Liverpool FC Forum

[GRAHAM01]

I was proud of the boys last night. They never gave up, they kept fighting and we were just plain unlucky I felt. Riise's own goal, Skrtl getting injured, the offside for the first goal, Sami's penalty shout. Plenty of things that could have turned the tie.

Look on to next season now when we do the quadruple!!

now that is optimism 

we can only hope

[bunglemark2]

I think I shocked a few people this morning, when talking about the game a few said they were glad the fat frank scored. I told them that it would of been better if he had his leg snapped in half. Can't stand the fat tw@t. Playing on all the sympathy, f*ck off.

Jesus mate, you're just charming....It's a game of footie - some things are more important, despite that wonderful quote from Shanks

[account deleted by request]

I think looking back with hindsight the most disappointing thing for me was the number of times Torres got in great positions to receive the ball last night and we failed to make the pass to put him in. Benayoun a couple of times, Gerrard on a couple of occasions and Riise all had the chance and failed to make the pass well enough (admittedly Benny managed it eventually.) I think with a quality second striker Torres could even better his fantastic tally for this season.

[figgis]

my mother died just after christmas and it hits you hard. you can only respect lampard and wonder how he could get out there and play. i can only say last night we lost it because the tinker man with his poker tactics blew it.

[PhiLFC]

Well what a game... gotta say that i really enjoyed it, it was a fantastic game of football and I was really proud of our lads.  The best team won but we gave it a cracking go.  Pity we didn't get the penalty on Sammi but you can't win em all can you?

Don't understand the Torres substitution one bit.  I was frustrated that Crouch didn't get a chance but maybe the Skrtel injury ruined the plans a bit.

Do you know that hand on heart I was more disappointed to see Barca fail against the scum than I was in our defeat last night - I need the summer off to get my priorities right.

[jedwards]

It was a sad night indeed, however, it was expect it too, which it comes at the end of another disappoint and miserable season under Benitez, it is the third empty handed seasons in succession, and we are still far behind the top three elites of the league. We did not get nearer to them over the passed 9-10 seasons, during Houlier nor Benitez, apart from few cup successes during those years.

What I have noticed and expect that, Benitez will do yesterday, is to select a bizarre team for the most important match of the season, it was a weak first 11, which immediately has given Chelsea an overwhelming superlative control of match proceedings through out the whole match, Chelsea was a constant threat and they were capable of scoring more goals at anytime they went forward, our defence had to work overtime to reduce the goals margin, and at the opposite we were relaying totally on Torres the lone striker, who had no striking support at all, not from the useless Kuyt, who unfortunately had the best two good chances, but as expected he had foiled them both, and at the latter stages of the match, his beloved Benitez left him on and did not replace him, and in the end made him the main striker after taking off Torres, a move that had astonished S Gerrad and every LFC fan, only to hear later from Benitez that Torres was injured!!!!!!!!!!, how come his captain did not know about this fact, at the time Torres was on the field !!!!! Bizarre move from a very negative and wired manager.

This is not the first time Benitez has acted like this, last year in the Cup final against AC Milan, he did the same whereas, he opted to select his babe Kuyt (light weight and useless) ahead of Crouch to be his lone striker, and then all ended in handing the cup on plate to Milan. Benitez is a master tactician of boring and negative style of playing football, too many long balls, no pass and move, total relaying on individual players, there is no collective playing system in Benitez's book what so ever, he believes in striving out the opposition's game play, and hoping on opportunity to occur to allow his players to score, but this seldom does not happen against top opposition likes Chelsea, M.Utd, Arsenal, and others.

We must be honest and realistic with ourselves, that Benitez had really failed miserably by moving LFC forward and make them challenging for all top trophies in England and Europe alike, and this is a fact. Under his management, LFC team had become a very boring to watch and had opted a very negative style of football, and very much less productive in results, it is at odd with old style of football LFC teams used to play some 9 years ago or so, it is a very sad fact to accept, after all the hard work that the past maters of LFC managers had put in, which in fact they all made LFC teams of the passed era play productive attractive football styles, that most other clubs team of this modern era had opted to copy our old style of play then, simple play, simple passing game, pass and move, the kind of football that Chelsea had opted to use against us in yesterday match !!!!!!!!!!.

I am sorry I did say at beginning of the season that Benitez will end up this season empties handed as the previous seasons, despite all the huge money that he had spent, which is the majority of it was spend on a very average players, just in order to fit in with his wired style of play!!!! He is the manager, and he takes the full blame regardless of all the power struggle that had gone on in board room, and talk of removing him, etc. he is supposed to be a top draw professional football manger, as some claims, his job should be totally focused on preparing him players to play matches and win trophies, and in fact he had failed of doing so, therefore, his time and his position at LFC is very questionable now, his time is up, despite what I heard just recently, that he has a new shopping list he intends to present it to LFC board just to buy more average players at top prices, this is his track record so far, but no trophies?

[bunglemark2]

Gut eef, Peeps....Iss mee, Stavros...
That your alter ego, jedwards ?

[Reg]

Question: What happened in the first half??

We didnt compete, our passing and first touch was terrible, we allowed them to dominate.

Its like we had no will, no rocket up the @ss to take the game to them. We were horrible.

Yet Rafa did nothing at half time as if he was satisfied? If we've played Crouchie in a conventional 4-4-2 cant help but feel our first half would have been better which could have turned the course of the game.

I'm not convinced this 4-2-1-1 whenever it is, works against class sides. Stevie is not a striker like Drogba or Rooney say - or even Anelka, so why do we pretend he is?

