thread for a hugh game like his is only started 3 hours before the match

People too scared to start such an important matchthread........................?

Two points dropped in my opinion, that was our last chance to take points off our rivals for 4th and we didn't take all of them and didn't look like doing it. Both villa and spudz have to go to COMS, but anything other than two draws and one of our rivals will have gained some ground on our TWO draws against Citeh this season. Rafa may have 'guaranteed' 4th, but the way we are struggling to score may well deny us.

Rafa may have said afterwards he wanted to win, but leaving two DMs on and making such late changes as usual (the last two) barely showed any intent. "all we have is.............." is the wrong way to look at it, we drew away to Stoke and Wolves recently so even Hull and Wigan away aren't guaranteed wins.

TheLad - when you say you hope to see last year's football, was that the first 27 league games in which we scored 43 goals and kept 13 clean sheets? Compared to the 43 goals and 12 clean sheets of this season........................ We made more of the goals last season, didn't concede as many, but in essence our start was as ordinary in terms of football but we made more of chances and grabbed late goals and benefited from red cards against, this season it is red cards we are getting shown - perhaps lucky akumaface's MOTM wasn't shown one for the third time this season.

Easier run in or not, it is now out of our hands whether we finish 4th, just like it was last season trying to win the league. We're not playing well and yet people seem to think we're somehow favourites to land 4th, despite having shown capable of losing and with the top two still to play. That's not to say we're out of it, but let's be a tad more realistic and say that while Citeh may not have taken advantage of their position, neither have we so how are we any more favourite than them?!?!

The league table does not lie, so far we've been as good/poor as the teams around us and comparing fixtures won't change that. We've won 13 league games, we've failed to win 14 - only our two draws against Citeh were draws against top seven sides and we've failed to beat the likes of Pompey, Stoke, Blackburn, Brum (at home), Wolves and Sunderland in games this season. We've yet to visit Burnley and they've upset a few visitors, we didn't beat Wigan at their's last season and we found ways not to beat Fulham or West Ham at home last season when we were supposedly in better form.

Based on yesterday's performance we'll be going down the table not up

[Boocity]

I think Mascherano had another solid game. He was MOTM for me. One positive was that I believe the effort was there but just not creative enough. When Benni got on, you can see we got closer to the danger area. We were very sloppy especially Agger. Lucas was a non factor. He was ok but nothing special and just hope Rafa will put Maxi in the middle and take Lucas out. Maxi is too slow to play on the wing. He is more suited to spread the ball as he can hold on to the ball and had better vision. There were just numerous time that when our CM got the ball, they were looking and looking but could't do anything. I think our movement up front just not good enough or maybe the Citeh defender played a good game. We are lacking both speed and creativity. I wonder how we can address this without any significant amount of transfer money. I wish Rafa would have gives Pacheco a chance rather than Aquilani.

Pacheco came on and turned the game in midweek, I would have like Rafa to take off Lucas, drop Gerrard back in the middle and play Pacheco off Kuyt.