Liverpool FC Forum

[laza]

Of course the other problem for those who like to whinge or intelligently dissect the current problems facing the club depending on where you sit on the polarizing message board fence is that being proven right is bad for the club

Those who "like to whinge"  We love it mate, love to whinge. Love it when the team doesn't perform so we can get back to our favourite pastime, whinging. Even better if there's been a questionable substitution or some rotation to get our teeth into.

Never let it be said that we come onto a Liverpool discussion board to give an opinion on how the team and manager are performing, we just like to whinge. As for the intellectually dissecting the problems, would it be better if we just whinged without offering any reasoning as to why we disagree?

As for being proven right being bad for the club, this only applies if the manager continues to follow the same mantra which has been unsuccessful doesn't it? If for instance he dropped the selection methods he employs and our fortunes turned for the better, then it would be good for the club (its two fairly big IF's but you take my point).

No I'm sorry I just can't buy this idea that people who have been criticalof the manager are actually wanting the team to lose so they can be "proven right". It certainly doesn't apply to me anyhow.

If Rafa stays next season and carries on with Rafa style I don't personally think it will be effective. I hope we have a good go in the Premeirship though, rafa style or not. If we win it by Rafa stryling and I've got to put up with some much deserved p!ss taking from all the people who've supported rafa through thick and thin then no problem.

Well you did have choice Big M you could be a whinger or a fan intelligently dissecting the problems of the club. Bit like one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

However if you want to be greedy and grab  both titles , who am I to stop you 

[112-1077774096]

osite

ok good result but a few down sides, we have basically papered over a few cracks here.

the main downside is it has extended rafas reign here, secondly we struggled to break down 10 men after their central defender was sent off, they then had to lose their second central defender before we managed to score, inter also had players out injured and players banned.

just thought i would put some perspective on matters before i read the rest of the thread which is no doubt full of 'rafa is a genius' comments while totally forgetting how sh*t we have been and this one result makes everything ok, as though the barnsley result has suddenly been reversed and we are in with a shout in the league.

no doubt some of you will call me a whinger, well ho hum

So what are you saying exactly 2-0 is not good enough agaist the strongest side in Italy? your showing your self up mate you really are.
Do you not understand the fact they had ten men in many ways made it harder because they could sit in and make it almost imposible to get in behind and if anyone can play for a 0-0 its them. As i said your showing you know very little about the game, any excuse eh.

first off did you actually read my post?


the first thing I say is that it's a good result, however i am not going to go down the avenue of believing this one result makes everything else ok, far from it, it has not changed our league position, it has not put us back in the FA cup, it will not change rafas stupid policy of rotation and playing people out of position.

its papered over a few cracks, now quite how telling the truth shows me up i will never know

Yes and you go on about them having to go down to ten men and then also having to lose another player and oh yes then you point out they also had players injured and banned so you grudingly give with one hand before trying to take with the other while completly missing the point that going down to ten man in many ways suited the Italians who wanted a nil nil anyway no doubt.
What has league possition and the FA cup got to do with this match had we won 8-0 we would still be out of both and you`d still be moaning so whats the difference.
Your being childish lad and you know it.

no I am being realistic, you should try it some time.


again i reiterate that i say its a good result but you seem to be ignoring that, it is a good result but it still has many howevers.

i would be even more delighted with the result if i could see it as more than just a one off result, lets not forget here we went out the FA cup cheaply on saturday and we went out of the title race last year. I want the league, rafa doesnt, thats why i am dissapointed, please tell me how the f*ck we can beat Inter but lose to barnsely just 3 days before.

perspective my friend, now i am not going to get into an argument or b*tch fest with you over this

I would love you to tell me how im not being realistic?
So go on then.... What did i say that wasnt realistic?
Think first then type.

your opinion is obviously opposite to mine based on your comments, lets just leave it at that, my feelings are clear, your feelings are clear

Not opposite mate its not as if im happy with the way this seasons turned out but, you have to enjoy the victorys when they come along or whats the point, credit where its due and all that.
I`ll draw a line under it mate and bid good night.

ok mate, cheers, dont get me wrong, i enjoyed the victory immensely, but I am also sad that we focus on these games while struggling in league games, and then people have the audacity to try and tell me rafa wants to win the league.

ah well   

[maguskwt]

It won't be long before we're saying it's all dwon to rotation. Mind you, we did look quite fresh come to think of it   

haven't we the happy clappers been telling you all along? it's NOT rafa's fault that the freshness came about 2 months too late...     

