Liverpool FC Forum

by **Greavesie** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:32 am

Im just glad weve got a game midweek so we can brush this one under the carpet as soon as. Depressing to lose the first game, but the manner in which we lost hurt more, It has to be looked at as a kick up the @rse. Remember Man U and Chelsea didnt exacly put in great displays either, it they were at a difficult place to go I fully be;ieve they would have struggled as well. Walk on. Roll on Wednesday

by **GYBS** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:38 am

Morning - Nice to see the Match Threads are up to the same standard as last season Couple of things -

1. Has the trophy been given to the Mancs or Chelsea ? You would think so by the reaction of the press and also some people on this thread

2. What is all this if you blame Rafa then your not a real fan business ? Rafa while not the reason for yesterdays defeat shouldnt of picked Babel ahead of Yossi that is clear to see , also should of brought of masher when yossi came on and moved kuyt up top and dropped gerrard back into midfield alongside lucas - sometimes he has to take a little risk with subs

3. Lucas - amazing how much he is getting slated after out performing players like masher and eopven torres and gerrard was no better - if our top players put as much into the game as lucas did we might well of won yesterday

4. Spurs will be hard to beat this season so its not all doom and gloom yet - they will take points of all the top sides namely chelsea with their lack of width

5. Despite playing poor we even nearly got a result

6. we still need a little bit of creativity and back up attacker and Tuncay will fit the bill

7.Ayala - look decent when he came on - mixed it with defoe and got stuck in but a more experience CB is needed .

by **heimdall** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:07 am

Tim LFC wrote:Lucas played good in my opinion. He can still improve so he deserves to play. But Babel and Voronin were shocking and need to go! Bring some other people Tuncay, Kranjar,Distan etc i don't care as long as they are good! Gerrard was frustrated! Torres was as well. Lucas should player further up the field. He clearly has proven he's better up the field then in midfield! God i hope Reira gets fit and Rafa brings in some more players! And Aquilani needs to be good or we're then kinda . I think we should try some young ones as we never know they might be good! But this is a wake up call and i hope the lads listen and respond on the field!!!!

How on earth has Lucas proved he is better further upfield, was it by scoring one gaol when he was one on one with a keeper??

by **heimdall** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:13 am

Bad Bob wrote:To be fair, aCe', there were some cringeworthy comments on 'both sides of the aisle' earlier. Such is the nature of match threads during and immediately after the game, unfortunately. So, accepting that as given, I'd like to make a suggestion.

This kind of stuff...

aCe' wrote:Absolutely laughable some of the reactions on here... some apparently just coming on to have digs at anyone who has anything critical to say about our wonderful display... but anyways...

Said it before the season started, said in the game thread before the game, said it in all relevant threads... its all been said by various people, only for some to laugh it off ... well its pretty fcking obvious now...

...adds absolutely nothing to the football discussion and simply encourages the same old flame wars to kick off once more.

Whereas, this kind of stuff...

3 things im concerned about the most to be honest, and todays game did very little to assure me:

- our bench looks poor ; no decent cover for CB, no backup FW of any quality to be called on, no CMs who can actually come on and play against good players, just a poor bench overall when all is said and done. Benny was the only one, if he had started it would have been Babel, same story...

- Mascherano-Lucas in the middle... seeing as to how we were outplayed in central areas by pretty much all the sides we came up against in preseason, Rafa surely must have realized that this pairing was never going to bring the ball out from the back with any sort of conviction.. its not in Lucas, and its definitely not in Mascherano... said before the game that Gerrard is going to have to come very deep inside to collect the ball and start our play if we were to get any sort of attacking moves through the middle, and it took us 75mins or so to start doing that yesterday, prior to which, we quite simply offered nothing in terms of build-up play through the middle.. Insua and Johnson didnt do too badly but i would have expected us to push Kuyt & Babel deeper inside with the 2 fullbacks providing wide cover... very little of that happened and very late on... all in all, we need to reconsider our style of play given our personnel..

