Liverpool FC Forum

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:27 pm**

Im sorry but what tactics did rafa get wrong yesterday ??! If we had taken our chances and not had an individual error once again we would prob of won the game . Is that rafas fault when torres misses twice or yossi misses or gerrard misses ?!?!

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:31 pm**

bavlondon wrote:All he has done is replaced Arby and Xabi. We needed to do that and more but he was not able to so you can leave the poor sod jibes at the door thanks.

The point was we had a side good enough, when you can't afford to spend big why try - yet Rafa did. You can buy good players for less than £17.5m+ each, while most of us said we needed a RB did we really expect to be r a p e d for one?

The way some plead poverty and zero finances you'd think he had £10m to spend, of course he can't absolve himself of part blame regards Alonso when he was stoopid enough to want to sell him in order to buy Barry.

bavlondon wrote:Rafa is being asked to compete on all fronts with only part of the required budget. But in truth I think the owners would be happy with a 3rd place finish and a possible run to the final in Europe.

Europe is the problem, too much a distraction and I've said so for ages now. As for the budget, change the record. We don't have it so why insist on spending like we do? We need more than two over-priced players, one of whom was injured. The poverty excuse comes up all too often, except when we win eight out of 10 or 10 out of 11 like last season, or do the double over bigger spenders. How come Wigan beat Chelsea where we couldn't? Where's the pleas of poverty there? They spend a lot less than we do, expect to lose more often than not against the top sides (their first win over a top four side in 30+ attempts)

We have good players, you can't simply rely on the excuse of no money. Rafa is behind the top two on more than just money, what with Rafa rants, predictable tactics and substitutions and the merry-go-round of his transfer dealings. 'We don't have any money' yet spent £18.6m on a DM, £20.3m on a short stay striker, £20m on a crocked CM, £17.5m on a full-back, £11.5m on a wonder kid winger, the wonder being why we paid £11.5m for him, £6.5m on a CB who can't defend, £7m on a LB who is third choice, nothing on a Ukrainian striker which is about how good most fans rate him and £3m on a back-up keeper who makes less than half a dozen appearances a season. If only most of the buys had been wiser we'd have a better team and probably cash in hand to spend on improving it further. When the manager is spending near enough £40m a summer on players then bemoaning no funds is laughable.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:32 pm**

bavlondon wrote:
Owzat wrote:
GYBS wrote:Is that average when the CL runs are brought into question ?!? what would you rate him if you didnt include the CL runs ?!

The CL is a curse, a distraction that we 'have' to reach the latter stages in order to be seen as a success but in truth when we do well in the CL it is often at the expense of league performance

04/05 CL Winners, 5th in the league (58 points)
06/07 CL Runners-Up, 3rd in the league (68 points, +2 GD ahead of 4th)
07/08 CL Semi-Finalists, 4th in the league (76 points)
08/09 CL Quarter-Finalists, 2nd in the league (86 points)
05/06 CL Last Sixteen, 3rd in the league (82 points)

Our best two league campaigns under Rafa were our worst two CL campaigns. While the CL is in its current format I can't see Rafa coping with it and winning the league, it just festers too long.

As for Rafa's tied hands re finances - yeah right! Poor sod only had £37.5m to spend, went out and bought two 'bargains'. Truth is the side we had last season went 10 unbeaten and topped the league at the start and then won 10 out of the last 11 league games at the end, problem is the manager couldn't mastermind the middle section and so we lost it - I seriously cannot see him masterminding enough sections to be able to win the league, there will always be a poor start, middle or run-in with him

All he has done is replaced Arby and Xabi. We needed to do that and more but he was not able to so you can leave the poor sod jibes at the door thanks.

Rafa is being asked to compete on all fronts with only part of the required budget. But in truth I think the owners would be happy with a 3rd place finish and a possible run to the final in Europe.

He has spent more than Fergie and Wenger though this transfer period. You cannot seriously say that he has not had money made available to him over the 5 years to assemble a squad!

If Rafa had focussed a bit more on bringing through the youngsters who have won the FA youth cup so many times recently instead of bringing in the overseas dross then we would have a far better squad in my opinion.

Plus if he has a limited squad then it is much much more important that he plays the good players in correct positions which he seems reluctant to do especially, god forbid, changing in the middle of a game. Why for example did he wait until the 70th minute before bringing on Benni and dropping Stevie back into CM when it was blindingly fecking obvious that that is how he should have started??

The reason is stubborn pride and that, far more than anything the yanks do or don't do, is what is fecking things up for us as a football club!

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:35 pm**

GYBS wrote:Im sorry but what tactics did rafa get wrong yesterday ??! If we had taken our chances and not had an individual error once again we would prob of won the game . Is that rafas fault when torres misses twice or yossi misses or gerrard misses ?!?!

