Emerald Red wrote:GYBS wrote:s@int wrote:GYBS wrote:s@int wrote:Emerald Red wrote:I think it had more to do with mentality than buys. Bellamy isn't a sh*t player. Neither is Pennant. Both have quality and both have abillity. It's their mentality that's lacking. Unfortunately Rafa made that mistake. Regardless, I don't really believe that's what dented our progress.
The simple truth is we went from 82 points down to 68 points the following season. I am sure Houllier still says that Diouf and Cheyrou were good players and that they just lacked the mentality (Notice how I sidestepped Diao)
The season we got 82 points we t knocked out of the CL in first round of the knockout so the squad wasnt stretched.
The next season we were doing well in the league and also reached the final of the CL but during the last 8 games of that season Rafa rested and prioritized the CL so dropped a fair number of points by playing the back up team while we went for CL glory .
Down - Yes .
Out - Never .
We actually played ok yesterday and no way to chelsea out play us - we had the chances to score - torres two , gerrard, yossi but didnt take them and that was the difference between the two teams - if we had taken our chances we would of won the game - so we didnt loose becuase of poor tactics or poor subs blah blah blah its was because the players out there didnt take their chances.
And off course there was the normal individual error which cost us a game .
Was rafa to blame for the error and the players not taking their chances ?
2006/7 after 30 games we were 21 points behind the leaders. After 38 games we finished......... 21 points behind the leaders. I am afraid that your argument doesn't hold up.
And how many points in total did we collect during those games ? i remember defeats to teams like fulham etc coming in the last couple of games when we played youngsters and back ups while the main players were rested for the CL -
look at the facts -
Best two seasons in the prem - worst results in the CL
Best seasons in the CL - worst points in the prem.
I don't know about that. Last season we didn't do too bad in the CL and the league.
yeah but we got knocked out in quarter final so we then had to really go for the prem - and last season was the first team for a while that we had half decent players to come into the team who could do a filling in job and not effect too much .