Liverpool FC Forum

by **JBG** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:22 pm

A bit of an over reaction here methinks.

Even in Houllier's first season in charge when we made significant progress our form was all over the place up until the end of November.

It hurt me as much as anybody else watching us chasing shadows today, but as I said on Friday, things are going to get worse before they get better.

The manager has a huge task on his hands as we plainly are in desperate need of at least three new players: a tough centre half, a decent left winger and a quality forward, and unless we receive major investment soon, these three or four players are not going to magic themselves out of nowhere. If Benitez is going to turn things around he either needs loads of money or loads of time and patience.

There are rumours of investment, but personally I think we are going to have to make do with a modest transfer budget over the next few seasons at least, and if Benitez cannot afford to go out and buy ourselves a Damien Duff and a Robert Ayala, he's going to have to make do with cut price signings like Cortez and Bowditch. I think Benitez has the necessary qualities, but in the absence of a quick fix which Man UTD and Chelsea can afford, its going to take a hell of a long time for him to make us really competitive.

However, while I have preached patience all summer and autumn, I will categorically say now that we desperately need a quality goalscorer as Cisse and Baros (on their own) are not enough for what we require.

by **A.B.** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:57 pm

madred wrote:I can take them losing away but the manner in which they have has become frustrating. Where is the fight when they most need it? Fighting till the end has got the mancs out of scrapes this season and it was a old addage of ours to never say die until the very last second. A bit more heart is needed soon in the side.

I agree. We are lacking heart and we need a leader. Hyypia isn't one of them

by **bigmick** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:12 pm

John Barnes' Granny, top post mate, agree with pretty much everything. I actually think there were more positives today than negatives.

by **parchpea** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:11 pm

I dont think there where any positives at all. It just highlighted the difficult and frustrating times we must endure until we have a huge financial input to improve the team. Benitez is a top manager and I think we hoped he could make good of what we had already. But on the evidence so far it looks like that will not happen. I know we have to stick in there through the rebuild, but its so god damn difficult lol :glare:

by **the great one** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:28 pm

i was worried when i heard the team news and the players were dropped cus they never performned and rafa knows houiller let behind a poor side and needs to strength in january morientes ?

by **whylongball?** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:38 pm

calm down guys..
i thought the team played not bad defensively. Diao made lots of good tackles and quite aggressive. Traore made good runs down the flank and did his part defensively. Carra put up yet another resillient show, very solid. Josemi did well against Duff. Its disappointing that Xabi and Gacia kind of freeze during the game. So many freekick wasted by Xabi and Gacia didnt contribute much.
If Rafa can get the team to defend well against set piece i dont see teams can score against Liv.

by **the great one** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:42 pm

chelsea were very quite they sang champions league your having a laugh and they only sang when they scored

by **Santa** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:43 pm

The team malfunctioned. I am surprised by the numbers of players gone AWOL the past few games. Home win against the likes of Norwich and WBA is no yard stick. We need more than "a couple of new signings", what's needed is a wholesale rethinking on how do we tackle the away game with the players at our disposal. We can't just turned up and be walked all over...

We desperately need a pacy and commanding centre half, a right side midfield who can deliver "today" and a midfield maestro who can deliver a killer pass will be helpful. But I am not holding my breath as the chairman is not in a good position to inject cash and is not accepting new investment yet.

FFS, can someone drop Kewell for the next few games. He needs a kick in his @rse to get the message that he was brought in as a key player. What a dissapointing waste of talent to see him performed at this workrate. If he is carrying an injury, it will be a good time to rest him and let Warnock a good run in the team.

Lastly, someone please tell Rafa that Diao, Biscan and Traore just don't cut it as a football player no matter what they make themselves to be. At this level, if you do not have the class to make the cut, you will be found out cruely.

oh my...oh my...oh my...

by **adayinthelife** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:59 pm

John Barnes' Granny wrote:

A bit of an over reaction here methinks.

Even in Houllier's first season in charge when we made significant progress our form was all over the place up until the end of November.

It hurt me as much as anybody else watching us chasing shadows today, but as I said on Friday, things are going to get worse before they get better.

The manager has a huge task on his hands as we plainly are in desperate need of at least three new players: a tough centre half, a decent left winger and a quality forward, and unless we receive major investment soon, these three or four players are not going to magic themselves out of nowhere. If Benitez is going to turn things around he either needs loads of money or loads of time and patience.

There are rumours of investment, but personally I think we are going to have to make do with a modest transfer budget over the next few seasons at least, and if Benitez cannot afford to go out and buy ourselves a Damien Duff and a Robert Ayala, he's going to have to make do with cut price signings like Cortez and Bowditch. I think Benitez has the necessary qualities, but in the absence of a quick fix which Man UTD and Chelsea can afford, its going to take a hell of a long time for him to make us really competitive.

