Liverpool FC Forum

[Scottbot]

Why do we always fall short of the league...... baffles me, but to say were not as good as the top 3 is b0ll0cks!!!!
Stats DONT lie where we fall short is the likes of Brum, blackburn and co....maybe our squad aint big enough-who knows but i hope Rafa gets it right this year!

Galactic - By that rationale, if we did the double on the mancs, chelsea and arsenal next season but lost every other game. Can we then claim to be better than all three of them? It doesn't work like that.

Sure, we can raise ourselves for the big games but the very fact these three swatted teams like Birmingham, Villa and Palace IS what makes them a better team than us right now.

Yes we are CHAMPIONS of Europe but we are NOT the best team in Europe otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here saying we need to replace Traore, Kewell, Biscan and other who have been mentioned.

The Rafalution still has some way to go for me.

[kopite_1232002]

i agree with you sayin that teams will want to beat us. teams always want to beat us were liverpool football club but the point us about not challaging for the EPL, well no one thought lpool would be champions of europe. rafa is the man and with the foundation of what we got already and the new quality players were bringin in i think we will be right up there. iv we get a striket who can fire 35+ goals a season we willl be sound. its a good time to be a lpool fan

[zarababe]

.. I think our CL campaign and some of our performances in the league have shown, what we are capable of and the fight in us 'never say die attitude'.. of course we've played badly too but .. the following factors have led a number iof pundits to bracket us as 'challengers' for the title alongside the 'other' three cos winning the big one .. ain't no mean feet:

What tips the balance for a good show in the premiership:

- confidence from winnin CL..
- renewed conviction and belief
- new players
- Mmorientes (:D )
- and the ... the Speacial One .. Rafael Benitez

.... we'll be up ther challenging .. and who knows... 

[babu]

Damn Galactico, I really hope everything you say is true. However I beleive stats can lie, or they can misrepresent what actually happened on the pitch - in our favour or against. I have watched a quite a fews games where everything in the stats was in favour of the losing team except the goals.

But whether or not they are true or not doesn't really matter, they finished with far more points than us, and that is what we need to fix. Right from the start we need to stay in the hunt and not give chelski , ars.e and manc breathing room. This means putting away the lower teams that invariably raise their game against us.

On our day i believe we can be beat anything around, but doing it week in and week out is the key.

[Galactico]

Look fellas im not saying were the Brazil 1970 squad however the majority of you "appear" to believe were second rate!!- Were not! Yes agreed stats on many occasions dont tell the whole story, but dont take anything away from the fact we do play equally and at times BETTER than "The top three" in truth Rafa simply needs to bang thier heads together and explain that three or six points against Arsenal or Chelsea is the same value as three or six points against the likes of Spurs, brum and co. They all add up!!!

But please to say were behind Arsenal as a squad is a lie Wenger has simply sorted thier bloody heads out that a win is a win and it's three more points in thier sh*tty bag!!

Put it this way FORGET the rest of the prem for a moment: IF we played Arsenal over 10 games i'd say it work out to 50-50 a couple of wins either way and a few draws, right best of ten- Now if you all agree with me on this statement, best of ten jobby, WHY then do you still have this illusion Arsenal as a squad is better than LFC as a squad? im not talking about who's more consistent, which they are but nevertheless were better in Europe (2005 and 2001)

I all hope you can understand what im trying to state here forget the other games.....just us v Arsenal the mancs chelsea, and the majority of you should agree with me that the four squads are on a par!!- WE ARE AS GOOD!!!

[Ciggy]

Look fellas im not saying were the Brazil 1970 squad however the majority of you "appear" to believe were second rate!!- Were not! Yes agreed stats on many occasions dont tell the whole story, but dont take anything away from the fact we do play equally and at times BETTER than "The top three" in truth Rafa simply needs to bang thier heads together and explain that three or six points against Arsenal or Chelsea is the same value as three or six points against the likes of Spurs, brum and co. They all add up!!!

