Liverpool FC Forum

by **Leonidas08** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:19 am

Mannyk wrote:Wish we had a fit Harry Kewell.

Yea Harry will come back firing

hope his operation went will down here in australia. Our midfield is going to be crazy, we need to define key position to each players.

by **onizukaeikichi** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:19 am

players care not motivated to play better as if even if they put on a good show, they might still end up on the bench. Plus, rafa is somehow building a team not around Gerrard not the other way around. Please please play gerrard on the right place, make use of him, use sissoko or alonso to stay put at the back to cover him, or just play ONLY one wing per game

by **whylongball?** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:32 am

Barry-agree with you
The quality alone in the midfield should be able to beat all the team. The defence sufffered because the midfield cant hold th ball long and cant control the tempo. The strikers also suffer because ther is no decent service. thats what i see anyway..but i dont think its the midfielders fault. To me, the boss doesnt have a clear idea of how/where to use his players

The everton game was bad but this bolton was worse :veryangry

by **Ciggy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:07 am

I feel your pain Barry I was gutted after the game, that feckin gutted instead of watching Chelsea or the Bluesh.ite I watched Columbo

I didnt want to see any more football yesterday or even hear about it.
The problem is there is some very good football being played by us at the moment, but we cant seem to keep it up for 90 mins, when subs come on our system changes.

Teams should fear us we should not play to their strengths yesterday reminded me of Rafa's first game against Bolton only difference then was we had new players from abroad.
Everyone that played yesterday all have experience in the prem be it with us or their former teams e.g. Bellamy Blackburn, Newcastle, Pennant Brum and Zenden. Apart from poor Kuyt who got his head spit open from that scary looking creature Faye b@stard.

There was nothing wrong with the team selection yesterday before that freekick we where cruising.

Now on rotation we should start our strongest 11 every week in the prem, and rotate for cup games they are a one off and anything can happen.

Its ok Rafa saying players will be tired what about poor Steve Finnan who will have to play for Ireland and us he cant have a rest we have no one to fill in for him.

Same back 4 every week the same midfield, and Crouch must be feckin gutted getting dropped yesterday,that was a puzzeling one, he didnt want to know when he came on for Kuyt.

Heres a little bit of info posted from another forum on Rafa.

This was his Valencia team

...........................Canizares
Torres...........Ayala.......Pellegrino........Carboni
....................Albelda.......Baraja..............
Rufete................................................Vicente
........................... Aimar............................
........................... Mista.................................

Garrido played a handful of games at RB. Marchena and David Navarro played quite a number of games at CB. Jorge Lopez played on Rufete's spot sometimes. Ricardo Oliveira played some games for Mista/Aimar.

Momo played some games at different positions. Angulo...and then Xisco, Canobbio got some games too.

This was Rafa's last year and the press in Spain knew Rafa as someone who rotates players a lot, always mention it in a slightly sarcastic way.

Benitez's rotations.

The thing is that Albelda, Baraja, Vicente were pretty much untouchables. (A bit like Sissoko, Alonso and Gerrard.)

He slagged off his players also in the press because he thought they were getting too cocky and complacent?

There was only 2-3 changes every game due to the squad not being as big as it is at Liverpool.

Kily Gonzales felt the wrath of Rafa's tongue because he was complaining about getting dropped.

3 or 4 players returned from international duty and Benitez didn't want to play them because he didn't believe that they could play at anything close to 100%. He was persuaded by them they where fit to play and the team got hammered.
(Us against the bitters?)

Guillem Balague said how a lot of players at Valencia really didn't like Benitez and some of his methods, especially early on.

He was a young manager with some success at lower leagues in Spain and they were big shot players who had just reached 2 european cup finals. But gradually, Rafa started to get their respect as a manager and even though they weren't all pals, Rafa got the most out of his players on a regular basis.

He cancelled a training session the week before the first Liga game. When asked about it he told the journalists he had cancelled it so the players could go back home.

And think about the fact the whole thing was starting in a few days because their mentality wasn't the most adequate at the moment.

So theres a bit of interesting snippets about Rafa but I dont expect to change his methods anytime soon,as he wont want to be wrong, we will just have to hope that he starts to get it right, and we start winning away from home.

by **Crouchamania** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:31 am

I think Rafa needs to drop Alonso. Just for one game to see what happnens, and play Gerrard in the middle with Sissoko.

Rafa seems to play Alonso in every game even thought his form hasn't been the best this season. I don't see what harm it would do if we dropped him for one game.

