Liverpool FC Forum

s@int wrote:In hindsight maybe it was one change too many, but before the game I thought it was a good team and that the inclusion of Masch was a necessary move to control Elano and the fast breaking Citeh forwardline.   

Once Citeh had a player sent off, we obviously controlled the game against 10 men, but before that Citeh had looked very dangerous on the break, and Masch played more than a small part in keeping Citeh out. In fact I was expecting Alonso rather than Masch to go off (Alonso had just received THAT tackle admittedly).

No I won't be blaming Rafa for this one....... even if we had lost!

Completely and utterly disagree with you 100%.

Mascherano had a complete and utter shocker today and that was possibly his worst performance in a Liverpool shirt. He went missing, gave possession away, movement was poor and generally contributed nothing at all to the team. He was the joint worst player on the pitch with Arbeloa.

Benitez changed a winning side and nearly cost us the game by doing so.

He did however make the correct changes to change the game, but suprisingly (or not so) the change, was to the team which should have started the game helped us win. I am absoloutely sick of seeing Gerrard play out of position and I am sick of him around with the team for absoloutely no reason other than he wants to give someone else a run out!

He absoloutely has not learnt his lesson and today proved it 100% and to be quite honest, I saw it coming a mile off.

Its absoloutely no coincidence that as soon as Gerrard went back into the centre and Keane went upfront we looked a better side again!

bigmick wrote:As the rotation debate has meandered along and gone through various peaks and troughs, one thing has become clear and is pretty much universally accepted I think.

That is, it's not just the number of changes to the team which is important, it's the nature of them. Switching Aurelio and Dossena for instance, though a step backwards in my opinion is obviously not the same in terms of impact as switching Torres and N'Gog.

So what of today? Only one switch from the last game so not syling? Well, we decided to play a different formation from the one we have settled into. We decided to change the position the captain has been playing in, and been playing quite well in too. We decided to sit down a fella who had just scored his first goal, and to give both Alonso and Torres new partners.

Right decision or wrong decision, and did we just slightly get out of jail? What do you reckon, was it a worrying glimpse of an urge to tinker which simply cannot be surpressed, despite the light clearly being seen? Are we going to give ourselves a shot at the title or not?

Aside from what anyone thinks on that score, I think most would agree we are into the guts of the campaign now. Chelsea and Man Utd have settled down and are in the mode where a draw away at West Ham would see Zola dancing on the touchline. We absolutely must try and keep ourselves in the rattle right now, we are out of the blocks and there is a good early pace on. No time for fecking up, and I would venture fecking about either.

Emerald Red wrote:We weren't lucky. We never just got out of jail. I don't care what anyone says either way, we were always the better team. It was just a few suicidal decisions that allowed them to get ahead of us on the score sheet, when in reality, they were practically second best in most area's all over the pitch. Two holding players were useless after they scored the first goal. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Kuyt converted his first chance to take us 1-0 up. Would Mash have remained on the pitch? Most certainly so. Rafa's game plan was to nullify their threat from the midfield, and then hit them on a counter, the mantra being hold what we've got and not concede by having a very compact midfield. Rafa did have an obvious contingency plan, as he removed Mash in the second half. We could have won this game by more than what we did. The question is would it have made any difference had we started with the same team that we ended with? I think not. As I said, it was individual errors that cost us the goals, not the system.

As for the changes, should Keane have been dropped? Probably not. It baffled me to see those three in the midfield, but at the end of the day, it all worked itself out.

Yay Benitez, Yay team selection, yayayayay! No-one can do wrong, we weren't lucky we were great, nothings wrong everythings amazing we're going to win everything!

Bad Bob wrote:BTW, I thought Gerrard was fairly quiet because Kompany was man-marking him all match.  Arguably, that wouldn't have happened if Rafa stuck with 4-4-2, I suppose.  With Gerrard playing deeper he would have been much harder to pick up.

s@int wrote:Before Keane scored against PSV ,almost everyone was questioning Keane being in the team, so he gets rested after scoring 1 goal in a game in which he didn't actually play that well........ and everyone is up in arms.

I will criticise Rafa if I think he's wrong , I will criticise Rafa for some of his baffling decisions, but I am not going to criticise him for playing a team when I understood why he picked it and that I agreed with BEFORE the game.

I understand people who AFTER the game want to lay the "blame" on someone, but if it was up to me I would be laying the "blame where it should go....... on Arbeloa and Aurelio who both looked second rate and clueless today.

BTW this is not aimed at Stu who did give his opinion BEFORE the game, so fair play to him.

