Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

People wondered why I was p.issed off with the 1 point against spurs and Boro, if we would have gotten the 6 points from these 2 games instead of 2, then 1 point today would have been excellent.
What is the f@cking point bringing Cisse on with 10 minutes to go? A man who plays with confidence but has none what so ever now.
Crouch played well is a good target man but his partner is not Luis, and after hearing rafa's interview today on the spanish radio, he is still going to put his blind faith in Morientes.
so therefore we can all asume Djibril will be 3rd choice, hence WHY MO wasnt signed.
This is a great result for us to draw against manure, if we had not drawn against Spurs and Boro, we have lost a lot of points doing so.
But we miss the little something special that wins you games Chelsea have that but we dont, I dont even want to mention Chelsea I cant f@cking stand the b@stards .
Cause I prefer to win with passion and pride not money.
Possitives we are better than last season, negatives are we still have a long way to go.
INMO best buy of the summer Reina.

[The_Rock]

U noe me Lynds....i feel exactly like u.

But u can be sure cisse will leave in january...and moro & crouch will be our strikers for this season. (and garcia will deffo play every game, no matter how he performs).

Just have to accept it. As long as we make progress, i won't be questioning rafa too much. We look good defensively...but we don't really look like scoring goals at all (not if the best chances fall to garcia).

so who we playing next week ?

[A.B.]

Birmingham Away, we need to win our first away game

[Ciggy]

U noe me Lynds....i feel exactly like u.

But u can be sure cisse will leave in january...and moro & crouch will be our strikers for this season. (and garcia will deffo play every game, no matter how he performs).

Just have to accept it. As long as we make progress, i won't be questioning rafa too much. We look good defensively...but we don't really look like scoring goals at all (not if the best chances fall to garcia).

so who we playing next week ?

We play Birmingham next week Rock, and this is a MUST 3 points, on Rafa's interview in Spain he says he has total faith in Morientes to get back playing and banging the goals in   I trust Rafa he has brought us a lot of success but if he choose's Morientes over Cisse and Crouch INMO it is going to be suicidal for us.
I dont doubt Morientes's ability FFS he has been there seen the vid got the T-Shirt etc etc, but deep down inside I know he is not Liverpools answer to scoring goals.
Feel free to prove me wrong but I dont think there will be many lining up.
Also it looks like Cisse will be gone in January and Dirk Kuijt WILL be brought in.

[red37]

decent result  decent performance  decent start to season thats the positives.....

the negative?  well, decent = AVERAGE    and thats what we are at the moment. sorry, harsh but true.

[NiftyNeil]

I see no cause for alarm at the moment.  None of us expected us to win the league this season anyway. But what I have seen so far is that we have a good foundation to build on. We have a sound defence, and the heart of midfield is excellent. Once we get our attacking players organised, we will see the red machine in full effect.

[66-1112520797]

I see no cause for alarm at the moment.  None of us expected us to win the league this season anyway. But what I have seen so far is that we have a good foundation to build on. We have a sound defence, and the heart of midfield is excellent. Once we get our attacking players organised, we will see the red machine in full effect.

The thing is Nifty we had the same solid defence as last season and the only decent addition to the midfield is Sissoko .

At the moment it doesnt look as we have improved in key positions that greatly over the summer.

[drummerphil]

We really do need to start converting draws into wins.Although i would be absolutely chuffed if we win the champions league again this season,i would hate to think thats the only way we would get in the following seasons champion league because we have won again and not because we havent got at least fourth place because although we are hard to beat we draw too many games....Anyway its a long season so heres hoping   

[A.B.]

The problem last season was that we didn't convert certain games into draws.

[GunGod]

Actually what;s wrong with the team is the midfield, not the strikers.  Rafa opted to play 4-5-1 even at home, and it gets a bit too predictable with 70% of balls looking for Crouch's head, though I must add that Crouch won most of them and played well.

If we consider Garcia a midfielder, then altogether the midfield's terribly bad. Alonso's been really overhyped (just my opinion). Im not saying Alonso's not a decent player, I mean, we rave about Alonso like he's the best midfielder in England, but he hasn't done anything marginally close to the likes of Bergkamp or Lampard. One reason for Alonso's relative ineffectiveness is that he's been dominated by Gerrard. I am not sure till now who's the defensive midfielder, the one in front of the back four when both of them play together. Its like both of them have to compromise something of their game in order to accomodate the other.

