Liverpool FC Forum

[Greavesie]

Just thought Id stick this in here, cheer everyone up

Dundalk this is genius mate! 

[Bad Bob]

another great win that shows we had the players to win the league at a canter this season, what we had was a manager that stifled them, is it fair to say that rafa only let them off the leash when he thought it was all over and no point playing to not lose? some of us have said all along that attacking football will get results and it appears that it has, lets hope he doesnt bottle it again, we need to let these guys play football. The problem will come around champions league time, will he rest key players in the league? he had better not, these guys should be fit to play every game

we had it in our grasp and threw it away, now the mancs are trying their best to do the same, just make sure we are there to pick up the pieces, no more stupid fecking draws against the leagues dross

" attacking football gets results " 

jeez peewee, i wish you were the boss


another way of looking at it is that the boss has had to manage our (limited) resources , inc the loss for large periods of our best forward, our best AM and our first choice CB - with a squad that is much much thinner than the 2 teams above us.

ie. risking results by targetting specific games in which to play at the highest attacking tempo. I wonder/doubt whether our squad could play this kind of game for the entire season

Now, that plan appears to be working, with  our best players fit and seemingly raring to go at the business end of the season, and we're in touch with the supposed "Untouchables"

There is another element to the equation besides Rafa dictating the tempo from match to match.  The common denominator in the past three matches is that we've played teams that have looked to come out and play football at a time when we're hitting peak form.  Our opponents came out and attacked and we've picked them off expertly on the break (e.g. Dossena's goal against Madrid, Gerrard's run for the penalty against the Mancs) and with some very effective route one football to get in behind (e.g. Torres' goal against Madrid, Torres' goal against the Mancs, Dossena's goal against the Mancs, Riera's goal and penalty win against Villa).  In short, when our opponents have pushed forward we have punished them because we have the quality to do so when most everyone's fit and firing.

What we have struggled with all season is not a negative mindset from Rafa, per se, but a lack of creativity in our attempts to break down teams that play for a point.  The buck stops with Rafa, of course, in terms of signing players that will help unlock the park-the-bussers and with sorting out the tactics that will maximize our chances of doing so.  But, I don't think it's simply a matter of Rafa letting the lads off the leash or not.  I still think we need more genuine width and/or a maestro 'between the lines' player who can work in tight spaces to maximize our chances against the park-the-bussers.  I hope Rafa makes such players the priority this summer.

[112-1077774096]

another great win that shows we had the players to win the league at a canter this season, what we had was a manager that stifled them, is it fair to say that rafa only let them off the leash when he thought it was all over and no point playing to not lose? some of us have said all along that attacking football will get results and it appears that it has, lets hope he doesnt bottle it again, we need to let these guys play football. The problem will come around champions league time, will he rest key players in the league? he had better not, these guys should be fit to play every game

we had it in our grasp and threw it away, now the mancs are trying their best to do the same, just make sure we are there to pick up the pieces, no more stupid fecking draws against the leagues dross

" attacking football gets results " 

jeez peewee, i wish you were the boss


another way of looking at it is that the boss has had to manage our (limited) resources , inc the loss for large periods of our best forward, our best AM and our first choice CB - with a squad that is much much thinner than the 2 teams above us.

ie. risking results by targetting specific games in which to play at the highest attacking tempo. I wonder/doubt whether our squad could play this kind of game for the entire season

Now, that plan appears to be working, with  our best players fit and seemingly raring to go at the business end of the season, and we're in touch with the supposed "Untouchables"

Both sides of the coin on the enigma that is Rafa Benitez ! 

Both well made points but who is right ?

Personally I like the second explanation (sorry Peter) but maybe I want to believe that more 

Whatever the case I think a lot of us have had some soul searching to do over the last 10 days when for whatever reason LFC have exploded into the force we all know they can be.

If the Mancs go on and win it they will be the first Prem winners to finish top after losing twice as many games as the runners up !
 

we have all lost players throughout the season, also lets not forget we were good enough to beat the mancs without gerrard and torres so I don't buy into the ifithadntofbeenfer injuries. the fact is even with those injuries we only managed to take two points from 6 against stoke, just think what those extra 4 points are worth to us now, I won't even bother going into the other dropped points or we will be here all day.

limited resources, we had a damn sight more to spend than stoke, or borough, or wigan etc etc etc yet negative football cost us in those games.

