Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Mon May 12, 2008 10:15 pm

Well I can only hope Rafa is better at eventually owning up to his mistakes (even if it's only to himself) than some of his supporters. For four years some of us have been imploring him to pick a settled team, eventually we've done it and the results speak for themselves I would have thought.

The current urban myth of those who support the manager at every turn is that some of us who think the manager hasn't maximised the potential of the squad at his disposal, are saying "it it wasn't for rotation" we would never lose a game, we would p!ss the league etc etc. Nobody of course has ever said that, but no matter. We are asked to believe you can change the team 75 times in 15 matches at the start of the season without disturbing the fluency, the cohesion and the rhythm of the team even 1%, while the two owners have a barney and suddenly the whole playing staff is thrown into turmoil :laugh:

Also we're asked to believe that there is no alternative to the current manager. There is no other manager in the World who could get us into fourth every season with a good Champions League run. I think there are many alternatives, and while I'm quite happy that the club are going to stick with the current manager, it must surely be with a watching brief next season. Any more "possibilities", "options", "potential" "using the whole squad" (after a couple of matches), resting your star striker because a team "defends deep", "keeping players fresh for the end of the season" (within six weeks of the start of the season) and all that utter, unadulterated, total fecking nonsense and we should look to change ASAP.

I agree with Barry that we should stop looking at Man Utd. There are other teams in the league despite them feckers. What of Chelsea? you want to talk about turmoil? They sacked their manager after 8 games or whatever it was :laugh:

The whole team was up in arms, they brought a bloke in who nobody had ever heard of, the players were considering going on strike if the press were to be believed. They were behind everyone in the league who could possibly win it. First game in charge for Avram Grant a day or so after taking over? Man Utd away. Oh how we laughed.

You want to talk about injuries, African Nations, emotional moments for star players, Summer signings which turned out to be sh!t? Look no further. And what did their manager do? Did he rest/rotate his striker because teams defended deep? Did he "ease them back into it" when they came back from Africa? Did he "freeze out" players as it was assumed they wouldn't be staying beyond this season? It's nope all around. What he did was he picked largely his strongest team from game to game. They made the Champions League final, putting us out along the way (in extra-time mind you, despite the "delayed gazelle" and despite them playing and beating Man Utd with the same team a couple of days earlier), they got to the final of the Carling cup and ran past us and Arsenal, gaining ground hand over fist on the Mancs only to be denied on the final day of the season by a refereeing decision or three not going their way.

The coach is tactically a fool though right? Hmmm I'm not so sure. It's kind of being done but my impression of the Champions League semi was far from him being outwitted anyway.

And how good are Chelsea actually? How good are they really, in comparison to us say? Well, if we discount the Carliong Cup match where we played a reserve team (which i do discount TBH) then we've played them four times this season. Two league games, and two Champions League games. The result in all four matches in normal time was a draw. Was it three 1-1's and one 0-0 I don't know my mind is definately going these days. You could say from that that the two teams are fairly close to each other. You could even make the case that as Riise equalised for them in the one game and Rob Styles the other, and as we were the better team in the League match at Stamford Bridge that we are more than a match for them, but we'll leave it as even for now.

So what of the league? If we are even with Chelsea, who over/under achieved, us or them?

by **woof woof !** » Mon May 12, 2008 10:53 pm

I've got a short attention span Mick, but this,

"keeping players fresh for the end of the season" (within six weeks of the start of the season)

certainly reminds me that Rafa is sometimes on a planet that scientists have not yet discovered.

by **heimdall** » Mon May 12, 2008 11:03 pm

good post BigMick.

