Liverpool FC Forum

by **lfc-gaz** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:28 am

is there any other supports online tonite that are quite simply sick of Rafa, his negative tactics, his inability to purchase quality youth players ( i believe 60+ since he joined, how many have made the cut??) Lets be honest, carra has been going stale in the last two seasons, LUCAS just isnt good enough, kuyt will give 100%, but is there any real quality in him, he was bout as a striker, but was so retarded at that he has being shifted to the wing, ( DIOUF too!!!), Voronin was the answer on the bench, complete joke, Babel hasnt done it, get rid!!!

Everyone blames the board, and the lack of funds. Wenger constantly buys young gems and they nearly all produce, clichy, anelka, ramsey, vela, fabregas, diaby, i could go on and on. He even gets quality proven players, ie arahavin, at good prices, what do we get :censored:

DAVID N GOG, 2 :censored:

goals in 80+ games for PSG, are you having a laugh. Rafa out, if we had Harry redknapp we would of had the league years ago!!! FACT

by **Madmax** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:32 am

We all know until aqua man gets back we should change the set up and shift gerrard in central mid and play 4-4-2... Chances of that happening is if a dog goes in the eye of a needle!! Rafa is stubborn and will always stick to his guns. Its a good thing but he should realize lucas and macha is a shyte combination.

by **bigmick** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:35 am

sgs wrote:Most of the static play IMO is coming from poor movement in the last 3rd, and the lack of sharpness by Gerrard and Torres, esp the former...a point peeps never mention as all the focus is on Lucas.

What Rafa has done so far is not simply play Lucas as replacement for Alonso; he's effectively playing two CMs and pulling Yossi esp, and Kuyt centrally to provide the creative impetus starting from the 3rd zone, along with SG dropping into the hole; while using the wide backs to provide width.

The option of SG in CM is fraught with all the limitations that led to he's being played further upfield in the first case. His performance in that role in the 2HF proved it...

What Liverpool fans are doing is killing a young talent, Lucas, with OTT criticism and expectation, to the point where he IS everything wrong with the team atm. That is simply wrong and at this rate, I seriously doubt if he will survive...To see it unfold right before my very eyes makes it even worse! I seriously doubt, if this were Spearing, if he would be treated in this manner...

That said, rather have poor form in August than January as we did last season...

I disagree with just about every word of this post.

I don't FWIW think that most of the poor play is coming because of "poor movement in the last third", particularly not from Gerrard and Torres. Look, the main difference for us this season to last is the straight swap alonso for Lucas, and Riera not being selected and Benayoun playing in his place. Put Insua in instead of Aurelio, and Johnson in for Arbaloa and you have four changes, only one of which has been beneficial to the team.

Now it's pretty obvious that we are missing Alonso, and that's coming from someone who was not slow to play down the amount of influence he had over our play. The key though is we've replaced him with Lucas, who is by no means an awful player but he's not performing at the moment in a manner which is beneficial to the team. He's being asked to fill a role which he isn't capable of filling The lad looked absolutely lost tonight, he wasn't dropping in and picking it up, he wasn't picking it up off of Masherano, he was reduced to moving round and round in and around the centre circle but never actually receiving the ball. When he did get it, like Masherano and Carragher, Villa simply stood off and invited him to play. Because none of the three are liable to pick a pass, you very quickly run out of ideas. We either need to play Masherano OR Lucas on a sustained basis, but not both.

Funnily enough on the question of movement, our limitations on that score from wider areas is getting exposed right now. I know he huffed and puffed, but I thought Kuyt was very poor toinight in terms of his awareness and build up play. He's not normally very good, but tonight he was awful. Similarly, Benayoun constantly tracks inside so it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. The passers aren't great but nobody creates an angle. Essentially, without a good enough mover of the football in the centre of midfield it's too easy to cut Gerrard and Torres off. As they are our two best players, to prosper we must get them on the ball, and the only way to do that currently is to move Gerrard back into the centre (where despite his rash challenge tonight he is absolutely World Class lets not forget). If we do go down the route of moving Kuyt central (not my choice but there you go) moiving Benayoun right would probably give us more chance of getting Johnson on the ball too.

