Liverpool FC Forum

by **sgs** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:16 pm

metalhead wrote:
sgs wrote:I'll ignore the insults an say this: yes Alonso was one of our best players yesterday, when he had the ball..!!!!!

isn't part of football is keeping the ball and not waste it? keeping possession, giving in the right pass and scoring goals? well we did the 2 things on saturday, but the 3rd (scoring goals) we didn't.

Its also, increasingly I might add, what you do when you do not have the ball...

by **metalhead** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:18 pm

sgs wrote:
metalhead wrote:the DMs actually compliment him more, giving him more freedom to go upfield and link up with the strikers.

Yes they do, but each player in their MF setup is expected to provide defensive cover on loss of posession albeit to different degrees...My point is that Alonso is not as efficient on the defensive end as he needs to be and as Liverpool need him to be at the level we are playing...

I disagree, Alonso's game reading, positioning, concentration and ofcourse his passing are his key strengths.

by **NANNY RED** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:25 pm

sgs wrote:[My point is that Alonso is not as efficient on the defensive end as he needs to be and as Liverpool need him to be at the level we are playing...

Im not gonna say another word bout Xabi after ive said this

You say Liverpool need him to be at the level we are playing. Well let me tell you this lad youd better have a word with Rafa then to tell a lot of his team mates that they need to up there game to the level of football hes producing for us this season.

And you talk about without the ball whats he doing . hes moving . hes thinking. hes visulizing where hes gonna play the ball long before he recieves it. Hes using his football brain of which quite frankly i dont think you have got

by **aCe'** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:52 am

if anything i think Alonso is too conservative in his movement off the ball and his positioning on the pitch... he covers the back 4 brilliantly at times... probably more so when we are on the ball and other teams are trying to break from their own half but still..
game against tottenham , if you wanna blame anyone for that loss or for their goals i think the blame should be on rafa .. we werent half as good as most here were making us out to be and if anything tottenham were piiss poor in the first 70 mins and that made us look half decent on possession..nothing more..
going forward it was mostly hit and miss and balls bouncing off shoulders hitting defenders in the nuts and counting as shots on target for us...
we should have gone for a 4-4-2 as soon as tottenham started making changes because it was pretty clear to me that as soon as corluka started getting more of the ball when he was moved to the left side that we'd struggle to keep possession for long... should have moved gerrard (Elzhar? Pennant?) wide right to pin him back and play kuyt and keane upfront to atleast allow more bodies higher up the pitch where we can play the long ball for forwards to hold up and allow our midfielders to get more of the ball.. Benitez got it all wrong with the Keane substituion imo and Babel alone upfront for 30 mins against a side that was barely able to put 3 passes together prior to that sub was an absolute joke of a mistake by Benitiez...
Anyways... Xabi wasnt to blame for their goal imo... it was mostly our poor tactics in the second half that cost us..

by **metalhead** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:57 am

aCe' wrote:if anything i think Alonso is too conservative in his movement off the ball and his positioning on the pitch... he covers the back 4 brilliantly at times... probably more so when we are on the ball and other teams are trying to break from their own half but still..
game against tottenham , if you wanna blame anyone for that loss or for their goals i think the blame should be on rafa .. we werent half as good as most here were making us out to be and if anything tottenham were piiss poor in the first 70 mins and that made us look half decent on possession..nothing more..
going forward it was mostly hit and miss and balls bouncing off shoulders hitting defenders in the nuts and counting as shots on target for us...
we should have gone for a 4-4-2 as soon as tottenham started making changes because it was pretty clear to me that as soon as corluka started getting more of the ball when he was moved to the left side that we'd struggle to keep possession for long... should have moved gerrard (Elzhar? Pennant?) wide right to pin him back and play kuyt and keane upfront to atleast allow more bodies higher up the pitch where we can play the long ball for forwards to hold up and allow our midfielders to get more of the ball.. Benitez got it all wrong with the Keane substituion imo and Babel alone upfront for 30 mins against a side that was barely able to put 3 passes together prior to that sub was an absolute joke of a mistake by Benitiez...
Anyways... Xabi wasnt to blame for their goal imo... it was mostly our poor tactics in the second half that cost us..

