Liverpool FC Forum

by **Ciggy** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:23 pm

Judge wrote:
bigmick wrote:you didn't expect me to come back with a bunch of one liners now did you

works for me

Yer dont say........ :oh:

by **GYBS** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:58 pm

Lessons to be learnt for next season will be a bit mroe clearer when the season finishes and we can see the final overall picture .

No doubt there is a few - Dont pay 20 mil for an average prem striker . Give it more of a go against the smaller clubs .

Cant see what else really has gone wrong this season ( or should i say not go how we want)

The main thing is fans must learnt ot believe in the players , managers etc a bit more while also not appearing to be a bit over confident ( as was displayed before the chelsea cl game )

Positives - Being up their challenging with only a couple games to go , beating chelsea and mancs home and away ( and convincingly ) , Fighting back to get wins from draws or defeats. Playing some outstanding attacking football.

by **Ace Ventura** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:06 pm

There are definately lessons to be learned from this season but so far it has been a decent effort in the league.

The main one for me is definately regarding the squad - well the attacking options really.

The signing of Keane was obviously a mistake, the price even worse.
But we did need someone with Crouch going, there is no way we should be reliant on Torres staying fit and playing every game or a young untested and inexperienced player like Ngog.
For the season coming it is vital that we improve our attacking options to help us change things when we are struggling to break down the teams that put every player behind the ball.

The over confidence one that GYBS mentioned as well is a good point, we as fans before the Chelsea game where over confident and based on the first leg performance it would appear that the players where as well.
Thats not our way, under Rafa we have always peformed better when we feel we have a point to prove.
So if we end the season as champions or even as runners up by a couple of points i would urge our fans to be a little more cautious and not set unrealisitc expectations.

Yes we will all want to win the league - but dont just expect it.

We have played some super stuff the last couple of months and throughout this season there have been times when Rafa has really chased wins - the city game away springs to mind when he took defenders off for attacking players.
We do need to do that more often and some of those annoying draws could be turned into wins imo.

by **Judge** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:47 pm

Ciggy wrote:
Judge wrote:
bigmick wrote:you didn't expect me to come back with a bunch of one liners now did you

works for me

Yer dont say........

see mick, even ciggy can do one liner fun posts

by **GRAHAM01** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:52 pm

Judge wrote:
Ciggy wrote:
Judge wrote:
bigmick wrote:you didn't expect me to come back with a bunch of one liners now did you

works for me

Yer dont say........

see mick, even ciggy can do one liner fun posts

now if you could do some FUNNY one liners we would be set mate

by **bunglemark2** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 2:28 pm

IF, and that's a BIG "if", Rafa is in charge of new signings going into the close season, then I would wait until Christmas to make an observation on the "lessons learned" front. Throughout the whole Keane debacle, it has been stated numerous times that Rafa wasn't to blame for the catharsis in front of goal because "I didn't sign Keane..." or some equally lame childish rant...(I think you can read between the lines here on my thoughts about the whole debacle)...
So, let's see who Rafa and Rafa alone, is responsible for bringing in over the summer and see if the man can teach all of us - and his own contemporaries - as a Premiership manager. THEN, we'll truly be able to talk about lessons learned...

by **Owzat** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 2:51 pm

The one thing we still have to prove we've learned is draws are not good enough, you need to win more games than anyone else to win the Premiership. While some suggest that beating the 'big four' rivals is the key to winning, the actual key is winning against the lesser teams and not dropping points. The mancs have tripped up against us (lost both), Arsenal (lost away) and Chelsea (drew away), yet still sit top and with a game in hand. Even if they lose against Arsenal that won't be what costs them the title, if anything does. There are 32 games against the lesser teams, win all those and it won't matter diddly what you do against the 'big four'. That may be unrealistic, but it demonstrates how important winning against those sides is.

Unfortunately it has taken us until March and April to realise the value of winning, if indeed we have since there's no way to prove we won't drop more silly points. We may have got carried away with a run of big wins, we weren't all that many minutes from dropping points at Fulham. I don't buy into cliches that are "the sign of champions" like winning late, winning when not playing well etc. The crux is on the winning, no good winning late or when you're not playing well one week, then playing well the next and now winning. It's about 38 games, team with the most wins is likely to be the overall winners.

