Liverpool FC Forum

[maguskwt]

Sometimes talk is cheap and polls are expensive . We have all heard the arguments of the situation that the squad found itself in this season. I feel that a poll can show the divide among the fans very clearly. Let's put it all on the table. Of course discussions are still welcome below.

[bigmick]

I voted "others" and here's why (aside from the fact that I always do). I actually think there are a combination of reasons why the squad is thinner than it ought to be, and it's just too simplistic to say it's all Rafa's fault (although it mostly is IMHO) or it's all the owners fault (which it certainly partly is).

So why is the squad thin? Well firstly it's obviously not thin numerically, we've got just as big a squad as anyone else and probably bigger than most. The thinness is purely a question of quality, and the apparent lack of it has taken us seemingly by surprise. It's worth noting though that the squad is the same as the one which almost won the Premiership last season barring two players, and we have replaced one with a fella who most would accept is actually an improvement. The fact Aquilani is injured has been a bitter pill to swallow. If we make the assumption that he's quite good (and I suspect he's at least that) then suddenly Lucas is coming off the bench occasionally, perhaps starting at Home against Hull. Spearing is still waiting to make his debut, Masherano is simply being asked to do what he does best and all is well in midfield. Gerrard isn't having to come back and carry the central midfielders, so the fact we don't have a viable alternative to him off Torres isn't so obvious.

Now all that would look good, and the fact (I think it is a fact anyway) that neither Lucas nor Spearing is actually up to it would be neither so obvious nor such a pressing issue. Obviously the feeling that the likes of Lucas and even more obviously Dossena and the like are some way short of being good enough is down to recruitment and therefore the manager. That said although neither were cheap, neither were bank breakers either so we probably shouldn't be too harsh. It's also a factor that Rafa seems to have gone into this season with the feeling that he really was going to give the fringe players a good go (Lucas was fairly obviously earmarked for a starting slot in Aquilani's absense fairly early on). Unfortunately though, the likes of him, Babel, Dossena and the like simply haven't been able to take their opportunity. You could argue the players themselves are at fault (with justification in Babels case I think) but equally I suppose you could argue we bought the wrong players, and/or Rafa should have known they weren't going to be up to it anyway having seen them in training etc.

Allied to that, too many of our good players haven't played well. The central defence has frankly been an embarressment, but with one of the four centre halves injured and another being purely a cheap stop gap, we haven't had much choice. Normally we build it around Carragher, but he's been poor to be honest and it comes to something when our most consistent defener has been the kid at left full back, and I'm far from convinced he's any World beater either. Masherano has been flat, Gerrard a mile away from his best and even Torres has been fitful, despite scoring shedloads of goals. Riera is a bit of a mystery, Kuyt hasn't hit the hieghts of last season and even the promising Benayoun has gone off the boil recently.

There are a couple of areas where the manager is definately culpable IMHO. We have desperately needed a cover for Torres for a long time now, and the fact we went into the new season without any is criminal really. Equally, although it hasn't impacted yet, the right back slot is woefully short with Deggen being the cover.

I think the owners could have dug deeper for sure, but they did at least allow Rafa to spend all the Alonso money and some on top which is more than the managers at Man Utd and Arsenal did.

All in all and in conclusion, it's mostly Rafa's fault IMHo with a little bit of the owners as well, and a little bit of bad luck. Also, the squad isn't quite as thin as it looks IMHO, if more people were playing well (or indeed if anyone was) it wouldn't look quite so grim.

[Reg]

Mick... please paraphrase into a single line matey...

The owners... without the tools to do the job, LFC wont win the league. We looked woeful today and still need 3 first teamers plus 3 equal squad rotators. Once we have that we can blame the manager.

Rafa's learnt theres no point rotating when the first team itself isnt good enough.

[bigmick]

I'll paraphrase it for you Reg. There's a combination of reasons the squad is thin. It's 40% that we've bought the wrong players, 40% that we've sold the wrong players, 20% that we haven't thrown enough money at it.

[The_Rock]

Didn't vote.........at all.... but for me, its benitez fault. It’s a combination of reasons.

1) We have shitty owners......yeah thats given. But we can't use that everytime we play [email]cr@p...[/email]

Benitez :

2a) If you treat players like pawns in a chess game, they are eventually gonna just go through the motions (Just look at most of our players do they look ar$ed at all in the pitch ?).

2b)Shitty man-management - You give kuyt a new improved contract but don't give mascherano any.... No wonder he is so pi$$ed off and wants to go to barcelona. Which other manger in the world will tieup kuyt to a long term contract than mascherano ?  This is just one of the benitez's "awesome" man-management techniques.

And yeah....telling the world that lucas has had a "awesome" game everytime but criticizing Gerrard and Torres isn't gonna make lucas a world class player anytime soon (if ever).