fair criticism, though I disagree entirely that we should blame rafa for poor tactics.

by **aCe'** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:29 am

metalhead wrote:
aCe' wrote:if anything i think Alonso is too conservative in his movement off the ball and his positioning on the pitch... he covers the back 4 brilliantly at times... probably more so when we are on the ball and other teams are trying to break from their own half but still..
game against tottenham , if you wanna blame anyone for that loss or for their goals i think the blame should be on rafa .. we werent half as good as most here were making us out to be and if anything tottenham were piiss poor in the first 70 mins and that made us look half decent on possession..nothing more..
going forward it was mostly hit and miss and balls bouncing off shoulders hitting defenders in the nuts and counting as shots on target for us...
we should have gone for a 4-4-2 as soon as tottenham started making changes because it was pretty clear to me that as soon as corluka started getting more of the ball when he was moved to the left side that we'd struggle to keep possession for long... should have moved gerrard (Elzhar? Pennant?) wide right to pin him back and play kuyt and keane upfront to atleast allow more bodies higher up the pitch where we can play the long ball for forwards to hold up and allow our midfielders to get more of the ball.. Benitez got it all wrong with the Keane substituion imo and Babel alone upfront for 30 mins against a side that was barely able to put 3 passes together prior to that sub was an absolute joke of a mistake by Benitiez...
Anyways... Xabi wasnt to blame for their goal imo... it was mostly our poor tactics in the second half that cost us..

fair criticism, though I disagree entirely that we should blame rafa for poor tactics.

alright then ... so basically you're saying that we just werent lucky on the day ? maybe the players didnt perform to their usual standards in the second half ?

it was pretty obviousthat as soon as keane came off , tottenham started looking way more dangerous going forward... every forward pass to babel was either miscontrolled or simply ended upin tottenham possession due to poor first touch or babel being isolated upfront.. deeper down the pitch gerrard was missing WAY TOO MANY passes.. his clever balls suddenly didnt seem so clever with babel and kuyt being on the receiving end and every other player in a red jersey being miles behind...

all in all it was a very good chance for us to beat a team that was clearly there for the taking and if it wasnt for negative tactics (that have cost us yet and again and will continue to do so as long as Rafa sticks to the way he plays) we wouldnt have been having this whole discussion in the first place..

Im not too worried about the loss, i mean we'r still joint top and have a very easy run of fixtures coming up...
WHAT WORRIES ME THOUGH IS THE WAY WE ENDED UP LOSING THAT GAME... NOT FOR A LACK OF FIGHT, NOT BECAUSE TOTTENHAM WERE VERY GOOD AT THE DAY, it was simply because our manager got it all wrong in the second half and all credit to redknapp.. he made the right choices and brought on the right player and made us pay !

by **europian-kings** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:48 am

i agree with some of your post but at the end of the day it wasn't rafa's fault we hit the woodwork 3/4 times and couldn't finish off our chances.

The babel switch worked well against chelsea, it kept chelsea deep so this is why he used it again as a similar tactic but this time it failed.

Rafa coudln't help the own goal from carra or any of the opportunities we had...on another day we would have won 4-0 but this time it wasn't to be. We have had some luck this season, this time the luck was against us...sadly it happens sometimes......

the perfect way to get back on course now is by beatin Atletico Madrid and qualifying for the knockout stages before having a comfortable win against west brom on the weekend!

come on red men!

YNWA

by **heimdall** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:54 am

I have to agree with Ace and sgs here.

Alonso is an excellent midfielder but the thing lacking form both his and Mascha's game are goals, they are both fecking useless at scoring goals compared to most other midfielders. I'm not sure if they've always been cr@p at this or if it's a result of Rafa's training/tactics but it doesn't make it any easier to win tricky games when only 2 or 3 people on the pitch are capable of scoring! That in my view is the big difference between us and Manure and Chelski and unless it is addressed along with our bafflingly sh1t set pieces I don't think we have a chance of winning the league, we can only rely on luck some times.

by **Simari** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:57 am

aCe' wrote:Im not too worried about the loss, i mean we'r still joint top and have a very easy run of fixtures coming up...
WHAT WORRIES ME THOUGH IS THE WAY WE ENDED UP LOSING THAT GAME... NOT FOR A LACK OF FIGHT, NOT BECAUSE TOTTENHAM WERE VERY GOOD AT THE DAY, it was simply because our manager got it all wrong in the second half and all credit to redknapp.. he made the right choices and brought on the right player and made us pay !