- Rafas mentality... ill leave that to a relevant thread... safe to say we went out there today to kick the tottenham boys about and stop them from playing rather than try to express our attacking talents...

Anyways... not as worried about the points dropped here as i am about our style of play and our options to try and fix that... in a perfect world we'd be going all out to buy 3 players to try and fix things a little... with our funds i dont think thats possible, still think we absolutely need atleast 2 players though.. backup CB and FW...

...adds quite a bit to the football discussion by giving people something to chew on. How thin is our squad? What game-changers can we rely on from the bench (if any)? How do we expect to move the ball effectively from back to front on the deck with Lucas and Masch in the engine room? Was Rafa reverting to the same old 'overly tactical' approach that has shown too much respect to teams in the past? Is there still time to patch up the leaks through the transfer market? etc. All big, big questions worthy of some real discussion...which will probably only happen if the prefatory gets axed. Just my two cents...

So I'm guessing you delivered an equally stinging rebuke to Ciggy then Bad Bob?

by **stmichael** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:19 am

If we'd got anything out of the game it would have been a complete injustice because we deserved nothing. We got outplayed for long spells and with better finishing we could have been out of the game at half time. That first half display was as bad as it gets for me. As an attacking force we were non-existent and the defence was all over the place in terms of communication.

At least we picked it up a bit in the second half. Yossi looks a threat whenever he gets ther ball and did more in 30 minutes than Babel did in 60. Torres didn't look fit to me and Gerrard ended up picking the ball up off the centre halves.

All in all, a really disappointing day. I not going to panic but we've got to do a whole lot better than that if we're going to challenge.

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:27 am

Still Cant understand how some think Lucas had a good game... if someone would just take a minute to explain that point a little maybe ?!

To me, he had a terrible game.. as a CM or holding midfielder or whatever you want to call the role he was playing he was expected to do some or all of the following..

- bring the ball out from the back and provide the attacking players (wingers, forwards, fullbacks) with good service from the middle ..
Did he do that ? not to me, not at all... as evident by us hoofing the ball up at every chance in the first half, and Gerrard having to come deep to recieve the ball and start attacks later in the 2nd half..

- Stop the opposition CMs from controlling the game.. press players who have possession in central areas , stop the opposition CMs from providing easy balls to their forwards..etc
Did he do that ? not to me, not at all... Palacios and Huddlestone did very well and were a danger whenever they had the ball.. put a few good passes in and always seemed comfortable enough taking the ball forward themselves.. Lucas and Mascherano were simply awful in the first half, and the second half wasnt much better to be honest.. too many fouls and didnt know when to press higher up..

- control the tempo.... yea, enough said i think

Anyways... to me him and Mascherano just dont work together in the middle.. Lucas doesnt seem to know where to play or what to do and it reflects very badly on the balance of the side... he doesnt have the Aquilani skills of taking the ball out from the back himself by making runs through the middle, and he doesnt have Alonsos passing range... Hes something of a Fletcher in his style of play except with 10x less quality i would think.. Unless someone whos able to control the game is played alongside him, hes absolutely useless and his presence on the pitch is just to make up the numbers... The fact that Mascherano is the one being played alongside him just adds on to the problem... Mascherano is bound to miss 9 out of every 10 long passes he attempts simply because he isnt a good passer of the ball.. its not what he does and it never was... He will always play the short pass to his midfield partner when given the chance, and that only adds to burden put on Lucas because Lucas to me is a player who isnt comfortable playing the deep role he does now... Play him in an Essien box-to-box role where he can make runs off the ball looking for spaces where hed have more time and space on the ball and he'd look a much better player... For now though, given our style, personnel..etc... hes absolutely useless !

by **Ciggy** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:28 am

heimdall wrote:So I'm guessing you delivered an equally stinging rebuke to Ciggy then Bad Bob?

Whats it got to do with you?

Your a grown man stop acting like an arl fish wife snitch.

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:29 am

Are threads sticking or is just me ?!

