Liverpool FC Forum

[66-1112520797]

One thing we definatly lack in comparison to our rivals in the EPL, and especially the two who have always finished above us during Rafas reign is assertiveness. We do not bully our opponents or the referee and rarely manipulate the press. I know we hate the jibes of fergie putting pressure on the referees via the press, and winding up rival managers, and the way Terry, Ferdinand et al pressurise officials, but they have taken advantage and been allowed to while we on the whole play a little more fairly, which has and will cost us whilst they are allowed to get away with it.

Oh come on Redtrader, I'd of thought you'd have more balls to atleast nearly get our problems right in the league. FFS manipulating the press, or the referee ........... Kinell I've heard it all now  It amazes me how the same old people on here turn around and blame EVERYTHING apart from the obvious, the mind boggles.

I've heard them all now, injuries, Manipulting the press (sorry but I just cannot stop   at that one) bulley the referee (Did our past legends "bulley" refs ?) No of course they didnt they won by playing football. The other excuse that still has me chuckling is 'our fixture list is too hard WTF ?)

Alot of you need to pull your head out of the sand, otherwise you'll be making these excuses for the forseable future and lose sight on the game of football itself. Thats where its going wrong on the field nowhere else, dont start clutching at straws to find a sorry excuse, its cringe worthy.

I dont dislike Rafa, and by reading the stats on the first page our progress if atall has been slow but steady ?

Well even thats debatable, like I said before it seems more viable to qualify for the CL these days than it does to win a title. As long as Rafa qualifies us each year into the CL it seems his job is safe, if he went gung ho for the league and got knocked out of the CL (early stages) people would be questioning the security of his job. Ala Reading 3 Liverpool 1, then a few days later we beat Marseille in the CL. At this time there was alot of talk and thats all it was that if he failed to overcome Marseille those two idi.ots would have him sacked. So what did he do in the Reading game, hauled Torres and Gerrard off, an obvious sign of submission in a result to save them for the Marseille game. Also playing Crouch wide left wasnt exactly a mastermind move.

That one instance alone proves that there is a certain prioritising  going on, even Rafa admitted a couple of months ago. Straight from the horses mouth, he said more or less that if your out of one competition you tend to focus on the other one, the one you have more chance of winning. And that seems to happen EVERY October/November when we've ALREADY blown our chances in the league because of our mentality towards our domestic opponents, we focus on the CL.

Clear as mud, and like Mick said either Rafa is trying to win the league but is having zero success in it, which ponders a thought or two, namely from the 'Rafa cannot be critised camp' it will be 'we dont manipulate the press' or 'its the refs fault' or 'ManU have more money than us, so we can just roll over and not expect a title challenege', you know the same old weak @rse excuses week in week out.
Or you can take would I would call a realistic view, which is ....instead of pointing the blame everywhere else bar the team and manager, I'd do the obvious and query to myself why is it not happening for us.

Manipulating the press .......  V ..... Poor team performances

ManU&Chelsea have more money..V.. Needless rotation and poor team selection.

The ref, sky and the whole wold is against us .. V... Winning mentality.

It took Fergie seven years .... V ..... Signing the right players

H&G ......... V ........... Heads down @rses up in training, woking hard

F.uckin hell people, where do our probems lie ^^ Left or right hand side above ? I definately know Sabre, Redtrader, LFC2007, Bob and a few others cough up the Left hand side excuses, and for me you all need a reality check on the game of football itself. All four of them are very good posters, and I like to read theit thoughts at the end of every match, they write some good stuff. But for good writers like that to post away excuses after excuses (apart from game thoughts) is a waste of good writing Put your academic, well thought out posts to the route of the problem fellas, it ould be much more interesting to read.

Mick also said something like Rafa isnt having success in the league because he isnt focusing on the league.

So either he is focusing on the league and coming up short all the time, or he isnt focusing on the league. Whatever the case maybe, and it can ONLY be from those two options, Rafa especially and the players arent getting something right.

[Owzat]

Our home results are good enough, our away results aren't. We're too happy to draw away and see it as a "good result", the truth is draws aren't good enough for teams at the very top and bottom of any league. We need to be averaging over two points per game to challenge not keep dropping two points. The points difference between us and the mancs is in the draws column.

And we're almost incapable of consistently beating the top sides, the mancs have won four of the five 'big four' clashes they've played this season while we've drawn all expect those against the mancs. That sums it up, the mancs are confident they can beat anyone and prove it, we know we can beat anyone on our day but sadly that day often doesn't come. And dropping silly points at home has to stop, six draws at home is too many. Ironically our away record isn't that bad this season, but to win the league you need 27+ wins and we will end at least five short

[Judge]

Nuff said fella, nae bother from me.

no novel?

[66-1112520797]

Nuff said fella, nae bother from me.

no novel?

I reckon it was Mick who wrote the Bible. 

[crazyhorse]

No, that was the magna carta!

[Judge]

Nuff said fella, nae bother from me.

no novel?

I reckon it was Mick who wrote the Bible. 

dead sea scrolls i think 

[dawson99]

actually it was Yongle Dadian 

(intelligent humour for a friday morning!!!)

[stmichael]

I agree with most of Micks comments to now. However I really do not think that as a club we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were under GH. There are many reasons for this but to my mind as Mick has already said the ONLY measure we should apply as to our improvement is our performance in the LEAGUE. We know we have an excellent team, capable on its day of beating any team put in front of us - but we also know that since the early 90s the one thing we have never been able to do is be consistent week in week out. Every season since 1990 there has been a month or six week period in the season that has seen us lose several games and put ourselves out of contention.