It's not down to Gerrard and Torres's movement though, not in a million years.

by **Fauxy** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:37 am

lfc-gaz wrote:is there any other supports online tonite that are quite simply sick of Rafa, his negative tactics, his inability to purchase quality youth players ( i believe 60+ since he joined, how many have made the cut??) Lets be honest, carra has been going stale in the last two seasons, LUCAS just isnt good enough, kuyt will give 100%, but is there any real quality in him, he was bout as a striker, but was so retarded at that he has being shifted to the wing, ( DIOUF too!!!), Voronin was the answer on the bench, complete joke, Babel hasnt done it, get rid!!!

Everyone blames the board, and the lack of funds. Wenger constantly buys young gems and they nearly all produce, clichy, anelka, ramsey, vela, fabregas, diaby, i could go on and on. He even gets quality proven players, ie arahavin, at good prices, what do we get DAVID N GOG, 2 goals in 80+ games for PSG, are you having a laugh. Rafa out, if we had Harry redknapp we would of had the league years ago!!! FACT

Welcome to the forum gaz

funny how people will suddenly start posting after a loss :laugh:

by **Emerald Red** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:40 am

s@int wrote:Its almost 30 years since a team lost their opening fixture and went on to win the league, how many years is it since a team lost 2 out of their first 3 fixtures and won the league ?

United did it back in '94 I think. Anyway, thats'a just a completely usesless stat, and I cringed the first time I heard it on SS because I knew either Gray or his chimp he sits with were going to bring it up. They are so predicable and I hope we bounce back to slap them on their smug faces. B"stards the pair of em.

by **Emerald Red** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:42 am

lfc-gaz wrote:is there any other supports online tonite that are quite simply sick of Rafa, his negative tactics, his inability to purchase quality youth players ( i believe 60+ since he joined, how many have made the cut??) Lets be honest, carra has been going stale in the last two seasons, LUCAS just isnt good enough, kuyt will give 100%, but is there any real quality in him, he was bout as a striker, but was so retarded at that he has being shifted to the wing, ( DIOUF too!!!), Voronin was the answer on the bench, complete joke, Babel hasnt done it, get rid!!!

Everyone blames the board, and the lack of funds. Wenger constantly buys young gems and they nearly all produce, clichy, anelka, ramsey, vela, fabregas, diaby, i could go on and on. He even gets quality proven players, ie arahavin, at good prices, what do we get DAVID N GOG, 2 goals in 80+ games for PSG, are you having a laugh. Rafa out, if we had Harry redknapp we would of had the league years ago!!! FACT

Whopper of the day!

by **lfc-gaz** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:48 am

do you agree??

by **Bad Bob** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:40 am

lfc-gaz wrote:do you agree??

No

by **REDTILLDEAD** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:41 am

I agree we are nowhere near winning the title this season....not with the mediorce :censored:

we have in our squad....its just not good enough!....Those fukkin yankee b@stards are to blame for this.....without the funding we are going nowhere....it shows how bad our squad is when rafa takes Lucas off and replaces him with vorinon.... :censored:

replacing

.....forget the title this season (yet again) we had our best chance last season, if anything we are weaker this season. :down:

by **Madmax** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:46 am

Bad Bob wrote:
lfc-gaz wrote:do you agree??

No

straight to the point!

by **Madmax** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:49 am

REDTILLDEAD wrote:I agree we are nowhere near winning the title this season....not with the mediorce we have in our squad....its just not good enough!....Those fukkin yankee b@stards are to blame for this.....without the funding we are going nowhere....it shows how bad our squad is when rafa takes Lucas off and replaces him with vorinon.... replacing .....forget the title this season (yet again) we had our best chance last season, if anything we are weaker this season.

So your saying we are feckd

.. Would agree we are weaker this season and with many player crocked its not helping. If we continue this poor start the title will drift away from us and it will be another disappointing season. With what we have we should change our system but rafa will never do that.

by **JoeTerp** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:14 am

didn't Riera play against Stoke as a sub?

by **Bad Bob** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:24 am

JoeTerp wrote:didn't Riera play against Stoke as a sub?

Yes for the last ten minutes...

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:41 am

REDTILLDEAD wrote:Those fukkin yankee b@stards are to blame for this.....without the funding we are going nowhere

No. They are not. You cannot excuse the players or the manager for the performance of the team.

When the team performs well, the players receive the credit as does the manager. The owners play no part.

When the team perform badly. The players take the criticism and so does the manager. The owners play no part.

This is what frustrates me when we win, its rafas genius. When we lose, its the owners fault. Now dont get me wrong, im not saying that the owners are faultless, they are the cancer of this club but so many people are hiding behind the excuse of "lack of funding".