However, while I have preached patience all summer and autumn, I will categorically say now that we desperately need a quality goalscorer as Cisse and Baros (on their own) are not enough for what we require.

Why won't Benitez pick our best 11 players away from home

He brings in Kirkland which was a good move but then diao and traore come in

It seems obvious to me that Baros or Cisse cannot play up front on their own and and it seems ridiculous to me that they aren't picked every game to try and get an understanding together. :angry:

Garcia looks increasingly lightweight to me and would be better playing out wide where he played for most of last season with Barca.

For all the doom and gloom we still havent gone and played our best team available away from home which is IMO:

Kirkland

Josemi Carragher Hyypia Riise

Garcia Hamann Alonso Kewell

Cisse Baros

If Benitez picked that team and we take the game to the opposition for a change and still get beat,that's fair enough but for some reason we have yet to do this and have tried to contain the opposition which has failed miserably.

We have a team there which is more than capable of winning alot of away games even without Gerrard.

by **the great one** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:04 am

well beni feel hamman aint good enough otherwise he will be the obvious replacement for gerrard we need a leader carragher need to hammer the foregin player teach them how important every result is for the club. we really missed gerrard we have no leader carragher has commintment but not like gerrard no creativy glad to see kirkland bak obvious england number 1 bye bye dudek & hamman your time may be up

by **Starbridge42** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:02 am

I'll get flamed for this or accuse of knowing nothing yadda yadda yadda

Everyone seems to think that just because Rafa won the title in his first season at Valencia he should've been able to do it here. You all (I use all as a general term rather than literally all) seem to think that its simply a matter of waving a magic wand and then all of a sudden we'll be genuine contenders for everything. that would be nice but its bloody unrealistic. Valencia were a completely different team with players more suited to his style when he took over, the spanish league is nothing like the premiership at all. You can't seem to find anything positive out of anything, is that anyway to live? Being worried about the worst all the time? Hell no, already there are signs of improvement from every player left from Houllier's days, from Carra to Kewell. Kewell may not be like he was at Leeds but he's already shown an improvement this season in the length of time he actually plays. It'll be fine. Why is it that most football fans are so fvcking impatient? Maybe its because I come from a cricketing background but I'm more than content to wait two or three seasons before there is really significant and dramatic improvement.

It won't happen overnight so just relax grab something to drink and a nice snack, go and have a kickabout in the backyard and remember. Its just a game, and games are meant to be fun.

by **kindaconfused** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:42 am

St Mike

Have to agree Kirkland looked shaky to me but maybe that's what can be expected in pressure game and out for so long, the papers seem to disagree and thought he had a good game.

Wouldn't be surprised to learn he has picked up another injury. The ball he came out for and gave up on (on his right second half) was were his lack of games showed up.

Carragher was a diamond and played his guts out and was by far LFC best defender.

Redrider

Yer right about the score but the score didn't reflect the huge gap in ability, to me its worse than I first realised its gonna take a long time to get back, if we ever do, and its gonna cost a fortune.

by **DAV** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:30 am

I set of early down 2 london yesterday
I had a good train trip, and it was on time
got on the tube to my fav pub near baker street
The sunday lunch i had was resonabley priced and tasted great.
I headed off to fulham broadway
entered the ground, had a great view of the pitch
I saw a team play who in my opinion will challenge Arsenal for the title this season
Only problem was i went to watch Liverpool
Good points from the game
well, the wern't none
4th is about the best we can get this season, with what i have seen on road trips

by **banana** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:55 am

Djimi Traore did well against Chelsea, and I think he was one of our best yesterday. Salif Diao did his best, but his best will never be enough against top teams. Cisse had an OK game. Garcia was never there and Kewell gave another lacklustre performance. Kirkland was awful. He made at least 10 mistakes that could have cost us. He rushed out, when he should have held the line, he punched when he should have held the ball, he fumbled and stumbled and did not look like a safe goalkeeper to anyone. And I think Dudek actually would have saved the goal.

by **JBG** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:09 am

I said in the summer we won't win the league this year and would probably finish 4th again, although I hoped we'd have closed the gap a fair bit.

I still stand by that and people have to remember that we've only played 7 league games out of 38. There are 31 games left.

Benitez may or may not be our saviour, but in fairness to Moores and Parry, he was as good as choice as anybody last summer.

I think some fans expected a dramatic improvement in form, but Benitez has lost almost half the games he managed. It is now becoming increasingly clear that some of the players Benitez has inherited from Houllier are completely sub standard, and despite some early excellent performances from Josemi, Garcia and Alonso, they will need some time to bed in, as Alonso especially is being expected to carry the team.

We won't go the rest of the season like this, improvement is around the corner.

However, before improvement comes we are going to get a very nasty result soon.....I can feel it in my bones.

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