Next we will have people telling us rafa knew the mancs would drop ll these points by lulling them into a false sense of security. make no mistake we lost the league months ago, the mancs are trying to give us it back

Ian   

[Scottbot]

What we have struggled with all season is not a negative mindset from Rafa, per se, but a lack of creativity in our attempts to break down teams that play for a point.  The buck stops with Rafa, of course, in terms of signing players that will help unlock the park-the-bussers and with sorting out the tactics that will maximize our chances of doing so.  But, I don't think it's simply a matter of Rafa letting the lads off the leash or not.  I still think we need more genuine width and/or a maestro 'between the lines' player who can work in tight spaces to maximize our chances against the park-the-bussers.  I hope Rafa makes such players the priority this summer.

That's an excellent post mate. There's certainly been negativity from the manager at times when we needed the opposite but your bang on when you highlight the difference in us against teams that comes out to play. it's like the difference between night and day. I don't know what O'neil was thinking today? Very Very naive approach I thought. I couldn't believe he played 2 up when so many others have come and stifled (with success) and the lads duly punished him/them.

As always at Anfield under Rafa, our best performances come when we press the ball all over the pitch. Very few teams can live with us when our pressing game is working to it's full potential and we saw it at it's very best against Madrid last week.

[Scottbot]

we have all lost players throughout the season, also lets not forget we were good enough to beat the mancs without gerrard and torres so I don't buy into the ifithadntofbeenfer injuries. the fact is even with those injuries we only managed to take two points from 6 against stoke, just think what those extra 4 points are worth to us now, I won't even bother going into the other dropped points or we will be here all day.

limited resources, we had a damn sight more to spend than stoke, or borough, or wigan etc etc etc yet negative football cost us in those games.

Next we will have people telling us rafa knew the mancs would drop ll these points by lulling them into a false sense of security. make no mistake we lost the league months ago, the mancs are trying to give us it back

Ian   

Who knows mate, if we'd been just 3 points behind (or even ahead) the mancs going into last weekends game, the score might have turned out completely different. I never thought we stood much of a chance of winning the thing as front-runners to be honest, I always had the feeling we'd get reeled in, buckle under the pressure and the fact it was new territory to be at the top for this team, and that of course is what has happened. But now (somehow!) we're in a cracking position, playing with confidence with all the pressure on the mancs and with a genuine chance of nicking it down the stretch. No doubt it's part due to being closer to the end of the season but I actually fancy our chances of winning it from here far more than i ever did at 7 points clear of the mancs at the turn of the year. Also, regardless of your thoughts on the manager, this has been a VERY impressive run of games that hasn't been achieved in spite of the manager which seems to be what you are suggesting.

[Zidane]

Fans need to look at the players as well, it's not ALL Rafa's fault.  I know it's easy to blame the manager since obviously he is the manager the axe will fall on him no matter what but personally I can't put it all on him.  The players have made mistakes all season long, had dips in form and just have not showed up to games at times.

Yes Rafa is a bit too conservative at times but at times during this season we've had so much turmoil that it almost seemed like players just did not want to give it their all for the man.  I'm not calling any single player out it's just an observation and my personal opinion.  The players can blame themselves for a lot of points this season just as we can blame Rafa.  We had a big dip in form for quite a few games and it came down to the players imo.

Right now though it seems everyone is happy and doing their best to keep things rolling so lets keep this goin.

[112-1077774096]

I am not suggesting this run is in spite of the manager at all, I am pointing out that trusting the players abilities to play attacking football pays , if wewere one point ahead I doubt we would be playing this way, in fact when we were 7 points ahead we didn't play this way. rafas hand has been forced and hopefully he will continue this way.

on another note anyone notice the difference in our football since he signed his contract?

[Madmax]

Anyone noticed the ex-Reds up against Man U in the Title run-in?

After Danny Murphy scoring the pen yesterday it got me thinking:

Man U play:

A Villa - Heskey
Sunderland - Cisse
Portsmouth - Crouch
Spurs - Keane
Man City - Bellamy
Wigan - Kirkland (Could have a stormer)
Hull - Barmby

Maybe some of our ex-players can do the bizz for us???

  that would be fantastic if that does happen i feel they deserve a medal aswel!!

[yolz]

Just 1 point seperates us from Man U
Although Man U  does have a game in hand
All the pressure's on Man U, and with us on such fine form,
let's just keep up the positivity and momentum
We'll nick the league or the CL, for sure

[Ciggy]

5 fucking nil please need to get that goal difference up 

Told yers 

[Scottbot]

5 fucking nil please need to get that goal difference up 

Told yers 

Mystic Cig!

[ConnO'var]

Superb result. Utterly made up!