I could go on....but the benitez b1tches will be all over this post. I don't see any point. This season is a write-off as far as I am concerned. If and when we get new managers, I hope benitez resigns for a win-win situation. Think he would make a good COACH in Italy. In the BPL you would need more competencies (man-management, shrewd transfer dealing capabilities) to succeed as a MANAGER

[ruskiy playmaker]

I think that we've got a good squad but some of the players are mentally weak.  Manure's squad isn't that much better than ours, but what separates them from us is that when they play badly, they still manage to keep their shape.  Our team on the other hand goes all over the place when things don't go our way and the players start to do bizzare things on their own.  I am a big supporter of Rafa, but this is one problem that he really hasn't figured out how to solve.

[tubby]

Mick... please paraphrase into a single line matey...

I voted owners and Rafa. Although I put most of the blame on the owners doorstep for

1) Not giving Rafa enough funds and
2) Making it all the more difficult for him to work with their constant arguing, not to mention the Klinsman farce.

But at the same time Rafa has made a few bad buys. Obviously when we shop for bargain basement then it's always going to be harder to find top players but im thinking of people like Babel, Dossena and Skrtel. Not good enough.

I also know it is hard to judge things in hindsight but maybe Rafa should have also put his pride to one side and made more of an effort to keep the likes of Crouch or even Owen.

BTW This isnt a rant at Rafa. I back him 100% for the job and I believe he is the right man for the job. (PS That wasn't a stab at Mick either  )

[Owzat]

To be perfectly frank, without your best two players is it a great idea to start playing new systems and introducing kids to the team?!?!? Hardly the fault of the owners that Rafa decided to play the team and system he did. We've already lost as many games this season as in all last season, this is only the second time under Rafa we've lost three in a row and fourth time we've failed to score three games in a row

Regardless the idiotic actions of the fan throwing the offending object on the pitch, the fact that Sunderland's first goal against Rafa shouldn't have stood, were not good enough. How does the side Rafa put out compare to the two CL finals teams?

vs Sunderland 09/10

Reina
Skrtel
Carragher
Agger
Johnson
Aurelio
Spearing
Lucas
Benayoun
Babel
Kuyt

vs Milan 2005

Dudek
Finnan
Traore
Carragher
Hyypia
Luis Garcia
Riise
Alonso
Gerrard
Kewell
Baros

vs Milan 2007

Reina
Finnan
Riise
Carragher
Agger
Pennant
Zenden
Alonso
Mascherano
Gerrard
Kuyt

Reason for the question is not to highlight the absence of Torres and Gerrard and the importance, but the fact that this current squad, if we've actually progressed, should still be better without those two than teams of 04/05 and 06/07 - especially given we spent around £40 on players last summer and the summer before. Out of those plethora of signings, Riera is a first team starting option, Johnson is now a first team regular, Aquilani has yet to make his debut and the rest are scraping a few appearances between them here and there

PREMIERSHIP APPS 09/10 - 08/09 & 09/10 signings

15 between Johnson (9) and Riera (6)
8 between Dossena (1), Kyrgiakos (1), Degen (2), N'Gog (4), Aquilani (0), Cavalieri (0) and Keane (0 because he was such a good signing we sold him in January!)

And we've now used 22 (EDIT) different players in the Premiership. While the owners get a lot of stick about funding etc, they didn't make Rafa spend £80m on those players, nor do they (to my knowledge, maybe some might claim otherwise) pick the XI, pick the signings or force Rafa into his confused tactics and substitutions. Maybe Rafa knew there'd be seven added minutes so delayed his substitutions until a little later than normal, but I think most managers would have worked out the system wasn't working and made the changes by the 60th minute at the absolute latest.

So while the squad may not be good enough, the tactics, defensive system etc are not helping. The fact that we have little real option but to use Kuyt as a striker when Torres is unavailable says it all, I maintained throughout that paying £17.5m for a right-back was extravagant when it was not very likely that would be pivotal in whether we make a title challenge or not. Signing a new striker, signing a (fit) midfielder to create or some more influential signings to show for the £38.5m would have been good. So far we have a back-up Greek, an injured and injury prone Italian and an expensive full-back of whom only one has put any real pitch-time in and four defeats already have come (not faulting GJ, just observing a fact)

[Dazzer]

Mick... please paraphrase into a single line matey...

I voted owners and Rafa. Although I put most of the blame on the owners doorstep for

1) Not giving Rafa enough funds and
2) Making it all the more difficult for him to work with their constant arguing, not to mention the Klinsman farce.

But at the same time Rafa has made a few bad buys. Obviously when we shop for bargain basement then it's always going to be harder to find top players but im thinking of people like Babel, Dossena and Skrtel. Not good enough.

I also know it is hard to judge things in hindsight but maybe Rafa should have also put his pride to one side and made more of an effort to keep the likes of Crouch or even Owen.

BTW This isnt a rant at Rafa. I back him 100% for the job and I believe he is the right man for the job. (PS That wasn't a stab at Mick either  )

Agree with 2 but 1 bav he had alot of money and he has wasted it tbph.

[bigmick]

People often talk about "wasted" money, and for sure there have been some poor buys but the manager has been at the club for six years so you are bound to get one or two of those. Also significant though I think are some of the sells. I know people bang on about such and such a player wanting away, but I can probably name more than a couple of strikers who we could really do with now who we have had and let go.

