Liverpool FC Forum

by **account deleted by request** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:41 am

Before the season started I and many others thought that this was the season we won the EPL. Carried forward on a wave of optimism following our summer signings we had little or no doubts that a title challenging if not title winning season was ahead.

While this is still possible, judging by peoples posts, many have reassessed their hopes and are willing to settle for European qualification or/and a cup.

I still feel that the title has not been torn from our grasp just yet. That a run of good form and results could pitch us back in with a shout for the title. But I have always been an optimist about Liverpools chances. I half expect us to win 4 trophys every season. I would willingly settle now for one or two of the big three EPL/CL/FA. Realistically I expect at least 3rd place and a cup.

What would you settle for, and what are your realistic hopes for the season now?

by **LFC #1** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:49 am

Hmm, i haven't given up hope of the title yet but I'm pretty sure we won't win it, I'd be as surprised as the next person if we did.

Expectations:

League: Similar points haul to last season, top 4 minimum which shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not so confident that we'll finish ahead of Man Utd and Chelsea. 3rd would be a good effort but Arsenal won't go away either.
CL: Quarter-finals, from there you don't know what can happen.
FA Cup: We're defending it, so I'd expect a good run.
League Cup: play the kids and reserves and see how far they can get us. If we make the semi-final start to take it seriously.

by **Ciggy** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:03 am

Maybe we wont win anything this season, we have been spoilt since Rafa came.
It wont be the end of the world either if we dont win a trophey, I see it more as a wake up call for people to realise we are not as good as we think we are.

IMO we where never in the title race this season anyway.

What gave us false hope was the Charity Shield when we beat Chelsea, the media, the players and the fans believed this was it we where going to challenge for the title and we got cocky and arrogant thinking we where the best thing since sliced bread, thats why some of the results this season have been harder to accept because of the expectation we had in August only for it to taken away infront of our very eyes.

We dont have the title winning mentality of that of the mancs and Chelsea yet.

It took Fergusson years to win the prem and I appreicate every trophey Rafa has won us, but maybe its going to take another few years before we win it.
Weve waited long enough another season or two wont make any difference.

by **timmit** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:11 am

I was never one of the people who thought that we were going to win the title so our recent results dont really shock me. It may get worse before its gets better as well considering our next 3 games are Mancs, :censored:

away and Villa at home.

Long term, a top 4 finish should be within our grasp. To get any kind of cup run would be great (preferably in Europe) but people need to get some kind of perspective on where we are at the present time. Istanbul raised expectations to a silly level and Rafa will always have a harder job because of that.

by **Ciggy** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:14 am

Another issue I feel has left us vunerable is Hamann leaving, both on and off the pitch by all accounts he was the most liked player in the dressing room.
Weve missed his cool calm and collected nature, his experience sometimes out with the old and in with the new is not always the solution.
Carra and Finnan havent been the same players this season and I think its down to Didi gone.
Call me crazy or insane but I just feel his presence made us a better team and unit even when he wasnt playing.
I would pull out all the stops to get him back in January.
He is still a fantastic midfielder and I think we are really missing him.

by **Mannyk** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:43 am

I can only say that it is probably more realistic that we would win a domestic cup.On current form it would be an unbelievable story for the team to take out the title or CL trophy.

Does any body have any stats on any club that has won the title and come from behind at a similar stage and points in the year ?

by **66-1112520797** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:44 am

s@int wrote:Before the season started I and many others thought that this was the season we won the EPL. Carried forward on a wave of optimism following our summer signings we had little or no doubts that a title challenging if not title winning season was ahead.

While this is still possible, judging by peoples posts, many have reassessed their hopes and are willing to settle for European qualification or/and a cup.

I still feel that the title has not been torn from our grasp just yet. That a run of good form and results could pitch us back in with a shout for the title. But I have always been an optimist about Liverpools chances. I half expect us to win 4 trophys every season. I would willingly settle now for one or two of the big three EPL/CL/FA. Realistically I expect at least 3rd place and a cup.

What would you settle for, and what are your realistic hopes for the season now?

The title isnt out of reach just yet IMO its still possible, I think I said before the start of the season we'd finnish top three possibly second. It was exciting having all these signings coming in during the summer, and it was easy enough to get caught up in the 'We're gonna win the league' talk.

At this point in time I think we've been heavily hindered by the signings and the large number of players being rotated. The dynamics arent there at the moment, and it seems that, the more choice Rafa has got in personell the more rotations are being made. If he persists and I think he possibly will, this season will inevitably be our FIRST real transitional period under Benitez. Nothing has gelled yet, and it could fall into place at anytime over the season. It does look as though the boss has made his job a whole lot harder but who am I to question the man.

I have been wondering to myself where we would be if we had started the season with only the players we had last year. I think we'd be better off points wise, as the team was much more settled but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

In my opinion to get our season up and running we need Kuyt playing 90 % of games. I know he doesnt look a natural born finisher but he looks the one striker who has the confidence in himself to get the goals we desperately need and to head the attack, the thing I like about him is, he can stand up and be counted for and doesnt go missing in games. If he misses first time around that wont blow his confidence, he'll keep trying again and again thats a good trait to have in a striker.

by **woof woof !** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:59 am

s@int wrote:What would you settle for, and what are your realistic hopes for the season now?

(a) Top four finish
Can't emphasise enough just how important CL football is to our club and not just financially .

(b) Top four finish
Realistic hope ? I think so , but it's gonna be close

.

by **stmichael** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:05 am

At the start of the season, those thinking we could win the league were in cloud cuckoo land. The problems that we had under GH remain..