Then we have to use Riise and sinama who not pure wingers and sinama. Sinama did look lively though at first, but then I started to wonder whether he's Baros v2 with his aimless clinging on to the ball.

So we have a midfield that does not know who's supposed to do what, and a midfield captain who thinks he has to do too much. It shows when we have no ideas in going forward. No slick passing, and often forced out to the wings to cross in a hopeful ball to Crouch. There simply isnt good communication amongst the midfielders themselves, nor between the striker and midfield.

The defence is our saving grace though. And I am very happy we have such a cohesive unit. Hypia may be slow, but he wins just about every ball in the air. Carragher is playing well and while Finnan and Traore/Warnock make the occasional mistake, they share an understanding with the centre-backs. (Warnock was dissapointing today though).

I must add that Reina is looking rather jittery from all the games which I have seen him play. Edwin VDS really commanded his zone and came out like 5 times to act as an effective sweeper. That's probably due to experience, and while we must give Reina more time, currently he doesn't look like he commands a lot of trust from his defenders..3

Lastly, Garcia. He's the point while all attacks stop. He gives the ball away too frequently. Ok, he produces a moment of brillance once every third game. But is that enough for this level. You decide.

[66-1120597113]

Whats annoying me is this 4-5-1 shi.te!
All this in Raffa we trust is fu.cking balls!
When will he see that we have not got the players to suit this system??
Its madness for him to persevere with this system when we have no natural wingers.
What is wrong with the good old 4-4-2??
And another thing Luis Garcia is sh.ite whether he plays on the right or in a more central role he always gives the ball away and does not posess the toughness needed in the EPL !

[LFC #1]

Not a bad performance, but lacking in inspiration, especially in the 2nd half, a 0-0 draw was the right result.

Defensively we were immense it has to be said. Rooney, Ronaldo, Scholes and RVN were all kept pretty quiet. Sami, Carra and Finnan were all outstanding and Stevie Warnock also put in a very good performance. 

Alonso was below par, his passing was well below his usual standard. Stevie did well in centre midfield, Keane was largely anonymous as was Smith.

This week has to be a perfect example of the Jekyll and Hyde like performances of Garcia. Against Betis he was outstanding, but he was terrible today it's got to be said. It's much like last season where he was good in Europe but ineffective in the league. He hit so many stray balls today I lost count and he often picked the wrong option in good attacking positions. It was very frustrating, as his first touch was good but he'd then proceed to give the ball away. I think the slower and less physical nature of European football, allowing more time on the ball, is much more suited to his game tbh. He has said this week that he feels a lot more settled this season at the club and thinks his league performances will be much improved on last season, let's hope this turns out to be the case.

Crouch was good upfront, but Luis didn't support him at all well and I thought Rafa's decision to keep Luis on and take Crouch off for Djib was a mistake as Luis was clearly having an awful game. Crouch was crying out for a supporting player to get on the end of the many balls he won in the air, but Luis was often playing too deep to support Crouch effectively, that’s why I would've liked to see Djib come on for Garcia and play in a 4-4-2.

Overall not a bad result, and we may have even snuck a victory had it not been for Van der Sar who was excellent for Manure. Still plenty of work to be done though, bring on Brum!

[sithlord]

Everybody needs to calm down!  Out of the 4 games so far, last season we would probably have lost 2 or 3 of them (Middlesborough and Spurs away, or Man Utd at home).  We are definitely much better than last season.  It will only be time to worry if we aren't winning games that should be certain 3 pointers at home against the weaker teams .

[GunGod]

Which sort of reminds me... does anyone see Crouch banging in 15 goals this season? Personally, I don't. Is he another Heskey? I don't think so either, though they share similarities in being able to hold and head the ball. I think (big think) that Crouch is better in finishing (hope so) than Heskey. But Heskey was also pretty prolific for Leicester before he moved to Liverpool.

Crouch looks like a better bet than Heskey, but surely he doesn't look like a 15 goal a season striker?

[SouthCoastShankly]

i can understand Rafa using a 4-5-1 formation for AWAY games but not home games, i want to see attacking formation and in my opinion Rafa has made the wrong decision if he has wanted to win today. Cisse should of been playing from the start, Garcia was useless today, sinama looked out of his depth, we looked better as soon as Sissoko came on.

Rafa needs to decide what his european side is like and then decide his league side, they cannot be the same side. Our league form has to be more attacking at home. 1 win and 3 0-0 draw's is not good enough. We have the players to challenge the top 3, we need to make use of them effectively. 

Sort it our Rafa