Liverpool FC Forum

[Reg]

Doom and gloom is the byproduct of a namby pamby society that whinges and whines and gives in too easily instead of facing upto the issues and working them out to a successful conclusion. No backbone.

[bigmick]

I agree things are a little too much doom and gloom around here. Given the abject display 1-0 was a really good result in my opinion and although we go into the second leg as underdogs, at least we're still in with a chance. Chelsea may yet rue their decision to settle for the scoreline when a slightly more adventurous approach may well have seen them get another and put the tie to bed.
We just need to approach the second leg with a clear head and not get too carried away. 0-0 with twenty minutes to go wouldn't be a disaster but 1-1 would make it very difficult so we just have to bide our time and show a little patience.
As for the players who didn't have a good game, I'm surprised by the amount of knee-jerking which is going on in these parts lately. Though I've been a huge advocate of Sissoko, it now seems odd that after one average performance people are seemingly ready to oust Alonso/Mascherano. Similarly, Gerrard now must play in the centre as this game proved "once and for all" that he is wasted on the right.
One or two things were indeed proven once and for all on the night for me. One was something we already knew about the bloke who played wide-left, the other was that our right back on the night still has much to learn.

[Sabre]

Bigmick, have a question for you.

I'm going to watch the game again, both to see it without the emotions I had yesterday, and to focus on Alonso. I want to focus on Alonso because for me he did a better game than his last games, and most of my mates think the opposite (except Lando, Scottbott(?), Bad Bob and few others).

I don't recall or I have missed your view about him, can you tell me what do you think about his game yesterday, or say if you already said something about it somewhere to find it?

Thanks. I don't mind to be wrong and after the second shot to the game I'll admit so if he "had a shocker" which I think it means a really bad game.

[Elchris]

we have to work on our set piece....

Have to make the best out every set pieces we get...!!!

[redtrader74]

just a quick question......if we manage  1-0 at full time then it goes to extra time, we score 1 and then they score 1 and extra time finishes......does it mean they will go through on away goals? or do away goals not count in extra time....?

don't count

You sure? I thought they did. Would it go to pens then?

sorry for the Sh1t info. got it well wrong. Still think we get through, hopefully bolton kick seven shades out of them.

[The Bench]

not the worst result ever. We played well below what we're capable of. they played to more or less their level. Thought we showed 'em too much respect to be honest, but while i agree we desperately lack that creativity we crave, it did seem that we played like the home team and they like the away(which they did very well). But this should be a positive shouldn't it? To have one of the best teams in the land play so negatively at home against us is a compliment I think we need to appreciate and then be more positive ourselves. Again, If we had more believe last night I think we would've done 'em.
Just think they're not capable of playing much better against us, while we're more than capable of playing well above the level we seen last night. YNWA

[Scottbot]

I'm going to watch the game again, both to see it without the emotions I had yesterday, and to focus on Alonso. I want to focus on Alonso because for me he did a better game than his last games, and most of my mates think the opposite (except Lando, Scottbott(?), Bad Bob and few others).

I didn't mention Alonso in the post match thread because i thought he did ok. Neither brilliant nor rubbish. He didn't play well early on (first 20) but then the whole team looked nervous and tentative. However, he grew into the game, put several good diagonal balls out to Zenden and while i don't know the stats he probably won more tackles than another other player (as he does most weeks) in a red shirt. So i guess i'd give him a 6 & 1/2 out of 10.

As for the doom and gloom there doesn't seem to be a lot of optimism on here at the moment but i still feel we have been let right off the hook. Chelsea could have, and should have pushed on for another goal last night. The lads were there for the taking last night. I thought we were looking at 2 or possibly 3 nil at one stage and i really don't know why they backed off. Could be tired legs or maybe they are simply happy to play on the counter all game (again) at Anfield next week. Certainly they are in the driving seat, they won't be caught out by the Anfield atmosphere this time around, they have a score to settle and last night will give them confidence BUT it's only one goal. I still think our best chance might be a late (ish) goal in a tight game and we might just see the fatigue creeping into their game. For that reason i fancy Rafa will revert to a more cautious approach, he'll likely start the game with just one up-top and try to get the ball in wide areas to Pennant and Riise. I just hope Stevie Finnan is back for this one, how much did we miss him last night!? How the hell did Gary Chuckle keep him out of the PFA team of the year? ?

[The Manhattan Project]

I honestly didn't think we'd get this far in the Champions League this year because we are a work in progress in many regards. So I have still hope we can do it. If not then so what? We'll be back next year. This club seems to do things the hard way but they can never be counted out.

Greater emphasis needs to be also placed on the League Cup and FA Cup too. I was disappointed with the way we were knocked out of those this season. As for the Premiership, were it not for unnecessarily nervous away performances we'd be challenging for the title this year.

[Kharhaz]

I got the impression that Chelsea are very scared of Liverpool. Once they scored they all quite happily sat back and defended. They know, as well as us that this tie is far from over. Our record at Stamford Bridge is poor, but our record at Anfield is much better. 1-0 to them, yeah I can live with that all we have to do is score 1, which we will do, then score a couple more to be sure, it can and will be done.