But please to say were behind Arsenal as a squad is a lie Wenger has simply sorted thier bloody heads out that a win is a win and it's three more points in thier sh*tty bag!!

Put it this way FORGET the rest of the prem for a moment: IF we played Arsenal over 10 games i'd say it work out to 50-50 a couple of wins either way and a few draws, right best of ten- Now if you all agree with me on this statement, best of ten jobby, WHY then do you still have this illusion Arsenal as a squad is better than LFC as a squad? im not talking about who's more consistent, which they are but nevertheless were better in Europe (2005 and 2001)

I all hope you can understand what im trying to state here forget the other games.....just us v Arsenal the mancs chelsea, and the majority of you should agree with me that the four squads are on a par!!- WE ARE AS GOOD!!!

Sorry mate but we are NOT we have finished so many points behind the top 3 for 16 years now, ok maybe not as much as 30 points, but we are not as good as Arsenal, Chelsea, or the mancs, just face it.
Them match goers that pay 100s of pound a year home and away know this more than anyone, 14 times we got beat last season and for a club as big as Liverpool thats simply not good enough.
We finished behind the bitters   that alone tells you we are way way behind the top 3.
Hopefully next season we will change that and the players get this (mentality) of we can and will beat every team put infront of us.
How many of our players would get into the top 3 teams? I reckon 3-4 at the most, gerrard, Alonso, Cisse?, Riise? how many of there players would get into a Liverpool side? I would say 8 players of each of the top 3. I think we are 5 players short of matching the top 3.

[Galactico]

Ummm........ i just like to point out that ive contradicted myself slightly on whether stats lie or dont- They are sometimes misleading!!!!
Now on the whole consistency thing i truly believe that our European campaign has clearly shown we are more than capable of being consistent( We started a bit eratic, Graz, but eventually ended up flawless). Given the right signings and more importantly the right mentality and attitude to each and EVERY match.... we will be dominant!!!!!!

[Galactico]

All right say vieria injured for 4 months
Henry injured for 6 months
Pires moaning about a "groin" problem all season f*ckin long
Gilberto dogged by contract talks
The Keepers constantly being shuffled around
Along with six new faces joining thier side not to mention new tactics and training regimes
? ??

.........Like i said this season we WILL definetly close the gap- Because we are as good

Lets forget Arsenal a second and focus on Chelsea...semi finals of the European Cup over two legs they manged just TWO shots on target. When this Current side puts thier minds to it were as good as anyone. Your all quick to defend a top three "challenge"- Fair enough now ask yourselves what if RAFA had that mentallity your all showing- "Ohhhh...were improving"-b0ll0cks with 30mil just spent on last season and another 35-40 mil this season there are no excuses but to DEFINETLY be challenging especially as the "big" three are in complete disary!!

[babu]

Ok Galactico, i think i agree with you when you say if we matched up over ten games with Ar.se or chelski it would be even 50-50 (or maybe i'm just being one-eyed). You won't get much arguement from me there, but what the hell does that tell us?

absolutly nothing. I mean so what? Only thing you can say is that we are not a worse team than ar.se head to head, certainly can't say we're better (yet...com'on 'pool).

while in the meantime they accrue more points than we do in epl.

[JC_81]

A one off game........ that was two games i posted home AND away...And if you look carefully at BOTH you'll see were not as good as Arsenal...BUT better than Arsenal. Oh yes the league (injuries maybe, new look team) But why not have a look at the European Cup PERMANENTLY on display!!!

Or in your eyes (john craig) an F.A. cup is maybe better than the European Cup

Oh by the way this is Arsenal's record compared to us throughout the premiership years:

Liverpool V Arsenal Premiership Stats

Overall Record

Home  Away     
P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  GD  PTS 
26 7  3   3 2410 5  4    4 11 13+12  43

Why do we always fall short of the league...... baffles me, but to say were not as good as the top 3 is b0ll0cks!!!!
Stats DONT lie where we fall short is the likes of Brum, blackburn and co....maybe our squad aint big enough-who knows but i hope Rafa gets it right this year!