[Kharhaz]

WHo's fault is it that its the wort inter side? the players and the manager? Maybe u shud be calling for mancini's ehad . Look who was defending tonight , Inter was like the great wall of china , 10 men behidn the wall , hell even zlatan was defendng , italian champiosn my  , FORZA Juventus 

Translation please?

Brilliant performance last night, everybody did the club proud, especially the supporters. Does make me wonder though, like the players and manager seem to perform better in the big matches so do the supporters and yet when we are playing "lesser" teams everybody seems to let there performance drop ! including the supporters ! If we can just find a way for us all to perform against the "lesser" teams ......

[maguskwt]

ok... my take on the match...

first of all to be fair to Inter... they were unfortunate to lose a man so early on. The ref had a bad game IMO... he was too trigger happy early on... probably to stamp his authority and let both sides know that they can't mess with him... but it clearly backfired. Once he sent off the-guy-who-was-head-butted-by-zidane he realised he was a bit too harsh and over-compensated all the decisions against us to the point that it became a farce. How we didnt' have a penalty for that obvious handball by viera is beyond me. But credit to us that we never let up and we kept going at them till the end and finally rewarded with 2 deserved goals.

We must not think we're already through though because this is only half time and we all know what happened in 1965 in the return leg.

As for the players I thought Gerrard on the right worked well in the beginning which raises the age old debate about whether he should be deployed on the right with the quality we have in the middle... unless we can sign a world class right winger... Mascherano was again very impressive... Lucas did ok... IMO he needs to work on his passing a bit more... his passes were sometimes short or just a bit too slow... Babel worked the inter defence hard but somehow he still lacks penetration... aurelio seemed be slowly finding his form again so that's a positive... Finnan was as reliable as ever...

We could yet again see the weakness of our play in going forward...we don't have the slick passing of arsenal or the individual brilliance of the mancs and this is the main reason we're struggling to break down teams...  Torres troubled Inter with his running and pace but too often he was left to take on the defenders on his own... and when crouch came on torres just disappeared... I've noticed this for a number of times already... because crouch planted himself in the middle and just keep attempting at goal without trying to find his strike partner... credit to him he did give problems to the inter defenders because of his presence.... but we need to have more interplay between our strikers and midfielders... and that's also why I think kuyt is a more suitable partner to torres and why rafa is so reluctant to play crouch... don't get me wrong though crouch was part of the reason we won last night and his introduction changed the game... kuyt played a good game even when he was played out wide and took his goal very well... he deserved it...all in all, every one of our players had above average performance with masherano, kuyt, gerrard and pennant outstanding for the night...  now for the second leg... 

[Ciggy]

Didnt know Zlatan used to play for Ajax, there was old clips of him on dutch telly last night he called the dutch media a gang of w@nkers and told them to feck off 
And lost his rag in the dutch league on quite a few occasions and was as dirty as Big Dunc.

[Owzat]

Well that was somewhat fortuitous although not undeserved. Liverpool had the better of the game, the yellow cards were a bit harsh on Materazzi and even after he went off we looked rather toothless. Too many players wanting second touches and passes going astray, even into the second half I could see players stood like f in statues in space but causing Inter no problems whatsoever. The first goal was very fortunatate, two goals in three games for Kuyt since he starting playing the full game rather than in and out of the side. The second was a great hit by Gerrard, caught the keeper a little by surprise as you don't normally expect the ball to travel that far along the ground and in. Liverpool were the better side, don't get me wrong, but Inter looked in no real trouble before Materazzi went and for a long time after they looked fine. Our crossing was poor most of the time, not even reaching the target most of the time. Pennant came on and I wondered if he was ever going to cross, he seemed more likely to get in Finnan's way and stem that source of good attacks which made me think that was a daft substitution.

No doubt Crouch will get lots of credit for doing next to nothing (what else isn't new), his first touch in front of what was an open goal took so long to control the ball that he then had to sidestep and get in a shot from a worse angle. His flicks and controlled headers were laughable, however I'd rather see him on the pitch than play against ten men until two thirds of the way into the game with both Lucas and Mascherano on the pitch. Inter posed little threat so why did Mascherano stay on? His passing was worryingly Sissoko-like, one reason I don't want us spending £17m on him, and he was one player could easily have gone off (EDIT : I see he was voted MOTM on the BBC , I'd like to know what for bearing in mind Inter did FA). But I suspect Rafa feared the worst case scenario, losing would have been worse than not winning.

