Liverpool FC Forum

CharmlessMan wrote:

peewee wrote:agreed mate, there have been some silly comments made by posters, but i like to think they were made in anger.

our strongest 11 did the job yesterday and did it very well, i just hope that breeds confience, even if he rotates for next game i hope yesterdays performance reverberates through the squad

It's not just fans, which are doing it, a lot of pundits, journalists and now one of our board members is slamming Rafa in the press. More often than not I don't think it's necessary or remotely constructive. If this is how it's going to every time we go through a rough patch, then I can't see Rafa being here for the duration of his contract.

I've skimmed through a few papers today and discovered there's some sort of "rift" between Rafa and Gerrard, which I have to say has passed me by. Is this mindless Journalism? Or am I actually missing something?

Yesterday we played a strike force that composed of our two best strikers, our strikers that are on form. We also played the same back four we used for the majority of last season, there was understanding, however Rafa still used rotation and will continue to do so, we've just got to accept it.

However I agree and I to hope that we can gain some confidence from the Reading and Aston Villa wins and hope this is the turning point in our season.

A Liverpool way take on the Gerrard/ Benitez cr@p this week.


You’re probably aware that some of today’s papers carry claims of a rift between Steven Gerrard and Rafa Benitez. What you won’t be aware of is the exremely dubious source where the stories came from. Before I get into that though, this is the kind of that has been spouted in today’s English press:

Simon Mullock (a typical Sunday paper hack with no contacts at LFC whatsoever) wrote this in the Sunday Mirror: “STEVEN GERRARD’S future at Liverpool is hanging in the balance, with the Anfield captain growing increasingly unhappy with life under Rafa Benitez.”

Not true.

“Sunday Mirror Sport can reveal the strained relationship between Gerrard and Benitez is now close to breaking point.”

TLW can reveal the Sunday Mirror is talking absolute , as usual.

“Gerrard publicly insists that he is happy to play anywhere in Benitez’s tactical system. But privately, he feels his poor form this season is down to the Spaniard’s insistence that he plays wide on the right of midfield, while Xabi Alonso and Momo Sissoko play in his favourite central position”

An outrageous lie. Simon Mullock does not know Steven Gerrard and has no idea what he thinks ‘privately’. I don’t know Steven Gerrard either, but I know people who do and the above statement from Mullock is so far from the truth it belongs in… well it belongs in a Sunday Newspaper.

“Gerrard is prepared to put his preference to one side for England - but feels his talent is going to waste at Anfield.”

Hahaha, yeah right. Anyone who believes that should look up ‘gullible’ in the dictionary, they’ll find a picture of themselves next to it.

All the claims in the papers today about a rift are complete fiction, there’s no truth in it any of it at all. It goes with the territory these days though unfortunately. Most people will dismiss it as the sh*t-stirring that it is, but there will be some who will say ‘no smoke without fire’ and ‘well it’s Gerrard, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true’.

That’s what they want us to think, the whole thing is supposed to stir up trouble to cause problems between Stevie and Rafa, and Stevie and the fans. Mullock and his fellow hacks didn’t just pluck this from thin air though, they were given the story by somebody. Somebody who would love nothing better than to see Gerrard’s relationship with Rafa break down.

This ’story’ was actually fed to the press by former United player and all round tw@t Paddy Crerand, who apparently reckons he got it from Alex Ferguson. Some of the papers refused to run it because it was from such a dubious source, so it says a lot about the credibility of those who did use it that they would take Crerand as a reliable source. Let’s say Ian St John went to the press and told them he’s heard Rooney doesn’t get on with Ferguson. Would they have printed that too? Doubtful, as they’re all scared of Ferguson so they wouldn’t dare. Liverpool, Rafa and Gerrard are fair game though it seems.

Ferguson wants to sign Gerrard, that’s no secret, and in recent weeks the mancs have stepped up their little campaign to make it happen. The day we played the mancs, Captain Cockout was in the press saying how perfect Gerrard would be for United. Three days later ‘Jughead Rooney’ was in the papers saying the only thing missing from this Manchester United team is Steven Gerrard. Now this. It couldn’t be more obvious what’s going on, but don’t buy into the propaganda.