I totally agree with the points you raise. If Rafa starts to p1ss around with the team the way he did this season then he needs to be shown the door, no more excuses, we have to challenge next season.

by **LFC2007** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:19 am

bigmick wrote:The current urban myth of those who support the manager at every turn is that some of us who think the manager hasn't maximised the potential of the squad at his disposal, are saying "it it wasn't for rotation" we would never lose a game, we would p!ss the league etc etc. Nobody of course has ever said that, but no matter. We are asked to believe you can change the team 75 times in 15 matches at the start of the season without disturbing the fluency, the cohesion and the rhythm of the team even 1%, while the two owners have a barney and suddenly the whole playing staff is thrown into turmoil

Who, where, when?

by **bigmick** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:27 am

I don't know how to do that multiple quote thingy, but I've noticed the old "having said that it could be all down to rotation" (sarcasm) creeping into peoples responses. The last time I can remember it off the top of my head was by Rushie on I think page three EDIT-I TAKE THIS BIT BACK AS HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SAY IT ON THAT THREAD. MY MISTAKE SORRY!!!! of the "how do you score the season" yesterday. There have also been numerous occasions where I've noticed the old "but I just don't buy this "it's all down to rotation" argument".

Having said that, it's hardly irrefutable proof I admit and I've got no intention of spending an hour or so trying better to prove it beyond all reasonable. People can either take my word for that part of the post or dismiss it out of hand.

by **LFC2007** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:29 am

It's an urban myth in itself, IMO.

by **bigmick** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:32 am

Well i think it's an urban myth that my urban myth is an urban myth

BTW I've edited the post above as on checking, Rushie didn't say it in the thread I'd mentioned. Many apologies.

by **LFC2007** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:34 am

No worries, I can handle urban myths

by **The_Rock** » Tue May 13, 2008 4:58 am

LFC2007 wrote:No worries, I can handle urban myths

Another spam.....

if you have nothing better to do than to post smilies, "who, where, what, WTF" & "urban legends" then just Shut up !!!

Jesus.....how many threads have been ruined by your sh1t....

by **bigmick** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:07 am

The_Rock wrote:if you have nothing better to do than to post smilies, "who, where, what, WTF" & "urban legends" then just Shut up !!!

Jesus.....how many threads have been ruined by your sh1t....

Rock sorry mate I know it's not meant to be a funny post but it had me in stitches

The irony of the fact that by voicing such an opinion you are inadvertantly doing exactly what you are accusing the other poster of doing is quite funny mate though you must admit.

It's one of the aspects of my posting that I should work on, the "rant". Some posters don't need to put up pictures of a bloke with a yellow head with steam coming out of their ears, you just know they are p!ssed of just by their phraseology. Funny as feck though all the same

by **bigmick** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:08 am

I should get out more I'm fecking cracking up here just read it again

by **maguskwt** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:49 am

bigmick wrote:And how good are Chelsea actually? How good are they really, in comparison to us say? Well, if we discount the Carliong Cup match where we played a reserve team (which i do discount TBH) then we've played them four times this season. Two league games, and two Champions League games. The result in all four matches in normal time was a draw. Was it three 1-1's and one 0-0 I don't know my mind is definately going these days. You could say from that that the two teams are fairly close to each other. You could even make the case that as Riise equalised for them in the one game and Rob Styles the other, and as we were the better team in the League match at Stamford Bridge that we are more than a match for them, but we'll leave it as even for now.

So what of the league? If we are even with Chelsea, who over/under achieved, us or them?

so are you saying that our squad is just as good as chelsea's? can we gauge the qualities of the squads from the results of head-to-head encounters? by that notion, man city should be challenging up there with the mancs....

chelsea's team has quality in every position + the bench. Our team has riise, arbeloa, pennant, benayoun, aurelio, kuyt, crouch, voronin... make no mistake I like them (well some of them) but they're not of the same quality as what chelsea has... the players i just mentioned are 3 star players (out of 5) they will do very well in a mid table side, but if we are to challenge the likes of chelsea, the mancs, and arsenal in terms of player quality, we need to be replacing them with 4 star players which chelsea has all over...

which also means that martin o'neill or ramos, or any decent manager for that matter, could go over to chelsea and do as good a job as avram grant... the same cannot be said for our scenario... make no mistake there are very few managers who will be able to match benitez's success if they come in as our manager... we've all seen what gerard houllier who has a proven track record, had achieved, and that is probably as far as most managers can go given the conditions of LFC... benitez has taken it to the next step and if given time he will be up there challenging... I believe it...