We had NO FIGHT after conceding the first goal.

The players had enough chances to put the game to bed, INCLUDING KEANE.

We needed a second goal to kill the game and Rafa brought on fresh legs. Unfortunately for us, neither Babel nor Yossi showed the same desire.

So yes, blame Rafa because he took Keane off ... Some of you need to get a grip. Babel is being given the opportunity to play in his favored position. He needs to start delivering if he is to play more than a bit-part role in the team.

And Keane needs to be scoring goals, end of.

by **hello_red** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:27 am

NANNY RED wrote:
sgs wrote:[My point is that Alonso is not as efficient on the defensive end as he needs to be and as Liverpool need him to be at the level we are playing...

Im not gonna say another word bout Xabi after ive said this

You say Liverpool need him to be at the level we are playing. Well let me tell you this lad youd better have a word with Rafa then to tell a lot of his team mates that they need to up there game to the level of football hes producing for us this season.

And you talk about without the ball whats he doing . hes moving . hes thinking. hes visulizing where hes gonna play the ball long before he recieves it. Hes using his football brain of which quite frankly i dont think you have got

Agreed. If every player played with the same ability and vision as Alonso in there respective positions we would be the best footballing team in the world bar none.

by **aCe'** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:28 am

Simari wrote:
aCe' wrote:Im not too worried about the loss, i mean we'r still joint top and have a very easy run of fixtures coming up...
WHAT WORRIES ME THOUGH IS THE WAY WE ENDED UP LOSING THAT GAME... NOT FOR A LACK OF FIGHT, NOT BECAUSE TOTTENHAM WERE VERY GOOD AT THE DAY, it was simply because our manager got it all wrong in the second half and all credit to redknapp.. he made the right choices and brought on the right player and made us pay !

We had NO FIGHT after conceding the first goal.

The players had enough chances to put the game to bed, INCLUDING KEANE.

We needed a second goal to kill the game and Rafa brought on fresh legs. Unfortunately for us, neither Babel nor Yossi showed the same desire.

So yes, blame Rafa because he took Keane off ... Some of you need to get a grip. Babel is being given the opportunity to play in his favored position. He needs to start delivering if he is to play more than a bit-part role in the team.

And Keane needs to be scoring goals, end of.

We had no players playing high up the pitch to have any effect on the game !
Babel as a striker and keeping Kuyt on the right side ?!
And i dont know about all the chances you seem to be going on about i dont recall many missed clear cut chances for any of our players ! Scrappy little efforts maybe but definetely no attacking with any sort of urgency whatsoever !
Rafa took off Keane and Riera...arguably our 2 best options going forward when Torres isnt on the pitch... he brought on Babel and Benayoun (late on) ! not subs that signal any sort of attacking intent in my books !
It's pretty simple really.. tottenham changed their formation and setup to force us to play deeper within our own half and it worked a treat for them... i expected rafa to change things around to try and control the game when that happened and all he seemed to do was make matters worse...

And about Babel and him being given an opportunity to show what hes made of... thats just a load of BS ... he never was and never will be a lone striker... cant hold up a ball and has a very poor first touch to say the least... against chelsea all he had to do is get the ball and run aimlessly to waste a few seconds and he did that and nothing more... didnt look dangerous and all he was to the chelsea back 4 was just being a pain up their behind...