by **kirankara** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:02 pm

ok having caled down a bit and stopped wanting to mutilate anyone who comes within ten yards, im asking myself are we getting a little worries too soon. Thinking back to last season man united had a very bad start to the season as did arsenal, and were all there or thereabouts, now im not saying thats good enough, but i honestly feel over time things will gel, we all wanted title this season and last , and one before that too etc, but is it that step too far too soon??? maybe this season realy is about laying foundations for next with soo many new personel and ideas beiing introduced, thinking back to the blue noses start to last season they were dog :censored:

but had brought in a few new players and their form really didnt reflect their abilty, and this is being shown now and by their finish to the season where they steadily climbed up table. We are all looking for the quick fix to everything, we dont want rotation, we want gerrard here or there, but long term you have to ask, well we werent good enough last season and quite one dimensional too, there were reasons, rafa has some ideas as to why that is and is trying to introduce ways of making us less one dimensional, playing betterfootball we all want to see, but this may take time, and in honesty, it may be too late for us this season to really see the fruits of these changes, but lets wait a bit before we all start throwing ourselves off bridges, we lost to a :censored:

decision primarily in the free kick, that made life more difficult against a very well organised and exceedingly physical side that refused point blank to play football, players were scythed down if the looked like making any headway towards goal. Its not nice to hear these facts, but thats way it is, maybe we'll have to walk on through the wind and the rain a bit longer,wth hope in our hearts, but we know we'll never walk alone because we are liverpool fc

by **alessandromagno** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:16 pm

I guess Rafa has to be given the chance to put his rotation plan into operation. If he wins the PL in his first 5 years here, then that will be success. If he doesn't, then after 5 years, both sides might be glad to see a parting of the ways...Bottom line is that because Rafa's rotation policy worked in Spain, that doesn't mean it will work here. As everyone keeps on saying, the PL is far more physical than La Liga and sometimes 11 determined players just need to dig out a result by force of character.

Let's hope Rafa's rotation policy turns out to be trasnsferable from Spain to England!

by **RAGE UK** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:30 pm

alessandromagno wrote:I guess Rafa has to be given the chance to put his rotation plan into operation. If he wins the PL in his first 5 years here, then that will be success. If he doesn't, then after 5 years, both sides might be glad to see a parting of the ways...Bottom line is that because Rafa's rotation policy worked in Spain, that doesn't mean it will work here. As everyone keeps on saying, the PL is far more physical than La Liga and sometimes 11 determined players just need to dig out a result by force of character.

Let's hope Rafa's rotation policy turns out to be trasnsferable from Spain to England!

I agree with you about rotation maybe it will not work in England.
But I don’t think I would like to go though 5 years of this
I don’t think the people around me could take it for that long.
If we lose even the dogs hide.
:veryangry

by **kirankara** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:36 pm

i agree maybe it wont work, but lets give it a chance over an extended period of time, because otherwise our choice is to sack him, leaving us where?

New manager, new ideas, new players, back to beginning of another five year plan. When you think about it in reality hes only had the players hes wanted for a few weeks now, the last few years hes had the left overs of another managers regime. He has to be given time to transfer ideas and for players to adapt, we spent most of last season playing one up front, now hes brought in width and more options up front, but players have to adapt to playing that system, playing with ball on floor rather than being hoofed up front. To be honest too, its not necessarily the new boys letting us down at the moment its stalwarts like stevie finnan, carragher, hypia, with some poor defending.Until that first goal went in we were dominating match, at beginning of second half same again, then we conceded and that was effectively game over, boltob shut up shop and never played football again, if they ever did lol. If we hadnt conceded it might have been very different match, and if ppl like Jc and Finnan and hypia cant be relied upon to head a frickin ball out then maybe its time they went too, and not rafa????Reina has been poor too i parts but you got to wonder if that shoddy defence is partly to blame, id be nervous and twitchy with that bag of :censored:

in front of me right now. JC is a legend as is hypia and finnan has been mr consistent 4 two years now, but they seem to go awol a lot at moment, and lets be honest its bolton, they were never going to try anything big and clever on the ground, so everything was coming up in the air aimed at a head of their player. My point...... good question lol, I think its simply this, everyone is throwing their toys out the pram far too early, and that some of the players need to stand up and be counted now and stop letting rafa take blame as we have played well in all the games we've lost , but mistakes on behalf of the players has cost us points, not rafa.Everton we shud have won that game, we had chances, sheffield united -same again, and the same today and at chelsea.If wed taken some of those chances wed probably be sat at top of prem right now and singin rafas glories.

by **alessandromagno** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:37 pm

Well, this is already Rafa's third season in charge...

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:52 pm

If we are going to sort the defence out I think we have to go back to playing a deeper defensive line, as we did up untill the end of march last year. I know we did well with the higher line at the end of last season but we did start to conceed more goals.

This will also have the added advantage of allowing Alonso more room when bringing the ball out and may get him playing to his best again.

Drop Pennant play Gerrard on the right and play Aurelio on the left. This will enable us to play much more effectively when defending.

Once we have a solid platform we can then bring on wingers second half if we need to open the game up.

Why play Bellamy, who's best work is in the channels if you are going to use wingers? All that does is fill the space that he needs if he is to produce his best.

Most important of all get the team fighting for every ball and looking like they have some team spirit again!

by **kirankara** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:55 pm

thanx saint some positive feedback and great common sense as usual, not just some of the sack rafa, bellamy is rubbish, im going to support chelsea now drivel we get sometimes on here lol

by **CousinIT** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:05 pm

You fix the problem as follows:

Dudek in goal
Finnan right back
Carra and Agger as centre halves
Warnock left back
Gerrard, Momo and Xabi as central mids
Kuyt on the right of 3 fowards
Bellamy on the left of the 3
Crouch up top.

Problem solved.

Liverpool FC Forum

A bad start to the season - So how do we fix it?

Who is online