If he can't, like i said, he can go once his contract runs out...

by **bigmick** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:58 am

maguskwt wrote:
bigmick wrote:And how good are Chelsea actually? How good are they really, in comparison to us say? Well, if we discount the Carliong Cup match where we played a reserve team (which i do discount TBH) then we've played them four times this season. Two league games, and two Champions League games. The result in all four matches in normal time was a draw. Was it three 1-1's and one 0-0 I don't know my mind is definately going these days. You could say from that that the two teams are fairly close to each other. You could even make the case that as Riise equalised for them in the one game and Rob Styles the other, and as we were the better team in the League match at Stamford Bridge that we are more than a match for them, but we'll leave it as even for now.

So what of the league? If we are even with Chelsea, who over/under achieved, us or them?

so are you saying that our squad is just as good as chelsea's? can we gauge the qualities of the squads from the results of head-to-head encounters? by that notion, man city should be challenging up there with the mancs....

No I'm not saying our SQUAD is as good as Chelsea's, and as long as they are able to dwarf what we are able to spend it probably never will be either. You could probably say the same for the Mancs, while they can afford to pay 15 million quid for bench players, they'd have to spectacularly feck it up before we'd have a superior all round squad to them.

fortunately though, until somebody changes the rules of Association Football you are only allowed to play eleven on the pitch at any given time, and in that regard I think we are their equal yes. The squad might have even been closer than you think while the African Nations was on, they did lose three first team players who are woth a few quid in Essien, Drogba and Kalou. They also had Terry out injured for long periods along with Lampard so I guess at that time, the squads might have been close as well.

by **dawson99** » Tue May 13, 2008 8:10 am

I don't rate chelsea, i don't think theya re that good a team. I honestly can't see how adding any of there players to our squad would add anything really to our game. I honestly don't know how they came so close to winning the league when you look at there style football, its very bizarre. Maure, as much as i hate to admit it have played the best football and won the league on merit. Yeah sure they get the decisions, but they always have, always will and thats something we need to live with now.

Like s@int said earlier, Rafa definately deserves one more year but he's really got to pull his finger out.
This is the best year we are gonna have. The gooners are crumbling in my opinion, the players don't wanna play and the fans are getting restless but Arsene is the one manager more stubborn than rafa when it comes to changing his ways.

I just hope we are 100% focused on the PL this coming season, we finally sort out our fecking wing problems and we just go for that title...

we have only lost 4 games all season, 1 at home... Arsenal and Cheatski lost 3, Manure lost 5, but the draws!!! 13 draws for us!!! arsenal 11, cheatski 10 maure only 6.

goals for? us 67, arsenal 74 cheatski 68 manure 80
goals against? us 28 arsenal 31 cheatski 26 manure 22

There really isnt all that much in those numbers, its just been sloppy errors, silly losses or draws when we should have had wins, and if we get that little bit right, i think we are in with a f*cking good shot at winning the league with rafa

by **kazza** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:07 am

Bigmick, the catalyst for your "rotation theory" was when Raffa left out Torres and Gerrard for a EPL match which followed a CL match. The team he put out WAS good enough to beat the team we were playing (I can't remember who it was) but you went on about how Raffa could leave out Torres and the rotation thing was born (due to a lack of success on the field your opinion has since become more entrenched). I said to you at the time that you did not have all the facts as you did not know what happened in training. If I remember correctly Torres played with a bad ankle the end of the previous season and was indeed having trouble with it at the start of this season. Then Pako left and it all went pear shape.

I still maintain that the team Raffa put out should have done better and that we should have had twenty two players that were bursting at the seams to prove they deserve a shot in the team. For me rotation had nothing to do with us not winning the league, nothing at all. The reason we did not win the league is simply they have better players. Untill we can compete in the transfer market we will not do any better, with or without rotation. It seems strange you would still be going on about it.

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