Glenn Johnson £17 million (est)
Alberto Aquilani £20 million (est)

So its fair to say, there is some kind of money there. No you have to say, on matchdays, as much as it hurts so many people to say so, the owners cannot be blamed for the performance.

Rafa gets it wrong, and the players get it wrong. Its time we stopped looking to pin the blame elsewhere and point the finger at those in the wrong. We have to win the league this year, and in our most glorious years we won it with passion and talent and the support of the best fans in the world. This year, the mancs could win it with michael owen banging in the goals for them to overtake us, do I expect more from our players? damn right I do, and in the case of Torres, Gerrard and other key players here they cannot blame the owners, as they have new contracts, a guaranteed future. Its time to stop looking for people to blame the owners and look at the bigger picture.

This club was here before, its here now and by christ it will be here in the future. I will be damned to see the club ruined by the rubbish attitude shown today by many fans. "its not rafas fault, its the owners" BULL. I will be damned if I have to sit back and witness another poor performance by the players and coaches on millions and listen to how its the owners fault.

Heres one for all you "owners are to blame". How much will it cost them for all the contracts given for our current staff? (players, coaches, etc). Money has been spent. And rafa has directed that spending.

Or would I be right in thinking you would like LFC to be another Chelsea or Man City and become superficial. A club where history no longer matters.

Its sad and its very tiring. Being a Liverpool supporter was never easy but by god its harder than ever now.

by **LFC2007** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:54 am

bigmick wrote:The passers aren't great but nobody creates an angle. Essentially, without a good enough mover of the football in the centre of midfield it's too easy to cut Gerrard and Torres off. As they are our two best players, to prosper we must get them on the ball, and the only way to do that currently is to move Gerrard back into the centre (where despite his rash challenge tonight he is absolutely World Class lets not forget).

That's it. Overall I thought the poor performance was a symptom of a midfield that didn't do nearly enough in possession.

It didn't just lack the subtelty and the technical range of passing Alonso provided in years gone by, most importantly of all it lacked intelligence as unit. For most of the game I thought we lacked tempo in our passing, something you need to take opposing players out of the game. To find that tempo (at this level) your midfielders in particular need to be able to pass it without almost a seconds thought; you need to have a mental image of the play so that you know when to move to receive and where, and when you receive, who to play it to - if you think for too long, you'll get closed down, if you get closed down you need to be strong on the ball, and have a bit of skill in your locker to evade your man. This was essentially Alonso's value to the team, and it's why we should to be concerned, because his short-term replacements offer a tenth of that ability in possession. We didn't have a player in there that knows how to master these aspects of midfield play to the required standard; abilities needed to cut opposing players out of games, abilities that help maintain a steady tempo to our passing, and abilities that by default will also help minimise our defensive exposure.

Too often it when it came to Masch or Lucas it would take a fraction too long, sometimes far too long before they made a choice, and when the choice was made it did little to open the play up. As Bob's already pointed out the overall pattern was too lateral. Obviously, a little bit of that's ok when you need to, but over and above that style of passing, we saw very, very little. Conversely, when we were eager to get forward in the first-half, it was actually often quite rushed aswell, when it needed to be built up. How often, for example, did you see Lucas centre the ball in their semi-circle, turn and play a crisp, early diagonal ball out wide? Alonso would do these sorts of things instantaneously, and it's a key reason why we struggled to keep our passing going for very long. Late in the second half it was painful to watch with Masch passing five yards to Kuyt, who in turn would pass another five yards to Johnson, before the move would eventually fizzle out. That kind of passing is too easy to defend against; it's all in front of you, lacking in tempo and they're all five yarders. Just what you want if you're defending a lead, you want to be able see it so you can get at it, you don't want it to move too fast and you want their players in front of you. One early ball spotted by a quick-thinking midfielder is infinitely more effective, and if the receivers are on their mettle you've a recipe for a solid, consistent midfield.

This was compounded by poor general play from Kuyt and Benayoun; the ball didn't often stick in these areas because of a lack of awareness, sloppy touches and shoddy passing. Gerrard was culpable at times too, especially in the first-half where he made a number of stray passes. In these attacking areas we didn't do well enough in pulling into space and holding it, which if we had done may have steadied us a bit in an attacking sense thus providing said platform for Gerrard and Torres, whilst it may also have prevented the numerous free-kicks we conceded.

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