by **metalhead** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:44 am

aCe' wrote:
metalhead wrote:
aCe' wrote:if anything i think Alonso is too conservative in his movement off the ball and his positioning on the pitch... he covers the back 4 brilliantly at times... probably more so when we are on the ball and other teams are trying to break from their own half but still..
game against tottenham , if you wanna blame anyone for that loss or for their goals i think the blame should be on rafa .. we werent half as good as most here were making us out to be and if anything tottenham were piiss poor in the first 70 mins and that made us look half decent on possession..nothing more..
going forward it was mostly hit and miss and balls bouncing off shoulders hitting defenders in the nuts and counting as shots on target for us...
we should have gone for a 4-4-2 as soon as tottenham started making changes because it was pretty clear to me that as soon as corluka started getting more of the ball when he was moved to the left side that we'd struggle to keep possession for long... should have moved gerrard (Elzhar? Pennant?) wide right to pin him back and play kuyt and keane upfront to atleast allow more bodies higher up the pitch where we can play the long ball for forwards to hold up and allow our midfielders to get more of the ball.. Benitez got it all wrong with the Keane substituion imo and Babel alone upfront for 30 mins against a side that was barely able to put 3 passes together prior to that sub was an absolute joke of a mistake by Benitiez...
Anyways... Xabi wasnt to blame for their goal imo... it was mostly our poor tactics in the second half that cost us..

fair criticism, though I disagree entirely that we should blame rafa for poor tactics.

alright then ... so basically you're saying that we just werent lucky on the day ? maybe the players didnt perform to their usual standards in the second half ?

it was pretty obviousthat as soon as keane came off , tottenham started looking way more dangerous going forward... every forward pass to babel was either miscontrolled or simply ended upin tottenham possession due to poor first touch or babel being isolated upfront.. deeper down the pitch gerrard was missing WAY TOO MANY passes.. his clever balls suddenly didnt seem so clever with babel and kuyt being on the receiving end and every other player in a red jersey being miles behind...

all in all it was a very good chance for us to beat a team that was clearly there for the taking and if it wasnt for negative tactics (that have cost us yet and again and will continue to do so as long as Rafa sticks to the way he plays) we wouldnt have been having this whole discussion in the first place..

Im not too worried about the loss, i mean we'r still joint top and have a very easy run of fixtures coming up...
WHAT WORRIES ME THOUGH IS THE WAY WE ENDED UP LOSING THAT GAME... NOT FOR A LACK OF FIGHT, NOT BECAUSE TOTTENHAM WERE VERY GOOD AT THE DAY, it was simply because our manager got it all wrong in the second half and all credit to redknapp.. he made the right choices and brought on the right player and made us pay !

I agree to an extent that Keane shouldn't have been subbed off. However, if we took our chances earlier in the second half, none of this would have happened, we would have controlled the game and ended up winning. The thing is, we weren't good enough in the final third and we lacked a killer instinct. Now maybe, MAYBE, if Torres was fit, we would have seen a different result. But thats an IF, so we don't know for sure.

Yes we had clear cut chances, gerrard missing 2, one was a good save from gomes, the second he didn't capitalize on gomes' mistake well. Alonso missed a 2 yard sitter with his head! Bent almost scored an own goal (ok a bit of luck there).

We wouldn't have had the DISCUSSION in the first place, if the players took their chances! its simple really! Tottenham rode their luck, and credit to them for pressuring us to make defencive errors.

by **Sabre** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:34 am

metalhead wrote:que for sabre to read that comment

Worse things than that were said in the past.

Worse things than that will be said if the team doesn't win, gimme 3 draws, and you'll hear again "sell him", "slower turn than the titanic", "water carrier", "clearly worse than Barry", "his game is not suited for the premiership once the opposition knows his game" voices.

Alonso in the last game made mistakes... besides his good stuff. Same as the previous matches (the slip, etc), but those mistakes are forgiven if we win. Which BTW that's something that's natural in a football fan.

by **Bam** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:39 am

slower turn than the titanic", "water carrier",

Stop quoting my lines, obviously its effecting you mentally and certainly sticks in that head of yours.

Give a rest.

by **Sabre** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:00 am

I didn't know that quoting opinions that were considered realistic and not biased was a problem.

My apologises for the moderators, such terrible actions won't happen again.

BTW Bam, the torrent is already available and seeding in fbtz, IMHO, it's a game worth watching despite the defeat.

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