Also it's a question of planning for me. It appears that we had little choice but to sell Alonso in all honesty, but to plan to go into the new season with Lucas stepping up reeked of a fairly reckless gamble to me. For sure Aquilani may turn out to be a great player, we all obviously hope he is, but Rafa's statements at the time that he had bought the player "for five years not five minutes" now look a bit questionable. I know it was well appreciated on here, as is the annual "you don't win the title in September" but as we know only too well, you can certainly lose any chance of winning it very early on. For me once we knew Alonso was away (which I firmly believe we knew last season) we should have gone ahead with our original plan and got Gareth Barry. I can't understand why we didn't have him all wrapped up, neither can I understand why or when we changed our mind about him. Stick Barry in for Lucas and would we have lose four league matches? I suppose it's possible but the now Man City man is a much better player, not Xabi Alonso perhaps but certainly a good replacement. And then once we didn't get him, for me we should have been setting our stall out to play Gerrard central midfield. Each time he's played there we've won, each time he hasn't we've lost (bar one game i think). I know that's not categoric proof, but it's certainly an indication that he makes a huge difference in there when he plays.

Now had we picked up Barry for the 12 million, we would have had the change for perhaps a bid for the Sunderland centre half. We could maybe have put a wee bit more towards it and pipped them for their striker as well.

That's where I tend to have problems with Rafa and his management style. Good man, good coach, loves the club and all that stuff but how can we possibly go into a league season with Kuyt, Voronin and N'Gog as cover for Torres who picks up the oidd injury? How can that be? Is it the owners fault we haven't got striker cover? No, not for me it isn't no.

[lakes10]

its easy, its down to Rafa.

he has taken over 57 or 67 (forgot what one it is now) to the club, then if he has not been able to build a good team out of that and with the money all of them cost then its his fault.

[SouthCoastShankly]

This is starting to feel stale, just as when Houllier was here. Great manager but has he taken us a far as he can?

[maypaxvobiscum]

This is starting to feel stale, just as when Houllier was here. Great manager but has he taken us a far as he can?

i concur. i voted for rafa. he has wasted too much money on mediocre players when quality was actually the players he sold. for example:

1) Warnock > dossena
2) Cisse > babel
3) Riise > dossena
4) Hamann > lucas
5) Finnan > degen
6) Fowler > ngog
7) Crouch > voronin
8) Hyypia - greekos

many players or proven quality he should have kept but sold and their replacements are pure trash. another player whom i wish was given a new contract was Kewell. yes he may have had a torrid spell on the sidelines but if he has so much patience with Aurelio, why not Kewell? put it this way, if Baros, Cisse and Crouch were here today, our strikeforce would be so so so much better than what we currently have (or not have) right now. and Sinama should never had been sold.

top teams don't rely on just 2 players the way we do. look at Arsenal and the maturity of their kids compared to ours. and if money is such as issue, why purchase a keeper who hardly ever plays? Diego cost us around 3mill didnt he? the money could've been spent elsewhere surely? im sure Cudicini and Sorenson were available for free back then. lets take a look at the recent transfers in europe. the prices of these players are obscenely low and we would have much better depth were they to be in our team today..

Crespo - unsure of the amount but if Genoa can afford him, why not us?
Mellborg - he recently signed for Olympiakos for just 2.5million.
Podolski - left Munich for 10million
Duff - joined Fulham for 4.7million
Niemi - free transfer
Lorik Cana -5.5million to Sunderland
Kranjcar - 2.8million to Spurs
Tuncay - 5.7million to Stoke
Maxwell - Inter to Barca for 4.5million

the above mentioned are merely some players whom rafa could have bought instead of who rafa eventually did. blame the owners as much as you want but they are not responsible for rafa's pathetic record when it comes to transfers. besides that, i feel he lacks imagination when it comes to tactics. all our opponents have to do is nullify Gerrard and Torres and we no longer have much of a threat anymore as time and time again our team depends on those 2 to come up with something out of nothing.

[only me]

My biggest frustration is that nothing comes here as a surprise.

I mean last season we all saw that neither Gerrad nor Torres have a sufficient Backup ,but Rafa brought no one to support them.

Last season we all saw that neither Lucas nor Babel are Liverpool material ,Rafa Kept them.

Last season we had Alonso ,which had his limitation but contributed to the team ,Rafa didn't fill his gap.

I mean all is so clear and simple yet we are all "surprised" at the downturn ,Rafa main fault is that he is stubborn and has no ability to change nor learn from his mistakes ,thus we are now stuck with little chance of recovery.

And when you think about it signing the Italian for a huge amount of money knowing that he will only be able to play on November? whats that all about?

[parchpea]

Benitez has had a good crack at it and has been afforded an extende tenure by todays standards. Despite the time, investment and planning we still remain a team that is completely inaffective without two footballers and frankly that simply is not good enough. Hes no excuses but will find them and indeed will be happy to lay the blame at the feet of others in heartbeat. How in gods name can you end up with a squad that completely relies on two players both who have a history with injury niggles.Its farical and yet this man reigns supreme, his head held high, with the fans support and his Liverpool team sat 8th in the premiership. I find it a mystery and when on earth did we get to the point where we found this rubbish acceptable at Liverpool Football Club.