And well played Kuyt, worked hard and scored the crucial opener. Torres perhaps should have done better one on one with Cesar, I know he was being closed down but he could have put the shot almost anywhere and gave a keeper of Cesar's quality every chance of saving it. Let's not get too carried away, Inter were very poor and they can't have gone unbeaten since September last year by being that bad. An away goal would be useful, however I think Rafa will probably play with caution and probably the same XI and try to stop them like they did us for so long and try and hit on the counter. In which case I might play Babel up front alongside Torres, a bit of pace to worry their defence and hit them on the counter with.

[maguskwt]

Didnt know Zlatan used to play for Ajax, there was old clips of him on dutch telly last night he called the dutch media a gang of w@nkers and told them to feck off 
And lost his rag in the dutch league on quite a few occasions and was as dirty as Big Dunc.

yup... he didn't get along with the media there...

would love him to be in our team to partner torres... he has more flare and trickiness than torres but lacks the latter's pace and work ethic... IMO he is a slightly better version of berbatov...

[FRfanatic]

Didnt know Zlatan used to play for Ajax, there was old clips of him on dutch telly last night he called the dutch media a gang of w@nkers and told them to feck off 
And lost his rag in the dutch league on quite a few occasions and was as dirty as Big Dunc.

Indeed nice to mention that although the Dutch League is not to compare with other leagues, 7 players out of the 22 who tonight, played in Holland;(ofcourse most of them lost tonight )

Ibrahimovic,Cruz,Babel,Chivu,Maxwell,Kuyt,Hypiia.

Good win, well played, hope LFC goes with the intention to win to Milan (attacking and not defending)

[Homebooby]

Yes I watched it and we played very well. Took it to them for the first twenty minutes, and just as they were starting to feel their way into it they had Matterazi or whtever the feck his name is sent off. He was a bit unlucky but feck him anyway.

Then we huffed and puffed a bit until about the hour mark when Crouch came on. He caused a bit of unrest in their ranks and missed a couple of half chances, Torres had a one on one brilliantly saved and amidst about twenty six seperate appeals for handball, one on Vierra was certainly a possible. Kuyt switched over to the left wing and actually did OK, while Pennant came on bunged a few crosses over. It was beginning to look a bit like it wasn't going to be our night, when a cross eluded everybody and found Kuyt at the left edge of the box. He smashed it kind of into the ground and up and over the goalie and in (it was a good finish, seriously). Liverpool celebrated like the cup itself was on it's way to Anfield (which it probaby is in truth) and we held our breath that we could keep it at 1-0. Then Gerrard kind of sidestepped two blokes and when it looked like he was going to cross it, smashed a grubber accross the face of the keeper and into the far corner in off the post. On the slow-mo, it was one of those where about fifteen blokes had a slide at it without actually getting a touch, and one of the defenders kind of screamed NNNNNNnaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! as it went in. Everyone went berserk, Effie our labrador started barking and the ref blew the whistle. That was about the size of it mate, worth a watch though.

PML....in a nutshell

[Homebooby]

Didnt know Zlatan used to play for Ajax, there was old clips of him on dutch telly last night he called the dutch media a gang of w@nkers and told them to feck off 
And lost his rag in the dutch league on quite a few occasions and was as dirty as Big Dunc.

Hey Cig, how are you picking up dutch telly from where you are?

[SouthCoastShankly]

Cracking win.

And it only goes to prove what some of us on here have been saying all along, Rafa is a european manager - a bloody good one. Its obvious his talents as a manager lie in the european domain. This doesn't mean his is the right man for the premiership.

It was telling what Didi Hamann said on ITV last night. He basically is saying the european games suit us due to the fact that the opposition want to play and pass and our strengths lie in that free-flowing less intense game. The premiership is far more scrappy and edgy and this is where Rafa has failed to master.

[Ciggy]

Effie our labrador started barking and the ref blew the whistle.

[MilitiaRusher]

Hmm whose our labrador? It can't be Carra. can it?

[Toffeehater]

WHo's fault is it that its the wort inter side? the players and the manager? Maybe u shud be calling for mancini's ehad . Look who was defending tonight , Inter was like the great wall of china , 10 men behidn the wall , hell even zlatan was defendng , italian champiosn my  , FORZA Juventus 

Translation please?

Brilliant performance last night, everybody did the club proud, especially the supporters. Does make me wonder though, like the players and manager seem to perform better in the big matches so do the supporters and yet when we are playing "lesser" teams everybody seems to let there performance drop ! including the supporters ! If we can just find a way for us all to perform against the "lesser" teams ......

LOl sorry was typing in a hurry . I mean to say Who's fault is it that it was the worst inter side ever . The players ? the manager? Maybe they shud start calling for mancini's head then? Inter were the ones defending frantically for their lives , they were like the great wall of china , putting bodies in the way , 10 men behind the ball protecting the goal and he says we were defending