Liverpool FC Forum

[RobinHood6969]

1 game at a time maybe?

Lose the next one and its all over haha people are talking about the Arsenal game being decisive and everything

Let's get fulham over with first

Yes but we can win the league if we quietly do our job

[Alex G.]

Must win: (Away)

Fulham - West Ham - Hull - WBA


Must win: (Home)

Blackburn - Newcastle - Tottenham


We can only fail with Arsenal game

[RobinHood6969]

Must win: (Away)

Fulham - West Ham - Hull - WBA


Must win: (Home)

Blackburn - Newcastle - Tottenham


We can only fail with Arsenal game

Yes we are in a cherish or perish situation, the time when our team really lifts its performance levels. hope they continue the same

[tubby]

Must win: (Away)

Fulham - West Ham - Hull - WBA


Must win: (Home)

Blackburn - Newcastle - Tottenham


We can only fail with Arsenal game

We cannot fail in any game. If we do it will dent our confidence.

[Alex G.]

Must win: (Away)

Fulham - West Ham - Hull - WBA


Must win: (Home)

Blackburn - Newcastle - Tottenham


We can only fail with Arsenal game

We cannot fail in any game. If we do it will dent our confidence.

Yes, but when we have won 8-9 games in a row?.

I hope this time, but we need the subs at his best form.

[Owzat]

I think winning our home games is a must, the mancs almost certainly won't drop (m)any points at old trafford. We need to think of this not in terms of us needing the mancs to drop four points, but as us needing them to drop four points more than us. If we can afford to drop any points, that will greatly reduce our chances, then it has to be away or Arsenal.

We're better than Fulham, West Ham, Fulham and WBA so we must absolutely push for the win without being too gung ho. But that said we can't afford to be too relaxed at home, we need to approach all our games like we did villa and Real Madrid - home or away. Early goals may be key, I think we'll all be too tense for words if any of the last eight games are 0-0 at half time, even the tougher/toughest of them - maybe more so.

Last time we won 8-9 games in a row was 05/06, the mancs won ELEVEN in a row in the league before we did them over at their's and is why they were in a strong position and still are to a lesser degree. I think they were very much helped by six of those games coming in blocks of three in January when they were playing catch-up. Both sets of three started with a convincing win then two less convincing 1-0s. But importantly (for them) they won them, games in hand are nothing if you don't convert them to wins and that's exactly what they did. Even a draw is a waste of games in hand

[Alex G.]

I think if we win the all away games we´ll win the league. Blackburn, Newcastle and Spurs at home are not a real thread with our current form.

[Owzat]

Next 10 league games (corresponding 07/08 results in brackets)

Portsmouth (a) D0-0 : 08/09 W3-2
Man City (h) W1-0 : 08/09 D1-1
Middlesboro (a) D1-1 : 08/09 L0-2
Sunderland (h) W3-0 : 08/09 W2-0
Man Utd (a) L0-3 : 08/09 W4-1
ASTON VILLA (h) D2-2 : 08/09 W5-0
Fulham (a) W2-0 : 08/09 W1-0
Blackburn (h) W3-1
Hull (a) n/a
Newcastle (h) W3-0

After 7 games :-

07/08  P7 W3 D3 L1 F9 A6 PTS 12 (out of 21)
08/09 P7 W5 D1 L1 F16 A6 PTS 16 (out of 21)

Still four points better off overall in corresponding fixtures than last season, really is a shame we went and lost to that shower boro. But that has been Rafa's achilles heel, dropping points to the relegation sides - palace in 04/05, Birmingham (twice) and Reading in 07/08 etc

If we can win the next two home games then that should give us a lift ahead of what potentially tricky away games we have left. It may not be much pressure on the mancs, but a draw at home to villa would leave them behind (crucially) with a game in hand and doubt will continue to creep in. Lose to villa, unlikely as that may be, and doubt will flood in. Then a win in their game in hand would put them only one point ahead and that's nothing, especially given the goals for and GDs. Come on villa, you owe us a few wins over the mancs for your poor record against them so start today

[THEBARON]

Well the mancs still have to play Arsenal - so they could drop points there. Plus they have got City at home - maybe they could up there as well.
Because of their game in hand they are still favourites - but if we can win 6 out of 7 then we have a fighting chance.
Arsenal at home is where we might drop points

[Effes]

Next 10 league games (corresponding 07/08 results in brackets)

Portsmouth (a) D0-0
Man City (h) W1-0
Middlesboro (a) D1-1
Sunderland (h) W3-0
MAN UTD (a) L0-3
Aston Villa (h) D2-2
Fulham (a) W2-0
Blackburn (h) W3-1
Hull (a) n/a
Newcastle (h) W3-0

07/08 P9 W5 D3 L1 PTS 18 (out of 27)

Thought I'd revisit this:

So we've played 8 of the 10, and have accrued 19 pts.

Arsenal replaces Newcastle in the list.

I guessed 23-25pts, so looks like that will be right.

[Alex G.]

Must win: (Away)

Fulham - West Ham - Hull - WBA


Must win: (Home)

Blackburn - Newcastle - Tottenham


We can only fail with Arsenal game

Calm down mates, everything is going on as i predicted, we are gonna win the league.