Yeah ya damn right we are annoyed. Its insanity especially after recent events. The only reason Rafa dropped Keane was to give Mascherano a game. Nothing to do with City's team, if it was then it was a poor decision that nearly everyone i was sitting with questioned before the game. Funnily enough, our doubts were proved right and as soon as the team that started the last few matches is on the pitch we get the points... not really a suprise if I'm honest.

As a player, you're playing alot, you finally score, the weights lifted, then bang, you're on the bench again! Rediculous!  The confidence he got from that goal was probably wiped out by leaving him on the bench. Its poor management!

tonyeh wrote:

bigmick wrote:As the rotation debate has meandered along and gone through various peaks and troughs, one thing has become clear and is pretty much universally accepted I think.

That is, it's not just the number of changes to the team which is important, it's the nature of them. Switching Aurelio and Dossena for instance, though a step backwards in my opinion is obviously not the same in terms of impact as switching Torres and N'Gog.

So what of today? Only one switch from the last game so not syling? Well, we decided to play a different formation from the one we have settled into. We decided to change the position the captain has been playing in, and been playing quite well in too. We decided to sit down a fella who had just scored his first goal, and to give both Alonso and Torres new partners.

Right decision or wrong decision, and did we just slightly get out of jail? What do you reckon, was it a worrying glimpse of an urge to tinker which simply cannot be surpressed, despite the light clearly being seen? Are we going to give ourselves a shot at the title or not?

Aside from what anyone thinks on that score, I think most would agree we are into the guts of the campaign now. Chelsea and Man Utd have settled down and are in the mode where a draw away at West Ham would see Zola dancing on the touchline. We absolutely must try and keep ourselves in the rattle right now, we are out of the blocks and there is a good early pace on. No time for fecking up, and I would venture fecking about either.

Rafa must have nicked all of the "Get out of jail cards" from his Monopoly box today. I couldn't believe he was playing one striker up front espcially after coming off of two decent games with the 4-4-2 he's been nurturing. A 4-4-2 that was starting to look good too.

Any team, IMO, who's playing with a single striker are on to a loser in the modern game and Rafa should damn well know that. it may have worked for a few games last year, but I reckon the other sides in the Prem have been studying Torres...hard...and they may have the measure of him this season. Opposing teams have been locking down on Fernando and doing it well, I may add. City, today, had 2 or 3 lads on him at all times. There was nowhere he could go to get a bit of space. But they could afford too. Liverpool have no-one else up there to get goals.

Also, you only have to look at Torres' goals this season, I think they all involve breaking down the opposition's defence using multiple strikers.

It's common sense, AFAIK, that using more than one man up front is bound to force the defence to divide their attention. Robbie may not get 20 goals this year, but what he will do is draw off defenders and allow Torres to get into the little bit of space that he needs. Torres only needs the smallest amount of time to do his magic. But without somebody else worrying the defenders, he won't get that time.

I hope Rafa understands this from today's game, which could have been a very different result. I agree with you big lad, it does seem that Rafa has an irresistible urge to mess around with things, when he should just leave things alone.

So its gone from people saying Torres doesnt need and cant play with a strike partner too he cant play effectively on his own.

"Any team, IMO,who`s playing with a single striker are on to a loser in the modern game and Rafa should damn well know that".

Sure about that mate? Because we had our best run of last season with one up front and Torres didnt do bad did he? And what about chelsea with Drogba?
And Spain won the euro final with one up front, guess who scored the winner.
No mate i think we all now Torres can be effective on his own with support from deep, what we dont yet know for sure is, can he be as effective playing up with Keane? I think yes but we`ll have to wit and see.

Fo Dne wrote:

s@int wrote:Before Keane scored against PSV ,almost everyone was questioning Keane being in the team, so he gets rested after scoring 1 goal in a game in which he didn't actually play that well........ and everyone is up in arms.

I will criticise Rafa if I think he's wrong , I will criticise Rafa for some of his baffling decisions, but I am not going to criticise him for playing a team when I understood why he picked it and that I agreed with BEFORE the game.

I understand people who AFTER the game want to lay the "blame" on someone, but if it was up to me I would be laying the "blame where it should go....... on Arbeloa and Aurelio who both looked second rate and clueless today.

BTW this is not aimed at Stu who did give his opinion BEFORE the game, so fair play to him.

Yeah ya damn right we are annoyed. Its insanity especially after recent events. The only reason Rafa dropped Keane was to give Mascherano a game. Nothing to do with City's team, if it was then it was a poor decision that nearly everyone i was sitting with questioned before the game. Funnily enough, our doubts were proved right and as soon as the team that started the last few matches is on the pitch we get the points... not really a suprise if I'm honest.

As a player, you're playing alot, you finally score, the weights lifted, then bang, you're on the bench again! Rediculous!  The confidence he got from that goal was probably wiped out by leaving him on the bench. Its poor management!