I said in another thread that maybe the mods could do a little cleaning up.. delete some of the older threads that no one visits anymore and stuff liek that... might help i think.... or is it just me ?!

by **GYBS** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:33 am

Well there were about 6 other people on the pitch playing worse than lucas and some prefer not to just sticking the boot in when other players need to look at themselves - cant focus on lucas - who wasnt that poor when some of our so called superstars where shocking .

by **mistyred** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:45 am

Lucas played better than Mash in my eyes.

Was Mash trying to get sent off or what?, he was rash in his deciscions which nearly cost us our two centre backs.

Torres was not himself yesterday, maybe just an off day for him i think.

Babel, i'm suprised sometimes the fella doesn't play in a pub team ffs, Rafa needs to work miracles on this lad.

by **crazyhorse** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:51 am

We were clearly not anywhere near sharp enough and were second best in almost every department. You cant blame the defeat on the absence of Alonso either...

Now is not the time to panic. Johnson did have a good game and that was at least a positive, but the tactics do need to be looked at and a lot needs to be done over the coming week.

It will come good!

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:53 am

Fair enough no one is saying the other players had a good game though... what im saying is that some are coming out saying "Lucas had a good game" as if theres a need to convince that he isnt entirely sht... on the night, thats exactly what he was... absolutely awful... so was Torres, so was Mascherano..etc etc... My point wasnt particularly about Lucas, it wasnt when the whole thing was brought up before the game and it wasnt when we were talking about the same thing diuring our preseason tour.... the Masch-Lucas thing just doesnt work when we are trying to control a game..

Playing Chelsea at the bridge, it might (hoof it up, get torres harassing their CBs, nick it on the counter..whatever)... playing Fulham at the cottage it wont.. its not a good combination and it takes out from both players' game...

Ill get back to Lucas for a second... you said he had a good game multiple times already on this thread Gybs.. care to explain that ? or just felt like throwing it in since some said he wasnt any good ?!

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:57 am

crazyhorse wrote:We were clearly not anywhere near sharp enough and were second best in almost every department. You cant blame the defeat on the absence of Alonso either...

Now is not the time to panic. Johnson did have a good game and that was at least a positive, but the tactics do need to be looked at and a lot needs to be done over the coming week.

It will come good!

if we had Xabi we wouldnt have looked so shabi im sure

dont think many are panicing but you're absolutely right in saying that the tactics need to be looked at by the manager after yesterdays display...

Hope we dont take the same side with only Benny coming in for Babel to the stoke game... if we manage a win there that might lead to a false sense of security on the current setup, which imo will cost us plenty of points until Aquilani is back... Change things around quickly and get back to basics imo...

by **GYBS** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:58 am

aCe' wrote:Fair enough no one is saying the other players had a good game though... what im saying is that some are coming out saying "Lucas had a good game" as if theres a need to convince that he isnt entirely sht... on the night, thats exactly what he was... absolutely awful... so was Torres, so was Mascherano..etc etc... My point wasnt particularly about Lucas, it wasnt when the whole thing was brought up before the game and it wasnt when we were talking about the same thing diuring our preseason tour.... the Masch-Lucas thing just doesnt work when we are trying to control a game..

Playing Chelsea at the bridge, it might (hoof it up, get torres harassing their CBs, nick it on the counter..whatever)... playing Fulham at the cottage it wont.. its not a good combination and it takes out from both players' game...

Ill get back to Lucas for a second... you said he had a good game multiple times already on this thread Gybs.. care to explain that ? or just felt like throwing it in since some said he wasnt any good ?!

Have i ? please show me in two posts i have posted where i said he had a good game ? i said he played better than masher,gerrard and torres and that he did - he was no way terrible or as poor as been stated - some of his tarking back enabled us to keep the score line down - namely when lennon went on a grat run and he is got stuck in a number of times winning the ball - yes he played it simple but he tried to spread it wide just no one else played well so it fell apart - if other players like gerrard and torres masher had better games then lucas well of played even better instead of having to scrap and fight for the ball after another long ball from our cbs got sent back - also lost count the amount of times he played it to the feet of torres and gerrard and kuyt and babel and they then lost the ball .

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:03 am

i give up

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