If we bought Drogba, this lone striker cr@p would go out of the window the same day. If we played 4-4-2 when we had killers like Kenny and Rushie in the same team, why would we play a lone striker?

If Gentleman Bob was amongst us and we asked his opinion of playing a lone striker with a midfielder behind him in the european cup semi final when we NEEDED to score to win, would he think it wise or be surprised the opponents scored more than we did?

It doesnt make sense to me and it showed today as it did against ManUtd and Arsenal.

Once the romancing about what could have been, we need to address what happened - or didnt happen - in the first half.

[account deleted by request]

It was a sad night indeed, however, it was expect it too, which it comes at the end of another disappoint and miserable season under Benitez, it is the third empty handed seasons in succession, and we are still far behind the top three elites of the league. We did not get nearer to them over the passed 9-10 seasons, during Houlier nor Benitez, apart from few cup successes during those years.

What I have noticed and expect that, Benitez will do yesterday, is to select a bizarre team for the most important match of the season, it was a weak first 11, which immediately has given Chelsea an overwhelming superlative control of match proceedings through out the whole match, Chelsea was a constant threat and they were capable of scoring more goals at anytime they went forward, our defence had to work overtime to reduce the goals margin, and at the opposite we were relaying totally on Torres the lone striker, who had no striking support at all, not from the useless Kuyt, who unfortunately had the best two good chances, but as expected he had foiled them both, and at the latter stages of the match, his beloved Benitez left him on and did not replace him, and in the end made him the main striker after taking off Torres, a move that had astonished S Gerrad and every LFC fan, only to hear later from Benitez that Torres was injured!!!!!!!!!!, how come his captain did not know about this fact, at the time Torres was on the field !!!!! Bizarre move from a very negative and wired manager.

This is not the first time Benitez has acted like this, last year in the Cup final against AC Milan, he did the same whereas, he opted to select his babe Kuyt (light weight and useless) ahead of Crouch to be his lone striker, and then all ended in handing the cup on plate to Milan. Benitez is a master tactician of boring and negative style of playing football, too many long balls, no pass and move, total relaying on individual players, there is no collective playing system in Benitez's book what so ever, he believes in striving out the opposition's game play, and hoping on opportunity to occur to allow his players to score, but this seldom does not happen against top opposition likes Chelsea, M.Utd, Arsenal, and others.

We must be honest and realistic with ourselves, that Benitez had really failed miserably by moving LFC forward and make them challenging for all top trophies in England and Europe alike, and this is a fact. Under his management, LFC team had become a very boring to watch and had opted a very negative style of football, and very much less productive in results, it is at odd with old style of football LFC teams used to play some 9 years ago or so, it is a very sad fact to accept, after all the hard work that the past maters of LFC managers had put in, which in fact they all made LFC teams of the passed era play productive attractive football styles, that most other clubs team of this modern era had opted to copy our old style of play then, simple play, simple passing game, pass and move, the kind of football that Chelsea had opted to use against us in yesterday match !!!!!!!!!!.

I am sorry I did say at beginning of the season that Benitez will end up this season empties handed as the previous seasons, despite all the huge money that he had spent, which is the majority of it was spend on a very average players, just in order to fit in with his wired style of play!!!! He is the manager, and he takes the full blame regardless of all the power struggle that had gone on in board room, and talk of removing him, etc. he is supposed to be a top draw professional football manger, as some claims, his job should be totally focused on preparing him players to play matches and win trophies, and in fact he had failed of doing so, therefore, his time and his position at LFC is very questionable now, his time is up, despite what I heard just recently, that he has a new shopping list he intends to present it to LFC board just to buy more average players at top prices, this is his track record so far, but no trophies?

A very negative post but you do make a few points that I think are very valid :-

Torres the lone striker, who had no striking support at all

Again against better opposition Gerrard gets forced back into the midfield battle forcing Torres to become isolated and chasing lost causes.

too many long balls, no pass and move, total relaying on individual players

I agree we were very poor with our passing and our players didn't seem to have the confidence until we were chasing the game to make the kind of runs that open up opposition defences. Too many times this season we have been dependent on the individual brilliance of Gerrard or Torres to make the break through, rather than creating openings through good teamwork.

more average players at top prices

I again think you are more or less right , we cannot afford to waste money on "squad strengthening" but must spend what money is available on top quality players that will improve the first team.

[Leonmc0708]

....it comes at the end of another disappoint and miserable season under Benitez, it is the third empty handed seasons in succession,....

I can never read an article and take it seriously when the first sentence includes factually inaccurate stements like this.

2006 FA Cup Winners - Liverpool FC.

[Dundalk]

You have to remember that after 3 games in the group stages we were on the way out and Klinnsmann was on his way in!!

So to get to the semi-final and get put out by the odd goal playing the second leg in the away ground is a great achievment by Rafa and the team.

Get real people.

Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and countless others can only dream of our recent record in Europe. Considering the money available to Rafa compered to the likes of United and Chelsea we are punching above are weight.

Only for this Champions League run the name of this club would have been dragged through the press even worse. Rafa kept the focus of the club on the pitch and hats off to the man

[account deleted by request]

We spent over £70million on transfers this season - which team spent more ?

[metalhead]

We spent over £70million on transfers this season - which team spent more ?

Chelsea spent more than we did in total in 4 years

[Leonmc0708]

We spent over £70million on transfers this season - which team spent more ?

Where ?

[tubby]

Yeah they spent tonnes just building their depth from when Ranieri was there with Cole ect.....We have only just started with the money but are still a few players of having that right depth. Sad thing is we dont know if we will get any more.