Steven had nothing to do with what was in the papers today, and if you hear anyone slagging him off because of it, set them straight. He may not have helped himself in the past with the Chelsea business and that, but he can’t be held responsible for every piece of newspaper bullsh*t that appears claiming he’s unhappy at Anfield. He’s completely blameless for what was in the press today, so don’t let them win by swallowing the they’re forcefeeding us.

Steven Gerrard is not unhappy about playing on the right, there is no rift between him and Rafa, and his future at Liverpool isn’t in the balance. No matter what Paddy Crerand would like to think.

As you were.

CharmlessMan wrote:That's good to know, thanks for posting that, it's very sad that the scummy papers haven't got anything better to print that utter rubbish, it's funny how all the nonsense printed is about this club isn't it? I have to say I was left quite uneasy skimming through a few of those rags in my local shop yesterday morning, because I put two and two together and eventually came up with five, what I mean is I thought there could be some truth in the story because Gerrard's looked very moody this season and he hasn't been performing as well as he usually does.

Has Gerrard come out and squashed this latest rumour or has he just left it?

Benitez was forced to respond to the issue yet again during yesterday's pre-Champions League Press conference.

"These rumours are crazy. I'm not prepared to sell my captain," he said.

Gerrard reacted to the reports with an even blunter message
"I've never read so much bo**ocks," he said.


link to story

I guess that Gerrard quote sums it up 

CharmlessMan wrote:what I mean is I thought there could be some truth in the story because Gerrard's looked very moody this season and he hasn't been performing as well as he usually does.

peewee wrote:our strongest team is near as damn it the team that finished last season, no changes in defence, no changes in midfield, so thats reina, carragher, hyypia, riise, finnan, gerrard, sissoko, alonso, garcia. then we look at the forwards were we really only need to have change from last season, crouch should start and then we have to look at bellamy, kuyt and fowler.

its not rocket science saint   

this is the team that played yesterday and this is the team that destroyed villa.

new players should come in one at a time, they need to be blended when possible (by this i mean when injury occurs to first team player), or given the odd run out in the strongest line up (by this i mean minimal changes)

1. The players that you listed: Carragher,Hyypia,Reina,Gerrard,Alonso,etc...

Have all had poor starts to the season and even some at this point at time aren't where they were last season.

Sure their form have picked up recently but face it the likes of Carragher who was consistant for the past two years, has been responsible for quite a few goals we've conceded this season. Nobody critisizes him that much because he's a local lad and he can do no wrong. He was responsible for the goal we conceded on Saturday as he failed to track Gabriel A., he went on the wrong side of him instead and was dragged out of position.

He was responsible for the first two goals we conceded against Everton [so was  Hyypia] and he knows it as well because he hasn't been playing as well as he is capable.

Gerrard has failed to score this season and when you have a player who scored 23 goals last season, then at one point or another you're going to miss that if he isn't scoring. He's picked up his game on Saturday and needs a goal for his confidence but he hasn't had the best starts to the season.

Our senior players or key players in general from last year have had poor starts to the season. It has nothing to do with the fact that we've rotated. We've rotated for 99 games, in where we've kept 30 some cleansheets and had two periods of unbeaten runs. The problem has been that our key players have been poor and the new players i.e. Pennant and Gonzalez have failed to settle in as well as they were expected to, due to the fact that team was in poor shape.

2. We played fantastic football on Saturday but a part of that is down to Villa not emposing themselves physicaly on us. They gave us way too much space and time on the ball, which is something that we won't have away from home.

Then you have some so called experts and ex-Reds ranting their of about rotation and how it's not working. These are the same feckers who critisized zonal marking system two seasons ago. But they didn't say a word last season when we kept over 30 cleansheets.

Alex Fergusson made changes in 38 Premiership games a couple of years ago, he won the Premiership in that year.