That's EXACTLY how you do it boys!

[RobinHood6969]

Awesome game..Total rip off..But i didnt like Brad Friedel's sending off.. He would have made some crucial saves against the mancs 

[Owzat]

No mention of Arbeloa Bob?

I though he was contender for Man of the Match.

?? Even though he had two chances to score or at least frigging shoot at goal and panicked both times? He was good in defence though and that of course is his job.

  Yeah, the 'deer in the headlights' moment was hilarious.  Probably couldn't believe it when Friedel put it on a platter for him and then sh!te himself trying to decide what to do with it. 

Probably by the time he realised how good an opportunity it was, Friedel had made it less so and so he unselfishly looked to play someone in with a better angle. Unfortunately the rest of the team were so far back, not expecting such an awful gaffe by the keeper, that only Torres was coming back - and there were bound to be defenders closer than attackers.

Excellent game again for us, buoyed by the early goal from a set-piece. Isn't it ironic that villa, villa, who the f'ck are villa, are supposedly set-piece experts and we scored from two free-kicks (one indirectly) and two pens against them. Shame that Friedel may miss the manc game, I doubt it will be rescinded and seeing replays I don't think he's as innocent as is claimed. Second goal was crucial, they could have equalised which in past weeks and months may well have happened, but Reina was superb and aptly set up Riera to finish brilliantly. It may have finished 5-0, but it could so easily have been 1-1 as 2-0 early on.

The real shame is that we can play like that, but often don't. Does it take the early goal? We've played football like that before this season, sometimes without a cutting edge - let's face it only one goal was scored directly from open play and that was with them pushing for an equaliser - and other times it has faded in the second half. I was a bit surprised Rafa didn't take Torres off, give him a bit of respite.

Only seven times previously have we scored more than five goals in the Premiership, oddly enough three of those times were away from home.

Premiership Bests

16/01/09 Liverpool 7-1 Southampton
28/10/95 Liverpool 6-0 Man City
09/02/02 Ipswich 0-6 Liverpool
26/04/03 West Brom 0-6 Liverpool
01/09/07 Liverpool 6-0 Derby County
20/08/94 Liverpool 6-1 Crystal Palace
08/05/93 Liverpool 6-2 Tottenham

Sunday's win was our 7th Premiership score of 5-0. And that is the 6th time we've won by 5+ goals to nil under Rafa


As for the title race, it is still in manc hands to lose. We've done all we can by reducing the gap and scoring enough to put us up on GD, but we still need other sides to do us favours.

Home : A Villa (5th), Portsmouth (15th), Tottenham (11th), Man City (10th), Arsenal (4th)

Away : Sunderland (14th), Middlesboro (19th), Wigan (7th), Hull (13th)

We dropped points at home to Man City and away to Wigan and Boro, unfortunately I think the mancs are more likely to drop points at home than away given their remaining opposition. Tot up the remaining games and positions for us as well :-

Man Utd Home : 5 teams, ave position 9th
Liverpool Home : 4 team, ave position 12th/13th

Man Utd Away : 4 teams, ave position 13th
Liverpool Away : 4 teams, ave position 12th/13th

We have the supposedly easiest team remaining, bottom of the pile WBA away. We look to have the slightly easier run-in, but West Ham and Fulham away are tricky and Arsenal at home may prove unpredictable for both ourselves and the mancs. I gather the mancs will be without Vidic, Rooney and Scholes against villa, sadly I also gather Friedel may miss that game so that may prove more crucial.

I just hope Fulham realise how crucial the red card was in their win and don't take too much confidence from that win. Not sure if Rafa mentioning how crucial that red card was (pre-match) would be a good strategy or merely give them motivation to prove him wrong. I was interested in debate about how the international break would work for the teams, if the timing is good for the mancs giving them a breather and time to put their back to back defeats behind them, and it could work against us as it comes bang in our run of four straight wins, 13 goals in 3 games and 15 in 4 games and we have a tricky away tie to follow the international break.

Anyone on here now/still unhappy we didn't get Heskey? Ironic that so many praise villa for having so many English players and they get outclassed so easily be a team with only two English players - the biggest irony being one of our only two English players got a hat-trick. Just goes to prove quality is better than quantity........................

To paraphrase Alan Hansen - "you win nothing with English"

[GRAHAM01]

5 fucking nil please need to get that goal difference up 

Told yers 
Mystic Cig!

makes me think of brian conleys septic peg    sorry ciggs 

anyway as i have not said it yet FECKING GET IN THERE you boys done well

gerrard never went out last night did he??