Liverpool FC Forum

by **Ace Ventura** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:29 am

tel wrote:Thats fair enough in the course of a season. But this was a special day, a special occasion and won by a special performance. He could have been more gracious than to go out of his way to such an extent and reinforce the point that it wasnt just Gerrad that won the game.

Players have egos and Stevie's is not any smaller than Henry's, Lampard's or Ronalodinho's. But their coaches are not shy in public praise when they put in an exceptional performance.

Would not have hurt to let the lad bask in the glory he deserved.

I think Gerrard through the English media is constantly basking in glory, he gets praise non stop, and is a darling of the media. I am not saying he doesnt deserve it, the lad deserves all the praise he gets, he is one of the best players in the world and one of the greatest reds of all time.
But Rafa's jon is to make sure he stays focused and remains a team man, none of the....am the f'ckin man goal celebrations like against portsmouth last season.
Because if Gerrard does start feeling he's carrying Liverpool (which he's not) then it may well affect his game, as it did the previous season.

by **Leonmc0708** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:30 am

tel wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:Rafa said the right things in public, although the team performed poorly on the whole it would be wrong to single out one player to the press it is a team game.

I would bet my life on it that privately Rafa has thanked stevie for his performance that day.
Rafa has always seemed to be a man that values team spirit and a we're in this together attitude.
Singling one player out (however superhuman his performance) would go against what he has tried to do so far.

Thats fair enough in the course of a season. But this was a special day, a special occasion and won by a special performance. He could have been more gracious than to go out of his way to such an extent and reinforce the point that it wasnt just Gerrad that won the game.

Players have egos and Stevie's is not any smaller than Henry's, Lampard's or Ronalodinho's. But their coaches are not shy in public praise when they put in an exceptional performance.

Would not have hurt to let the lad bask in the glory he deserved.

Gerrard would not have been able to produce the performance he did without the tireless work of Momo and Didi.

by **laza** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:33 am

If this is indictive of the off season topics , its going to be a long summer

by **48-1119859832** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:36 am

s@int wrote:Liverpool 4 EVA when a player scores a goal like that in a cup final the manager usually mentions it in passing ,maybe I missed it?

This type of "special praise" for one player creates tension and distrupts team chemistry. Yes perhaps Benitez could of praised Gerrard for his big contribution to the match but then if he were to ignore Pepe then what impact would that have on the team? After all Pepe did save three spot kicks and make a fantastic save, despite his earlier blunders. Then you had Cisse who got the ball rolling and Hyppia was also immense etc.

See if you choose to praise one player and neglect mentioning the team effort, it creates bad tension in the dressing room. And Rafa doesn't want this obviously. He praised the team because it was 11 men who won the game. Yes Gerrard being our skipper was immense and he scored two goals and never said die. But that's just a routine part of the skipper's game.

Perhaps he should of praised Gerrard in the dressing room and back behind the scenes but to do that in the public domain is self assisted suicide.

by **tel** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:41 am

Ace Ventura wrote:
tel wrote:Thats fair enough in the course of a season. But this was a special day, a special occasion and won by a special performance. He could have been more gracious than to go out of his way to such an extent and reinforce the point that it wasnt just Gerrad that won the game.

Players have egos and Stevie's is not any smaller than Henry's, Lampard's or Ronalodinho's. But their coaches are not shy in public praise when they put in an exceptional performance.

Would not have hurt to let the lad bask in the glory he deserved.

I think Gerrard through the English media is constantly basking in glory, he gets praise non stop, and is a darling of the media. I am not saying he doesnt deserve it, the lad deserves all the praise he gets, he is one of the best players in the world and one of the greatest reds of all time.
But Rafa's jon is to make sure he stays focused and remains a team man, none of the....am the f'ckin man goal celebrations like against portsmouth last season.
Because if Gerrard does start feeling he's carrying Liverpool (which he's not) then it may well affect his game, as it did the previous season.

I agree mate, and I reckon it affected a lot his performances last season in the league having that attitude that it was up to him to save us.

But I just think this was the one time rafa could have let him get away with it, and it was a bit harsh to go out of his way to say he didnt win us the game.

by **tel** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:48 am

Leonmc0708 wrote:
tel wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:Rafa said the right things in public, although the team performed poorly on the whole it would be wrong to single out one player to the press it is a team game.

I would bet my life on it that privately Rafa has thanked stevie for his performance that day.
Rafa has always seemed to be a man that values team spirit and a we're in this together attitude.
Singling one player out (however superhuman his performance) would go against what he has tried to do so far.

Thats fair enough in the course of a season. But this was a special day, a special occasion and won by a special performance. He could have been more gracious than to go out of his way to such an extent and reinforce the point that it wasnt just Gerrad that won the game.

Players have egos and Stevie's is not any smaller than Henry's, Lampard's or Ronalodinho's. But their coaches are not shy in public praise when they put in an exceptional performance.

Would not have hurt to let the lad bask in the glory he deserved.