Liverpool - Most Premiership Wins By Game 32

20 08/09
19 01/02, 05/06
18 95/96, 99/00, 06/07
17 96/97, 07/08

That may be nice as a "personal achievement", but it's not our own past achievements we need to beat - the mancs are currently on 22 wins. Teams have finished Champions above teams that have won more games than they have, but I believe most if not all of those are when it was two points for a win. Man Utd lost more games than the three teams that finished directly below them last season, shows that winning is more important than not losing.

And while it may not have been the intention in the summer, Rafa signing six players I'm sure he intended to rotate, we've found that stability and sticking with the best XI works well. Wishing we had more money, hoping we land a star like Torres or trying to bring in multiple players to solve our problems may not solve them but cause more problems. Arsenal made too many changes after their "invincibles" season, Wenger usually does, Mourinho did likewise after two seasons of winning the Premiership and they were toppled, while fergie buys shrewdly and doesn't make massive overhauls and has two Premierships and a Champions League in his last two seasons. He's minimised poor buys, although he has the squad strength and depth to cover up any mistakes he does make, but that just means Rafa can't afford to make mistakes in his signings and the summer was more sucks than successes

by **Judge** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:27 pm

apparantly every team that has had 2 or fewer losses in a season have won the league

liverpool have only 2 :;):

by **Alex G.** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:46 pm

Judge wrote:apparantly every team that has had 2 or fewer losses in a season have won the league

liverpool have only 2

yes, but no one have had 10 + draws....

by **JoeTerp** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:42 pm

I don't think its worth saying that we need to learn that wins are worth more than draws. I am pretty sure the whole team and the manager are aware of this, and I am not sure what is accomplished by saying "Win More."

Loss:
Sprus (a)
Boro (a)

Scoreless Draws:
Villa (a)
Stoke (h) *
Fulham (h)
West Ham (h)
Stoke (a)

Draws with goals:
Hull (h)
Arsenal (a)
Everton (h) *
Wigan (a) *
Man City (h)

*games when both Torres and Gerrard were in the starting XI

It seems to me like their presence (as a partnership) is needed more against the lesser sides than it is against the bigger clubs

We have taken MAXIMUM points from every league game this season in which all of Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard, and Torres are in the starting XI.

by **GYBS** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:43 pm

Ace Ventura wrote:There are definately lessons to be learned from this season but so far it has been a decent effort in the league.

The main one for me is definately regarding the squad - well the attacking options really.

The signing of Keane was obviously a mistake, the price even worse.
But we did need someone with Crouch going, there is no way we should be reliant on Torres staying fit and playing every game or a young untested and inexperienced player like Ngog.
For the season coming it is vital that we improve our attacking options to help us change things when we are struggling to break down the teams that put every player behind the ball.

The over confidence one that GYBS mentioned as well is a good point, we as fans before the Chelsea game where over confident and based on the first leg performance it would appear that the players where as well.
Thats not our way, under Rafa we have always peformed better when we feel we have a point to prove.
So if we end the season as champions or even as runners up by a couple of points i would urge our fans to be a little more cautious and not set unrealisitc expectations.

Yes we will all want to win the league - but dont just expect it.

We have played some super stuff the last couple of months and throughout this season there have been times when Rafa has really chased wins - the city game away springs to mind when he took defenders off for attacking players.
We do need to do that more often and some of those annoying draws could be turned into wins imo.

The over confidence of the fans is coming through again with the up coming match against Arsenal - we need to be careful

by **loopyliverpool** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:49 pm

1: We have to win more home games, draws arent good enough.
2: We have to have better quality in the depth of the squad. Playing Gerrard and Torres every game is all good and well but they will be prone to more injuries. The workrate of these two is staggering but ultimately unsustainable. We need backup desperately in several positions.
3: Keep playing the high tempo, passing, attacking football cos that's when we are at our best!

by **tonyeh** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:05 pm

bigmick wrote:As I touched on earlier, I think the circumstances this season have been just about uniquely favourable and I think if we don't win it, getting there next season may be much harder. When I talk of favourable circumstances, some of it has been of our own doing and some of it has been co-ordinated ineptitude from our rivals. Whichever way you look at it though, it's hard to imagine us beating the Mancs and Chelsea home and away for example next season. That truly was a once in a lifetime achievement, and if despite that six point cushion over both we still don't win it it'll be amazing really.

I think it's fairly clear that if Hiddink had been at Chelsea all season they'd have more points in the league as of now than they currently do. You can't say for certain of course as no doubt somebody will point out, but on the balance of probability I think most would come to that conclusion. He won't be there next season it seems which is a bit of a result, but whoever is will be hoping to make a much better fist of the league effort.