1. No width
2. Lack of quality wing play
3. No link man to string it all together and open up defences (Garcia can but doesn't play enough).
4. Over reliance on Gerrard to get us out of a hole
5. Loads of shots on target and not enough goals

I suppose the one positive note is that there are more optimistic fans than realistic ones on this site.

Lets get real here its not just the points gap, its due to most of our key players underperforming, not having a nucleus of a settled side and our defence creaking at the seems. If you could rectify all those problems tomorrow morning then we might have an outside chance of the title but the realists on here know that the problems are a good month a way from being sorted out and if Agger isnt back soon the gap is likely to get bigger.

I watched the highlights of the Mancs and the Chavs at the weekend. The Chavs were garbage, down to ten men but still won. The Mancs were 1-0 down at half time but swamped all over Wigan in the second half. It was ruthless. We just aren't ruthless enough.

I'd take 4th now.

by **Big Niall** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:29 am

I would settle for the manager knowing who his best 11 are and playing them, maybe even for the players getting to know who the guy beside them is.

Changing the team every game for nearly a hundred games is stupid. You don't see Wenger doing that.

Until we do that, you can forget about the league.

Besides the league and the champions league, I don't care too much about the minor trophies.

by **bigmick** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:17 pm

Well I don't think we are out of it yet. Even if we were to lose at Old Trafford I wouldn't have thought we would be totally out of it. The feeling persists that Chelsea are not the team they have been in the last two seasons (largely due to the fact that at the moment they are having to carry a passenger in Shevchenko) and that this Man Utd team are some way short of the best they have produced over the Premiership's lifetime. Arsenal are improving but still have a tint of vulnerability so it's probably fair to say that you wouldn't have to have a fantastic team this season to have a shout at the title. That's just as well because we haven't got a fantastic team team at the moment, but we do have the capacity and ability to become a very good one. The news doesn't look good about Chelsea's goalkeepers so that isn't going to help them, and despite that I still suspect that anybody who finishes above thenm will win it.

What we have to do is to find some fluency and cohesion from somewhere. Clearly the Liverpool who finished last season on a wining run and won the FA Cup would comfortably account for our present crop, and yet this seems bizarre considering we appear at least to have strengthened. Unfortunately, the fact that we've had to deal with some bad luck in games both in hitting the post etc and some dodgy refereeing etc allied to the fact (in my view) that we have given ourselves no chance whatsoever with ridiculous over-rotations means we are now well behind.

It's not insurmountable though. If we lose at Old Trafford we would be eleven points adrift and while I wouldn't like to see the gap getting much bigger than that, a run of eight or nine straight wins would probably see us back within five or six points I would have thought.

The difficulty though is at the moment it's hard to see us winning too many games on the bounce. We did string one little run together where we won three on the bounce but unfortunately despite the fact that Crouch had scored twice, one of which was probably the best goal of his career we decided to leave him out in the next game. It's these sort of silly rotations which need to stop.

Lets go to Bordeaux on wednesday and play two up top (one of whom please God is Bellamy now he's finally scored a goal) and lets play with some zip and gusto. They are a poor team so no more messing about, lets get our first Away win of the season here and now. Lets play the strongest team available, no more Gerrards on the left hand side and all that old b0llocks and lets try and get some momentum.

I have the feeling that our very best first eleven is as strong as anybody's. What we need to do is start playing it.

by **taff** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:27 pm

We are going to get through this patch and go on a great run, it was over for Arsenal a few weeks ago

Get your money on the league now the odds will be better, had a dream last night about it, although I had a dream last week I was purple and had the ability of flight and in the shower this morning I was my usual colour and no matter how much I flapped my arms I still had to walk to work this morning.

A good run and a good win is what we need, I feel like we are a dam about to burst and flood the rest of the league with our dazzling passing and movement.

by **Bad Bob** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:08 pm

LFC #1 wrote:Hmm, i haven't given up hope of the title yet but I'm pretty sure we won't win it, I'd be as surprised as the next person if we did.

Expectations:

League: Similar points haul to last season, top 4 minimum which shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not so confident that we'll finish ahead of Man Utd and Chelsea. 3rd would be a good effort but Arsenal won't go away either.
CL: Quarter-finals, from there you don't know what can happen.
FA Cup: We're defending it, so I'd expect a good run.
League Cup: play the kids and reserves and see how far they can get us. If we make the semi-final start to take it seriously.

That's my perspective in a nutshell as well. Frankly, I'd still be satisfied if we finished second after a strong run-in but came out the end of the season without silverware this year.

by **Bad Bob** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:10 pm

Big Niall wrote:Changing the team every game for nearly a hundred games is stupid. You don't see Wenger doing that.

Erm, I seem to recall Wenger resting Henry for a visit to Old Trafford last winter because they had a Champions League game coming up. All managers rotate their squads, that's not the issue. The issue is who, when, and how often...

by **CardinalRed** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:22 pm

A top four finish is now a hope rather than an expectation, Chelski aren't exactly playing good stuff but they're grinding out results (they looked average against Reading but took 3 pts) Arsenal are now getting into gear and now they seem to have got their bearings at the Emirates are quite possibly playing the best stuff in the Prem' at the moment, the Mancs are, like St Michael said looking ruthless, I'd be happy with a point at OT next weekend.... Obviously a trophy is not an impossibility and it'll be in a knockout comp' that success will probably come..... It really is baffling how we cannot seem to conjure up even a bit of the Istanbul/Millenium spirit in our League games.

:cool:

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