Gerrard would not have been able to produce the performance he did without the tireless work of Momo and Didi.

Maybe, but Momo and Hamman did not win the game for us.

There are maybe 2 or 3 players in the world that could have done what Steve Gerrard did to win the FA Cup. 2 of which I watched last night, and neither of which played well in a Cup final.

When you have one of the world's best players, you dont need to talk it up, but you also dont need to go out of your way to talk it down.

He could have said it was a great team effort and the goals from Gerrard were world class. I'd prefer he said what Carra said. Gerrard is a better player than Ronaldinho. He is

by **Ace Ventura** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:49 am

tel wrote:I agree mate, and I reckon it affected a lot his performances last season in the league having that attitude that it was up to him to save us.

But I just think this was the one time rafa could have let him get away with it, and it was a bit harsh to go out of his way to say he didnt win us the game.

Maybe, but rafa is a clever man and i would trust his judgement on this one.

by **tubby** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:51 am

s@int wrote:It may seem like a strange question, but I have noticed that Rafa seems to praise all the team when Gerrard has a storming game hardly mentioning StevieG. When Liverpool won Champions League Benitez hardly mentioned Stevies contribution but I thought at the time maybe hes trying to keep contract price down. Then Stevie says hes going "because he doesnt feel hes really wanted ?" That gets sorted and for a few games Benitez seemed to go out of his way to praise Stevie.Since then he seems to have praised everybody (even Cisse) but hardly mentioned Stevie. Even after Saturdays match when any other manager would have been shouting Stevies name from the rooftops, he seemed to try to avoid mentioning Stevies name.
I know that Rafa has said that he doesnt like to pick out players but just to talk about the team but that didn't stop him praising Reina,Momo and Didi(who did deserve it ) and Cisse (who didn't) .Stevie and his wondergoal never got a mention. Has he got a problem with Stevie? I hope not cos we NEED both of them working together if we are to build on our recent successes.

Becasue he doesnt like to always talk up individuals ona constaant basis. The fight we went through to keep him should be proof enough he likes him.

And after tghe final the first thing he said about him was that he was a key player for us becasue he has the mentality we want.

by **JC_81** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:56 am

I refuse to give a serious response to this thread...

by **66-1112520797** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:10 am

Leonmc0708 wrote:
tel wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:Rafa said the right things in public, although the team performed poorly on the whole it would be wrong to single out one player to the press it is a team game.

I would bet my life on it that privately Rafa has thanked stevie for his performance that day.
Rafa has always seemed to be a man that values team spirit and a we're in this together attitude.
Singling one player out (however superhuman his performance) would go against what he has tried to do so far.

Thats fair enough in the course of a season. But this was a special day, a special occasion and won by a special performance. He could have been more gracious than to go out of his way to such an extent and reinforce the point that it wasnt just Gerrad that won the game.

Players have egos and Stevie's is not any smaller than Henry's, Lampard's or Ronalodinho's. But their coaches are not shy in public praise when they put in an exceptional performance.

Would not have hurt to let the lad bask in the glory he deserved.

Gerrard would not have been able to produce the performance he did without the tireless work of Momo and Didi.

Gerrard in fairness didnt have a great performance over the 90 minutes. He did have three magical moments during the game, which had a significant effect on the outcome of the match.

1) the 50 yard pass to set Cisse up for his goal.

2) His first goal

3) His second goal ( the f.ucking wonder strike !!! )

After that he pretty much like most of the team had an average performance. But still he deserves any credit/glory he gets because at the end of the day he got us out of the sh.it.

by **Scott P** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:11 am

It wouldn't be good for team morale would it if all Rafa talked about is Gerrard. I think Stevie would have been told by Rafa on the quiet side about his performance. All Rafa tries to instil is unity within the squad as we all know Liverpool would be different without Stevie but Rafa has to keep the team together. How many times has Stevie said in interviews that its not all about him its about the team.

by **kazza** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:16 am

Liverpool 4 EVA wrote:
A.B. wrote:Benitez is a smart man. He avoids overpraising any particular player because he doesn't like his team to be labeled as a one man show. Secondly he's praised Gerrard on many occasions, you seem to miss up on it.

A.B is absolutely spot on here.

Is it me or does it seem strange that AB is having conversations with himself.

by **red_guy** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:39 am

"Does benitez really like gerrard?" -

by **babu** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:51 am

please tell us saint.

by **HacksawJimDuggin** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:58 am

Does anyone else think that's it's maybe down to the fact that neither of them like to talk themselves up??

Rafa knows he has a world class player and Stevie knows that he has a top manager. Why go about mouthing off about how great they both are.

Gerrard doesn't (and has never) come across as someone to blow his own trumpet. The recurring message from both Rafa and Stevie G is that Liverpool are a TEAM. The quotes about the TEAM doing well are deliberate. It shows that everyone is battling for the same cause and singing from the same hymm sheet!! We win as a team and lose as a team.

:;):

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