Arsenal have wollowed in pity and mediocrity for much of the season, but even they are now begining to string it together a bit and their run of fifteen unbeaten or whatever it is will convince the faithful that they'll be much closer again last season. For them, the accumulation of a really awful run with injuries and the failure to replace either Hleb or Flamini in the Summer completely derailed them for much of the season. My guess is that next time around they will contest the top spot with more vigour than this time around.

The Mancs after falling out of the blocks and giving us a start got their act together, went past us and actually had it won a couple of weeks back before forgetting to lock the door behind them. This has given us renewed belief and what with their European commitments, we may yet prevail. They'll think twice though next season about letting us pull clear so readily, so I expect all three of our rivals will up their game from this season.

Behind them (and outside the big four) I simply don't think any of the teams bar Man City have the necessary financial clout to get involved. City will if they can persuade Mourinho to leave Inter (I think they'll at least challenge for the top four, Villa style in that case) but I think if Hughes stays they'll fall short again of where their investment entitles them to believe they are capable of.

As I said earlier, if we win it we'll improve anyway as Champions do. If we don't however, unike many I think it's by no means a forgone conclusion that we'll match our efforts of this season in the one coming up. We'll certainly need to spend our 40 million quid better this Summer than we did last, lets put it that way.

Yep, I agree. I think, if the others in the so called "Big Four" had been at the top of their game, then there is no way Liverpool fans would be sitting here hoping for a possible League win in 6 games time.

As others have mentioned, yes, it's the draws that have buggered us again this year. Just like they did last year. 10 draws this season, 13 last season...simply isn't good enough.

I think the most important lesson to be learned by this season is...Playing "not to lose" won't necessarily mean you'll win the game.

by **redtrader74** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:58 pm

Sabre wrote:
It would be a grave error IMHO to conclude that as the English teams have gone so well in the Champions League that they are necessarily strong in comparision to previous years. The English teams always go well in the Champions League these days, they will next season too.

Perhaps it's an error but I think the Arsenal invincibles not dominating Europe and now the English team dominating Europe means something.

While in my holidays I saw the Sunderland-Manchester game, in which, besides hating Sunderland for defending worse than a Championship team, I could see Ferguson heavily rotating.

Of course when Ferguson rotates, he can use a certain Scholes, who has an age, but still is very good. He can use a certain Giggs, and he can sit down a certain Ronaldo. I'm not sure the English clubs had that depth 7 years ago. Perhaps their starting eleven was as good, or better, but the squad? I'm not so sure.

English teams in Europe are dominating, and it's because they're stronger.

If they draw games from now on, it's not because they're not strong, but because teams like Villa or Everton have more than decent sides.

If this league keeps getting stronger, we won't see farces like the Sunderland farce I watched. Meaning, a team not dominating a league completely doesn't mean the team is weaker, but the league is stronger.

Retouching a previous comment you made on players that do not bump like Alonso has, I wasn't having Alonso only in mind. Take Fabio Aurelio. Perhaps we've waited too long, but it made sense to wait because the player has the quality. I was thinking in Agger too. I hope Rafa doesn't rotate the CB from season to season, I hope Rafa has learned the lesson and gives confidence to Agger. Because when the quality is there, and if the attitude is right, it's only a matter of time.

Bang on the money, the premiership has been at its most competitive for years. This is evident through the number of teams that have been separated by a handful of points through the season. Having one or two exceptional sides in the league does not make it strong, just look at scotland.

IMO during the course of the last 2 seasons the 'weaker' teams have been playing as though they are in a relegation fight from the first game. The increasing rewards of a premiership place and the difficulty of regaining it have certainly helped up the competitiveness.

Also as you have pointed out Sabre, the level of success in the latter stages of the Champions league has also increased in the last 3 years, it has improved overall, fact, and this also points to a stronger premiership. No this season has not been particularily favourable, lets hope we can win the league, and then at the end of the season we'd really know what we have learnt.

by **agoodmentality** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:50 am

We are in a great position now, in world and european football.

We are challenging for the world's strongest domestic league.

Our destruction of Real and man u was monumental, and had the world singing our praises. (even johan cruyff)

We have two of the best 6 players in the WORLD play for our team (fact!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_FIFA_World_Player_of_the_Year

What i'm saying is that we are a very attractive club right now, and we must capitalize on it this summer.

i hope rafa pulls something out of the bag this summer, now he has full control of transfers.

Liverpool FC Forum

Our first genuine title challenge in years... - Lessons to be learned?

Who is online