Tried to be rational with you before but now its clear that you're full of sh.ite

And when did i say the fa cup was better than the european cup??

Just stop posting on this thread as you are embarrassing yourself

[neilE]

Galactico, you're right that we CAN be good enough, but the others are right that we haven't done it in the league. That's grounds for optimism, given you can bet Rafa will be drumming it into the players they should be winning the league. Winning the European Cup is phenomenal, and it should straighten out a few players minds. At the moment we could put out 11 players who can give anyone a game, but we didn't have enough players to cover CL and league - our form was worse than the relegation battlers for a while. I think we need 5 or 6 good squad players AT LEAST, before we'll win the league again - which could be next season. It would be stupid to lose sight of reality, but we must believe...................

[Galactico]

I aint taking anything away from the league we were poor.......dog sh*t to be precise but we do have excuses:

1 we have had miserable injuries.
2 almost all of the players were playing in a new formation, tactics, players and what not.
3 but most of all they had to be pulled out this dark cloud Houllier had built- And install belief!
4 Most notably for me i felt Rafa prioities after the Leverkusen games remained on Europe conserving our best players the Euro showdowns as opposed to risking them in the league

Liverpool in whole were not believers in Europe up until after the first leg against juve in Europe Gerrard quoted as saying "we wont win it"
with this mentallity you dont win sh*t.
Liverpool at the start of the season players were quoting that they didnt really understand what "Rafa was trying to implemement in tactics"
We only had ONE first fit striker for about 6 months-And we all know he cant score!!! (Morientes was way out of match fitness)
And finallly the motivation factor...."Right.. juve away in 2 weeks but in the meantime we got Fulham at home albion away city away?"-B*gger. Its almost impossible to remain consistent when week in week out your having injuries like we had.

However i firmly believe these problems are well addressed and the fact we beat milan in the manner we did goes to show that we are capable of beating the best of the best. We didnt shriek or buckle but we finally showed the determinaton that these players are capasble of. Bare in mind prior to the chelsea showdown Mourinho was aked if he was suprised that Liverpool were in the semi-finals- Mourinho said " NO...thier league performance suprises me, not the fact they are in the semi-final of a European cup"

Another point if we were beyond the top three why does Rafa quote "Despite winning the Champions League we still in my opinion have had a bad season!"

Sorry i cant get the original quotes but if need be i'll find them: Now i personally share thier views......and as for the fella with down syndrome who thinks i shouldn't post cos i "believe" - F*ck off!!!!!

[Galactico]

Sorry....thats a bit a harsh, but the point i'm trying to make out is that your not a better team because your more consistent, there are numerous reasons why teams are more consistent than others especially in different competitions (injuries, squad rotation, morale, distractions etc....) The gunners for example are NOT consistent in Europe but are consistent in the league. Does thier game suit the league...probably yes. But remember two seasons ago when Campbell was sent off for the foul on giggs -(i think) Arsenal ended up throwing away the league when 7 points clear....did they rely to heavily on certain players?- We lost cisse for 7 months lads ARGUABLY our only consistent goalscorer!!-( Based on his performances with Auxerre).

Now if you believe consistency in the prem ALONE means your a better team YOU ARE STATING EVERTON ARE BETTER THAN US!!!!!!!!!!! now dont role your heads cos that is what your saying. Your chosing to ignore the fact we played better than Arsenal over the two games by simply judging us on our consitency-Arsenal did better agianst Palace and brum....Thier better than us, but do remember so did Everton and on your argument, which true is a fact by looking at the CONSISTENT teams Everton are better???

Man for man were as good as any of the top three. We do have excuses for not being as consistent, but this argument brings me back to my original argument that it is imperative we spend the bulk of our money on Prem class players. Because there is no reason to say we wont have another injury plagued season again and we certainly cannot rely on foreign based (Italian, Spanish) players in the prem. Hopefully with 3 or 4 new faces and the current crop knowing the tactics etc.... we will know what to expect we will be much better prepared.