[bigmick]

In response to Sabre's point about Alonso, I thought both him and Masherano played far better than many people on here are claiming. Neither did much wrong but unfortunately with Chelsea playing both Mikkel (or however the feck you spell it) and Makeleli quite deep, I think it needed one of our central midfielders to venture a little further forward. Too often we played in front of them and when it was fed into Kuyt or on the odd occasion Bellamy, the midfield two could turn round and nick it before we could develop anything.
For me we just lacked a bit of balance, and with the exception of Zenden who was predictably awful and Arbeloa and to a slightly lesser extent Riise, who were both bitterly disappointing on the night, the others did OK.
To redress the balance, you could have played Crouch as he gives you an easier to hit outball as you can ping it over the top of Makeleli and Mikkel. This would probably have meant playing Bellamy alongside him and leaving out Kuyt. You could have played Gerard as one of a midfield five, leaving out Bellamy and instead playing Pennant on the right. This would work well but the minus against Chelsea and probably the reason Rafa didn't do it is that Pennant doesn't offer much defensively and ashley Cole would like as not have a field day. You could also of course have played Gerrard centrally, leaving out Masherano and playing Pennant wide right. This would be my favoured pick at the moment, with any kind of re-jig you can come up with down the left to avoid having to play the hapless Zenden.

One final point I would make is that the game was a good example for me of how the people who are willing to write the obituary of Sissoko are being way too previous. Were he anywhere near his best, I would have played him alongside Alonso and he would have single-handedly disrupted initially then eventually broken up the Makeleli/Mikkel axis which was actually the main reason we couldn't get going.

[bigmick]

One thing I didn't add but meant to was I guess what I'm saying is that if you play two holding midfielders, which is essentially what alonso and Mascherano are, you shouldn't be too surprised that within a fairly rigid 4-4-2 you don't offer much goal threat.
It kind of works if you do as chelsea did whereby Lampard was used as a central focal point with the license to press forward of his two holders (Mikkel and Makeleli), but in a 4-4-2 I would be surprised if Masherano and Alonso will be a productive partnership against the better teams. That is unless of course one of them becomes more buccaneering in outlook which is certainly possible as they are both fantastic players. It would certainly work as a 4-5-1 with Gerrard the furthest forward of the central mids, but not as a 4-4-2 for me.

[Sabre]

Thank you. I try to control my bias for Alonso, you always have a bias for a guy of your town. In fact, in the last games I didn't give him points in our awards, he was average, but in the last game I liked him again. Not in his best form, but definitely I liked his game.

I started watching again the game, but I had to sleep so I might finnish today and have a better opinion, before I part to Getafe tomorrow to watch more football (and drink).

I was just surprised, and that's why I asked, that SO MANY posters thought he had a bad game. When there's smoke, there might be fire, I thought, and I asked because of that.

One thing I don't like of this board, is that we tend to analyse the performances of players very isolated. Not as a team.
Sometimes a player's pressure on the ball turns out to be useless because another team mate isn't where he should. And in the first half, we didn't press as we use to, in the second half we did.

Zenden wasn't that bad, IMO. I think that Rafa, played Zenden because he seeked to have possesion. He seeked to have possesion, because when you play 2 strikers, if you don't have the ball, the opposition can make you the damage they did in their bloody goal. Look what happened. Just touch of Kuyt, a lost ball, a normal thing. Then our second line very far from the ball, and their midfielder with lots of space to start the counter attack. With Gerrard there that wouldn't have happened and that's why I like the 4-4-1-1.

So we hadn't possesion, or not as much as we planned, and when you don't have possesion, having 2 strikers does not damage. Bellamy was inexistant. His fault? probably not.

[stmichael]

In response to Sabre's point about Alonso, I thought both him and Masherano played far better than many people on here are claiming. Neither did much wrong but unfortunately with Chelsea playing both Mikkel (or however the feck you spell it) and Makeleli quite deep, I think it needed one of our central midfielders to venture a little further forward. Too often we played in front of them and when it was fed into Kuyt or on the odd occasion Bellamy, the midfield two could turn round and nick it before we could develop anything.

On Alonso, I don't think he's had much of a season either and I didn't think he had much of a first half the other day.

BUT

I thought he was by far our best player second half when we played a higher tempo than you often see from him, the sort of tempo he's going to have to play every game if Rafa wants to bring him out of "the pocket" and play further forward. It's not going to be as easy as it sounds, he'll spend more time receiving the ball back-to-goal and having to wriggle out of pressure situations, but I though he did it really well the other night, he looked really up for it.

I'm still not sure he's been the most creative player in the world this season but there's reasons for that. Xabi loves the strikers who have pace and use the space behind defences. In previous seasons he lobbed the ball in to the space for Baros and Cisse to run onto, now we are very different.  Crouch holds the ball up, Kuyt plays quite deep and Bellamy can't seem to understand the offside trap so Xabi looks up and sees no obvious pass and gets caught in possession more often than usual. I think we need to see how he plays with maybe more attcking wingers/strikers who are willing to use the space more. At least Pennant give him an outlet when he plays.

[Sabre]

St Michael might have a point in the pacy strikers bit, as Nihat only was great when Alonso played alongside him.

By this I mean that Nihat was a 25 and 22 goals player with Alonso behind him (and De Pedro on the left, and Kovacevic beside) and a 6 goals player without him. It's very complicated to say who's a 25 goals player without the context!! -- see Mascherano in Westham, he didn't play.

I agree that his season has been not that good, but not bad either. I suspect most people appreciate Xabi for things that he does as a bonus, like range shots, and goals. That's not his game and it will never be.

[grayghost]

We need to play the same team that beat the Gunners with SG up top with Crouch

with the 2 whingers pushing well forward and getting the ball in. That was are best
game of the season in my eyes against a hard team. Are passing power and speed was to much for them. Should of played that team against Cheski hopfully we will next time.