by azriahmad » Sat Mar 06, 2004 5:34 pm
I respect your opinion, stu. At least you did not resort to personal attacks on me as you did not agree with me. Personally, I think Liverpool under Houllier has improved in terms of player discipline on and off the pitch and he made produced a very good defensive based counter-attacking play. We won those trophies because the defense was rock solid and the counter-attacking play worked well.
However, we have become very negative due to this pattern of play and when the general plan fails like it had always been in the past 2 seasons (due to injuries, loss of form, players playing out of position etc.), Liverpool has failed to effectively change the playing style except for resorting to long balls by Gerrard for Owen to chase, often more in hope. We have seen it all too many times, with the frequency having occurred on an alarming consistency of late. Only recently have Liverpool adopted a more attacking play but alas, not successfully as other parts of our game crumbles.
We have skillful players like Kewell and Diouf, yet still play the same style home or away. Arsenal and Manure (I really hate to say this!) have been successful by not playing our type of game i.e., more penetration and more attack minded and they can vary their game to overcome difficulties and get results.
Why can't we do something similar? Less talent? Perhaps, but not by that big a margin.
Liverpool always keep struggling against well-organised teams like Charlton and gets beaten by fast attacking play (notice how many times we get beaten by Valencia, home or away?).
When our players get frustrated by the likes of Charlton, we don't see any alternative ideas. This is waht I mean by tactical ineptness of the present management. You may disagree, but the results and the overall sterile game play does not lie...
I hope you are right that Houllier may turn the club around if he has does not have the injury problems, but after over 5 years, I don't think he has it in him.