Liverpool FC Forum

[lakes10]

most of the time when it come to rafa yes.

but i did like what he had to say.

[A.B.]

Lakes would you give it a rest already?

[The Canadian Red Army]

dawson after that robbie would still say exit 

[Santa]

"I want to win great victories and titles and, for that, I have to thank Real Madrid. Working in the youth system there, even part-time, made me realize that there was something very useful hidden in my brain. And that is, "You always have to win."

HMMM yes thank Real Madrid ...more like Real Madrid take notice that i am biging you up so you will ask me to be your manager.

but apart from that i liked what he had to say i hope that if he stays he will do what he says and win us stuff....the clocks ticking

Lakes you are either blind, a buffoon or Big Sam's lackey. Do you seriously expect this man to walk through the door and performed miracle from day one? Not content to lose Owen before the season starts, we have new long-term injuries to one of our key players averaging about one a month. Souness, Evans and Houllier have brought us 10 years behind the likes of ManU and Arsenal, and we are operating in some sort of finalcial constrain after massive Houllier's transfer dealings, and he is doing a remarkable rebuilding job in light of all these constrains. Show this man some respect. If not, it's time to switch club and I don't give a toss if you go support Bolton cause you obviously like their footballing style there.

[Ciggy]

HMMM yes thank Real Madrid ...more like Real Madrid take notice that i am biging you up so you will ask me to be your manage, i hope that if he stays he will do what he says and win us stuff....the clocks ticking

The clocks ticking   What a stupid remark I sugest the same as Santa, that you go support Bolton FC Pensioners, because no Liverpool fan in the right mind would come out with such stupid comments as you do.

[bigmick]

"The clocks ticking". It ranks up there with one of my missus favourites, "If I'm there I'm there, if I'm not I'm not". Unless it's national state the obvious day, it is a pointless thing to come out with.

[JBG]

Benitez certainly has the pedigree and I am a fan, but even I admit that he has made mistakes this season and there is a genuine fear that some of his signings might backfire. However, I think that if he stays here a while he will get things right and we will see a "new" Liverpool eventually, a decent Liverpool side that will play good football as a team and be pretty competitive. However, my real fear is the power of Chelsea, who have raised the bar significantly, and I think that even huge improvement might not be enough. That is no indictment of Benitez, simply an acknowledgement of Chelsea's massive financial power: even mega rich Man UTD are struggling in the face of it, and love him or loathe him, they have one of the best managers in the business.

Ultimately if Benitez is going to win the title he will need some investment: I'm confident he can build a decent team on the relative cheap, but putting a side together on £10million a season which can win the league might be beyond even him.

Before anyone else mentions Valencia and the lack of money, there is one massive hole in that argument: Valencia were already one of the top 4 or 5 teams in Europe when he took over, and the ground work of a great team had been laid by Hector Cuper and Claudio Ranieri.

[bigmick]

Definately a fair point JBG, the bar has not so much been raised as hoisted. The supports at either end have had to be lengthened by six feet. Nobody would argue that the team with which we did the "five trophies in one season" would finish second in the Premiership these days.
This is not some blind theory, it is confirmed when you look at the number of points you need to avoid relegation these days. It goes down every year because as the top teams become better and more ruthless, they are looking for 3 points every game home or away. We have seen this at Anfield, where ManUre, Arsenal and Chelsea come to win these days, unpalatable but true.
The Arsenal team of this season is no worse on paper than last, and they are 10 points behind Chelsea at the moment and like us, have a realistic possibility of losing one of their best players to their wealthy rivals. It becomes harder and harder to compete. You can build a team which can challenge Chelsea on their day, but build a squad which can go through the season and like them, grind out result after result? very, very difficult without either a massive injection of cash or a long overdue intervention from the powers that be to at least attempt to even out the playing field somewhat (a limit on squad size, salary caps etc etc).

[stmichael]

Definately a fair point JBG, the bar has not so much been raised as hoisted. The supports at either end have had to be lengthened by six feet. Nobody would argue that the team with which we did the "five trophies in one season" would finish second in the Premiership these days.
This is not some blind theory, it is confirmed when you look at the number of points you need to avoid relegation these days. It goes down every year because as the top teams become better and more ruthless, they are looking for 3 points every game home or away. We have seen this at Anfield, where ManUre, Arsenal and Chelsea come to win these days, unpalatable but true.
The Arsenal team of this season is no worse on paper than last, and they are 10 points behind Chelsea at the moment and like us, have a realistic possibility of losing one of their best players to their wealthy rivals. It becomes harder and harder to compete. You can build a team which can challenge Chelsea on their day, but build a squad which can go through the season and like them, grind out result after result? very, very difficult without either a massive injection of cash or a long overdue intervention from the powers that be to at least attempt to even out the playing field somewhat (a limit on squad size, salary caps etc etc).

good post bigmick

it just puts into perspective how strong chelsea have been this season when manure have only lost once since the opening day of the season and are still way behind them. one main difference i see between the top three and us is that they always seem to win when they are not playing well. i mean i watched chelsea against brum at the weekend and they were shocking by their own standards. however they still won comfortably and kept yet another clean sheet. if you look back to the "treble season" our defence was our main strength and that's what our success was built on. we went to roma, porto, barcelona and kept clean sheets.

looking ahead to the final against chelsea, we are going to have to play out of our skins because they just don't concede goals. it is also imperative that if gerrard has an off day, that someone else carries the responsibility.