bigmick wrote:Firstly, the team Rafa picked was pretty sensible when all said and done, and given the personel I would have expected us to win very comfortably against an awful Birmingham team (who will certainly finish in the bottom four in my view). I know many people would like to have seen Torres from the start, but make no mistake the team on this occasion was largely sensible.
bigmick wrote:Just a couple of things here and apologies to all for starting a new thread. Ther thing is though, a fair bit of this doesn't refer to the Birmingham game so I thought I'd go here and let everyone vent their anger in there.
I really think people need to calm down a bit with the "sack Rafa" nonsense. Equally the "we're not going to win the league" stuff is very premature, in my opinion anyway. It's on the back of a dodgy little spell admittedly, but we are still right in amongst it even if we have just about thrown away our really good start.
As for the rotation stuff, I thought the game against Birmingham threw up a couple of interesting points. Firstly, the team Rafa picked was pretty sensible when all said and done, and given the personel I would have expected us to win very comfortably against an awful Birmingham team (who will certainly finish in the bottom four in my view). I know many people would like to have seen Torres from the start, but make no mistake the team on this occasion was largely sensible. Those gunning for Rafa on this particular occasion are calling in wrong in my opinion.
So the taking stock stuff. Well clearly the defence is absolutely rock-solid at the moment and we have a platform there to launch a serious title challenge. We have (in my opinion anyway) the best goalkeeper in the League as well so we have two of the classic ingredients in place to have a real go at the title. As the song goes, we've got the best midfield in the World and we quite possibly have, while up top we have Torres who is probably World-Class plus three other decent strikers. Allied to that we have a young kid who could be anything but is taking his time to get going.
We're almost into October and we're still in with a chance of winning the League (which feels like an achievement in itself to be honest) and now is not the time to panic.
I'll conclude though with revisiting rotation (surprise surprise) and a reiteration that it is not a numbers game. I've always said that one performance leads to another for a football team, they are intrinsically linked. Pundits call it "form" and it therefore follows that those teams and individuals in good "form" can usually reproduce good performances without giving it too much thought, until someone or something knocks them out of their stride. It is precisely this reason which has made me consistently be an advocate for not disturbing the equilebrium of a team unless it is properly necessary. My hunch has always been that a football team at its best is a well-oiled machine, and if you take out one of the component parts and swap it for something similar don't be surprised that given time the machine starts to rattle a bit. One game leads into another.
Now whether or not you choose to believe in Rafa and his rotational revolution, few would argue that we don't look quite as fluent right now as we did at the start of the season. It might be the International break, it might be injuries, it might be tiredness and it might be the jetlag after the long haul flights from Albania. Whatever it is though, the fact that the fluency isn't there is beyond dispute. Now to get it back, we'll probably start playing our strongest team again for a bit. It might be an idea this time to take a bit of a gamble on the players being a bit "tired", and leave that team in place for a wee bit longer than we did last time.
Bad Bob wrote:I must say that today's match was tough to take, given that we struggled with the same problem we faced last season: breaking obstinate teams down. I'll not be writing off our title chances at this point but neither will I say that we've done a particularly good job of consolidating our great start. The good news is that the league race looks like it might run a lot tighter this season, with the Big 4 slipping up on more occasions. We must not let too many opportunities like today's go begging, though.
On the subject of Torres, I would have preferred to see him start. He looks a tremendous talent who has the potential to be world class. Plus, he makes players around him better. I was disappointed that Rafa opted to rest him today for tactical reasons. Last Saturday I could understand, given the internationals (yes, I think they take a prodigious physical toll) but not playing your best striker for because the opposition will likely sit deep is giving Birmingham City far too much respect. Especially since Torres is much more than merely a pace merchant--the lad has the guile to unlock deep-sitting defenses as well as run in behind those playing a high line. Rafa got that one quite wrong today, IMHO.
Having said that, there are people on here that seem to see Torres as some kind of Messiah figure. But, is he so good that we are utterly dependent upon him after only six games into the season? True, he has shown great form for us before the international break but he's far from a guaranteed goal machine. I worry that some people are building him up so much that they are borderline suicidal/homocidal when his name's not on the teamsheet. To hear some people tell it, the absence of Torres explains every poor result which is far too reductionist for my taste. "If only Torres had started..." is a nice pat answer for explaining our dip in form but, as Tuesday night showed, the problems run deeper than that.
Bamaga man wrote:I've just watched that dross, and I'm f.ucking livid there is no way I'm being told to calm down that was f.ucking appalling.
That team performance was s.hit. Riise and Kuyt annoyed the f.uck out of me today, fu.cking useless the pair of them. Gerrard was c.rap too Mascha was okay and Pennant as seems lately looks our liveliest player. Babel again didnt impose himself but like I said before I'm willing to give him the time to bed in, Voronin was non-exsitant. I tell ya that performance lacked tempo, inventivenes and all sorts.
I think we've seen both ends of the f.ucking spectrum, class displays against Chelsea and Derby right back to last seasons inept showings against Portsmouth, Porto and now f.ucking Birmingham.
Liverpool title challengers ? Not on your f.cukning nelly, if we're going to play like that we may aswell fall back on the CL again.
Apart from leaving a 26 million pound striker out of the line-up the team selection didnt bother me, the performance was shocking. But again it wasnt made any easier by the manager, who for whatever f.ucking reason left Torres out .... WHY? Are we resting him for Reading in midweek. I'm sorry Sabre but if you can come on here and try and justify that you can polietly f.uck off, same with Lando, if you call that man a f.ucking genius again you can do one to.
Yeah knee jerk, in the heat of the moment, but its still f.ucking true.
Rant over
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