Playing Lucas with Mascha didn't work at the start of the season, he went away form it and now he wants to try it again and surprise sur fecking prise it still doesn't work and it never ever will. It HAS to be Stevie in the middle for all games untill Aquaman gets fit simply becuase at the moment no quality balls are getting through to Nando and Stevie.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:39 pm**

heimdall wrote:A few games ago we were flying and scoring goals for fun whilst we had Stevie in the middle but somehow that wasn't good enough for the best manager in the world, he just had too tinker and then refuse to put his hand up when he fecked it up.

Were we really flying or was it another case of flattering to deceive?

WON BY MORE THAN ONE GOAL MARGIN

Stoke (h) 4-0
Burnley (h) 4-0
Hull (h) 6-1

WON BY ONE GOAL

Debrecen (h) 1-0
Bolton (a) 3-2
Leeds (a) 1-0
West Ham (a) 3-2

LOST

Fiorentina (a) 0-2
Aston Villa (h) 1-3
Chelsea (a) 0-2
Tottenham (a) 1-2

All three sides we've thumped have been newly promoted in the past two seasons and all three are on 7-9 points, any or all could get relegated.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:40 pm**

It didnt work becuase players missed chances that were created for them not becuase Lucas and Masher played in the middle - if no quality balls are played into them how the feck did they get to miss those chances ?!
We created as many chances as they did but missed more than they did .

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:43 pm**

heimdall wrote:If that is true then how the feck can people be voting for doing an extremely good job when we have lost 3 out of 8 games???

Add to that the fact that the games we have won have been against very weak opposition:

Away - Bolton, West Ham (have had their worst start to a season in over 40 years).

Home - Stoke, Burnley, Hull.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:54 pm**

GYBS wrote:Im sorry but what tactics did rafa get wrong yesterday ??! If we had taken our chances and not had an individual error once again we would prob of won the game . Is that rafas fault when torres misses twice or yossi misses or gerrard misses ?!?!

You know how it works GYBS
If we win Rafas a tactical genius and the best manager in the world
If we lose its the players fault...
:wwww

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:57 pm**

heimdall wrote:
fivecups wrote:
Sir Roger wrote:
s@int wrote:
bigmick wrote:
Ciggy wrote:Rafa's part of the furniture now, like Wenger is to Arsenal, Fergie is to Man U, it would be hard to imagine our club with out him.

Anyone thinking or hoping that he will be leaving anytime soon needs to get them thoughts out of their head.

He wont be going anywhere for a very long time.

I agree with that totally. For one thing we couldn't afford to get rid even if we wanted to. He's at Liverpool for another three years at least I think, even if we don't actually win anything.

My guess is though that this season we will win something. I don't think it will be the league, but my guess is that it will be either the FA Cup or the Carling Cup.

We are certainly due a decent run in one of the domestic cups as our results over the last 3 years have been terrible.

League cup

2006/7 - 5th round
2007/8 - 5th round
2008/9 - 4th round

won only 5 games in 3 years

FA CUP

2006/7 - 3rd round
2007/8 - 5th round
2008/9 - 4th round

won only 3 games in 3 years, with all 3 wins against lower division sides (Luton after a replay, Havant after going behind twice, Preston)

Rafas priorities are:

Champions league
Qualifying for champions league
Premiere league
Fa cup
Carling cup

He's said his priority this season is the Premier League.

If that is true then how the feck can people be voting for doing an extremely good job when we have lost 3 out of 8 games???

You can flip the question the other way around. What makes you think people should be able to even ask this question after so few games. At the end of the day it's not his fault if the players just don't turn up.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:02 pm**

Effes wrote:
heimdall wrote:If that is true then how the feck can people be voting for doing an extremely good job when we have lost 3 out of 8 games???

Add to that the fact that the games we have won have been against very weak opposition:

Away - Bolton, West Ham (have had their worst start to a season in over 40 years).

Home - Stoke, Burnley, Hull.

So we are well and truely fkd then mate ?

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:03 pm**

Sir Roger wrote:
GYBS wrote:Im sorry but what tactics did rafa get wrong yesterday ??! If we had taken our chances and not had an individual error once again we would prob of won the game . Is that rafas fault when torres misses twice or yossi misses or gerrard misses ?!?!

You know how it works GYBS
If we win Rafas a tactical genius and the best manager in the world
If we lose its the players fault...

Only for the short sighted .

and i thought it was the other way round - win and its all down to the players - loose and its rafas fault .

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:05 pm**

So this season has been turned on its head compared to last season ?!

We kept drawing against the weaker teams whilst winning the against top teams ?!

Im sure i remember people saying they would be happy with a few more defeats if they could turn some of those draws into wins .

this season the top teams are going to loose a lot more points and a lot more games .

Its far from over yet .

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:09 pm**

The question here isn't if Rafa is a top class manager but ,in my opinion ,if he learns from his mistakes and tries to improve his weaknesses.

Not sure he is - still on going issues outside the pitch (very poor scouting and player selection) and on the pitch (wrong players playing).

Is there anyone better out there? can't say ,maybe Veneger next season?

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:57 pm**

didnt no weather to start a new post. but zonal marking, what the hell is that all about.

Posted: **Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:59 pm**

Liverpool FC Forum

Rafa faithometer - The return