[Owzat]

Some may think I should add last night's game, well it wasn't originally in the list so I won't. This update is because I saw the topic and knew it wasn't bang up to date

Next 10 league games (corresponding 07/08 results in brackets)

Portsmouth (a) D0-0 : 08/09 W3-2
Man City (h) W1-0 : 08/09 D1-1
Middlesboro (a) D1-1 : 08/09 L0-2
Sunderland (h) W3-0 : 08/09 W2-0
Man Utd (a) L0-3 : 08/09 W4-1
ASTON VILLA (h) D2-2 : 08/09 W5-0
Fulham (a) W2-0 : 08/09 W1-0
Blackburn (h) W3-1 : 08/09 W4-0
Hull (a) n/a
Newcastle (h) W3-0

After 8 games :-

07/08  P8 W4 D3 L1 F12 A7 PTS 15 (out of 24)
08/09 P8 W6 D1 L1 F20 A6 PTS 19 (out of 24)

We drew at home to Arsenal last season so that's no shocker. We need six points from the next two games or that really is challenge over. Bl**dy North London, Arsenal denied us last game of the season in 1989 and we've not won any of our four games against Arsenal or spudz this season. We need North London to do us favours, the mancs have two games in hand and face both North London clubs. Two draws would throw the cat right back among the pigeons. I haven't seen too much media coverage or heard too many opinions from non-Liverpool fans, but I'm guessing we've been written off again like we were just before we were "back in the title race". Pundits change their views from one week to the next, how exactly does that distinguish them from joe public?

Norf Lundan vs top 3

TOT 2-1 LIV
ARS 1-1 LIV
LIV 4-4 ARS
ARS 2-1 MNU
TOT 0-0 MNU
CHE 1-2 ARS
CHE 1-1 TOT
TOT 1-0 CHE

MNU vs TOT
MNU vs ARS
ARS vs CHE
LIV vs TOT

So none of the top three has beaten Arsenal or spudz this season in the Premiership - P8 W0 D4 L4 F9 A13 PTS 4/24. In fact that makes our 4-4 the best result of Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool against the North Londoners in the Premiership this season - with three home games against them for the top two between them

[bunglemark2]

I think Reina has just stated the obvious :

Stop conceding goals !

[Owzat]

I think Reina has just stated the obvious :

Stop conceding goals !

Actually I'd rather we kept pressing for goals than over-react to conceding four when three of them were direct or indirectly down to individual errors. Would dropping Arbeloa, Aurelio and Mascherano be proportionate to the problem?

We had to press for goals at Stamford Bridge since we had to score three or more goals. We could have become more cagey at 2-0 but is that down to the defence or the manager making sure the players didn't get carried away? Ironic really that you could blame Reina for them getting back into it and the start of their fightback.

But it is an over-reaction to suggest we should go back to being miserly, we kept four clean sheets in the previous five Premiership games. We may have conceded 10 goals in our last 10 games, but we had fallen way behind in the title race and needed wins - we scored 26 goals and won seven games out of 10 at which point Reina wasn't crying over goals conceded.

Games 01-11 : P11 W8 D2 L1 F16 A8 PTS 26
Games 12-22 : P11 W5 D6 L0 F20 A6 PTS 21
Games 23-33 : P11 W7 D3 L1 F27 A11 PTS 24

So we've only conceded three more goals in the last 11 games than we did in the first 11 games. We may have only conceded six goals in the middle spell of the three, but that was when we dropped most points. And one stat bears repeating, relating to the one where the team that wins the most games tend to win the league :-

Liverpool Premiership Goals 08/09

0 goals : P6 W0 D5 L1 F0 A2 PTS 5 (Won 0.00%)
1 goal : P9 W4 D4 L1 F9 A6 PTS 16 (Won 44.44%)
2 goals : P7 W6 D1 L0 F14 A4 PTS 19 (Won 85.71%)
3+ goals : P11 W10 D1 L0 F40 A13 PTS 31 (Won 90.91%)

It may be true that you can't lose if you don't concede, but those stats show that you win more games the more goals you score, a whopping 80% of our wins have come when we've scored more than one goal and only twice have we scored more than one and not won. Our blight of draws come when we don't score or score only one, we cannot guarantee our defence won't concede and the crabby song with the line "we're going to score one more than you" doesn't read "we're going to score one goal and win". Besides which cagey hasn't been that successful under Rafa, and we've played all the big guns and so should be able to outscore West Ham (7th), Tottenham (9th) Hull (16th), Newcastle (19th), WBA (20th)

And just to emphasise the point, even when we had our best Premiership season in 05/06 we were scoring goals in the best spells :-

10 wins in a row : P10 W10 D0 L0 F21 A1 PTS 30
9 wins in a row : P9 W9 D0 L0 F23 A6 PTS 27

Just twice in each spell did we win 1-0, shows the virtue of scoring goals. We've won only 21 league games by the margin of 1-0 under Rafa out of 103 wins and 185 games.

Premiership defeats/draws Under Rafa

Defeats = 36
Lost to nil = 28
Lost to one = 8

Draws = 46
0-0 = 20
1-1 = 16
2-2 = 9
3-3 = 0
4-4 = 1

So basically we've never lost having scored twice or more in the Premiership under Rafa, so all our league defeats have come when we've scored one or nil. Of the 200 points we have dropped in the league, 124 have been dropped when we've failed to score (62%) and 56 when we've scored only one (28%)

[bunglemark2]

Jesus Christ man...you must be a barrel of laughs at dinner parties with such an array of statistics...