Liverpool FC Forum

by **Salty Sock** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:46 am

Espionage wrote:We are only at 70% but our mentality is good. We have players with quality..

You are 100% correct.
I like the thinking

by **dame** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:27 am

absolutely not in top gear yet.

I feel that in most matches, we play with reservation in most of the time. Only press forward urgently in selected period: last 5-10 min in 1st half and last 10 min in 2nd half. So far it is quite effective as many our goals this season are in the end of matches. We shall be able to raise our game to higher level when Torres, Skytel, Babel, Keane, Mascherano are fit/back.

Kuyt plays very well in early seasons, hopefully his best is yet to come. I have a feeling that he can play more as centre forward as he has fierce shot. Kuyt on the right IMO is a stop-gap solution as mobility and dribbling is not his strength. If his confident is back he should be a centre forward (perhaps in less important matches). Btw Torres / Keane is more mobile than Kuyt. Torres did quite well alongside Villa in the European Champion, didn't he?

by **Rockthekop** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:49 am

I just feel that there's no urgency in our play unless we go behind or if we are at stalemate with 10mins to go.

We haven't been great to watch and that's probably down to cautious tactics and lack of quality players.

Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd all play great attacking football and are good to watch.

by **JamCar05** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:09 pm

To answer the thread title in a word: no (which makes it all the more impressive that we are joint top of the table atm). I hope we do soon though, as we'll need to if we want to keep pace with Chelsea and guard ourselves against the mancs creeping back from below (remember they have played all their most difficult away games already and are not that far behind).

by **heimdall** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:05 pm

JamCar05 wrote:To answer the thread title in a word: no (which makes it all the more impressive that we are joint top of the table atm). I hope we do soon though, as we'll need to if we want to keep pace with Chelsea and guard ourselves against the mancs creeping back from below (remember they have played all their most difficult away games already and are not that far behind).

I would say that neither Arsenal, Manure or us have hit top gear yet and worryingly I suspect the Chavs probably have a 7th gear as well!
Having said that I look forward to both Keane and Torres working well together, I still maintain that that partnership will be terrifyingly good.

by **stmichael** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:10 pm

It's ironic actually that the best we've played this season imo was in the one game we actually lost.

by **Lando_Griffin** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:18 pm

The thing is, it's tended to be the rotation early on in the campaign that has allowed us to go on the good runs in the second half of the season.
With a reasonably settled line-up from the off, I feel we may be in for a mirror-image of previous seasons - good start, flaky finish.

by **GYBS** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:27 pm

Yeah i echo that statement Lando

by **stmichael** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:48 pm

Lando_Griffin wrote:The thing is, it's tended to be the rotation early on in the campaign that has allowed us to go on the good runs in the second half of the season.
With a reasonably settled line-up from the off, I feel we may be in for a mirror-image of previous seasons - good start, flaky finish.

It's a fair point Lando.

If you look at last season, there was a lot less rotation in the second half of the season and again the reason was that Rafa probably knew much more about the players and had his preferred option already on his mind before the games. In fact, that's the one thing that might have been responsible for our poor starts in recent years. We've had too many players coming in and either struggling for form or not really making a position their own.

Therefore, this summer has been great for us, as we didn't really have to buy 4 or 5 new players to come in and hope that they become first-team regulars and the one who had to come in and make a position his own where we might not have had a regular starter was Riera and he has done really well so far.

by **DanAn** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:00 pm

Running hot: Kuyt, Arbeloa, Alonso, Carra, Gerrard, Riera and Reina
Doing ok: Agger, Mash, Hyppia, Aurelio, Lucas
Below their best: Torres, Keane, Babel, Benayoun, Pennant, Dossena

Obviously finishing has been lacking, but we generally get away with it because we have dominated play in all our games. When Keane and Torres finally fire I think Liverpool will start to turn heads. We will be scary good IMO.

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