You can list each manager we have had since then and yes you can always put a reason to our underperformance - Souness, too many poor signings and tactically inept. Evans - had a really talented squad but some would say was too much of a nice guy. Houllier - Headstrong and brought in far too many mediocre players. And now Rafa - Rotation, Rotation, Rotation (Although I believe that he is shifting on this). Each of these managers has brought success in cup competions but failed to deliver the title that we all want and deserve. Why?

I do not think that there is a definitive answer to this qustion. However when you look at the current top three in detail there are different approaches that they have employed which have brought success.

Man Utd - They have a firm and solid foundation, and have possibly the biggest fan base in the world which brings he wealth with it. Ferguson although we hate him has been a fantasitic servant and is tactically first class - he has built the success of the team based upon the old fashioned principles of his predecessors. Build a spine and invest in youth - He has spent a lot of money, but how many big named signings have been failures?. I can only really think of Seba Veron. Fergie has only spent money on talent that will improve the squad and has been careful not to introduce too many new faces to upset the balence of his side.

Arsenal - Wenger is another fantastic manger, no matter how much we think him arrogant this has to be acknowedged. He has not spent a lot of money, but has built a squad based on youth and potential and combined this with experience. You can tell his players enjoy playing for him - how many actually leave? and those that do have normally been at the club for years and are in need of a change for the good of their career. Arsenal are the best footballing side in the league and possibly in Europe.

Chelsea - Completely different. A new breed of club that has built itself into a challenger through corporate investment. They have developed the whole area aound the ground into a complex almost like a town in its own right, and now have a chairman with more money than sense. They have invested heavily in the playing staff and in Mourinio had the charasmatic manager to carry it all off. This is in my opinion not sustainable, and eventually I believe that Abramovic will withdraw his money - the challenge for them is by that time to have built themselves into a business so profitable that they can sustain the spending themselves. Chelsea have bought the title, but their route to success is still uncertain in terms of keeping it up.

Liverpool - We are really not too much like any of the above. I look at the first team squad now and do not see many names that came through the youth system (two notable exceptions aside). I see several players on which a lot of money has been spent and none apart from one has delivered the goods in the way that we hoped. The atmosphere in the board room is chaotic and the new ground seems a long way away. Successive managers have made very poor signings (I dare not go through the list and add up how many millions have been wasted) and truly inspired signings have been few and far between. In recent years I stil think the best signing we have made is Sami but The money spent on Torres looks to have been money well spent if we can keep the lad fit.

A bit of a ramble, and I am not sure that I have put my point across. Buit there you go!

Good post mate.

At the end of the day there were glaring deficiencies in the squad when looking to mount a 38 game campaign. A great tactician, which he is, can overcome a better team in a cup with poor players but it shows over 38 games.

He has had to generate half of that money himself (that's not taking into account the money he himself has generated in the Champions League), so if he just kept the same squad he would have had about £80m to spend over four years. Do you think that is a realistic amount to catch Utd and Chelsea when they will continue spending but won't need to get rid of as many players because they've either been building for 20 years, so have a stable, top class base or are splashing hundreds of millions on players?

I agree mate. However when the club actually had the chance to step on the ball and build for the future, successive managers have been allowed to fritter away funds on quick fix players who eventually turn out to be surplus to requirements.

The team Kenny Dalglish left in the late 80s was in need of a re build, and unfortunately this did not happen and the doldrums began for us.

Although having said all that, I still to this day believe that when Rafa took over, our squad wasn't that far behind Man United's. They had Giggs, Keane and Scholes on the books but they were all in need of replacing, Keane was finished and Scholes was permanently out.

They had Ronaldo, Ferdinand, Van Nistlerooy and Rooney as trump cards. We had Carragher, Hyppia, Gerrard and Owen all in their prime. They had ok full backs, so did we. We both had dodgy keepers.

Their side back then wasn't a patch on what it is now, but they made adjustments to the first team, we went for a squad clearout.

All I'm saying is if we cherry picked in certain areas then we'd probably be better off. Four seasons on, if we had picked up 2 real top class players each year, we'd have a better first team imo.

[Sabre]

I have something to say in defence of Bigmick because I'm reading certain comments in different threads from a while ago. Until one year ago or something I agreed 90% of what he said. As of late, since the most popular topics of discussions are matters in which I disagree with him, I disagree more often.

But in agreement or disagreement, he's an excellent poster. Never drags a discussion forever, and if there's a fight he settles down it inmediatly. His attitude as a poster deserves all the respect, he's a credit for this forum.

FFS do not comment about the lenght of his posts. We complain about text speak, we complain about lazy copy and pasting, and then there's a poster who bothers to explain his point in a good english, and takes the time for it, and instead of being grateful we make jokes about it. At the end we'll make him post less and that will be bad for the forum. I saw a similar case in Red37's case and it really píssed me off when he started to post much less.

It's unfair Bigmick receives comments like that, especially if we consider many of his posts are proper answers when he's quoted or rebated an opinion. Again, he bothers to answer in good manners and we should appreciate it.

Nobody should expect to be read by others carefully -- I don't, there are too many posters to read. But nobody asks you to read what you find boring. There's not a rule about boring posts, quite simply because if you find something boring then you simply can skip it or ignore it. Let's respect a bit the posters that take care of their posts and are respectful with the rules, even if we disagree wholeheartedly (as I do about Rafa and rotation).

[Ciggy]

Mick is by far one of the best posters on here, I love his posts I could read them for hours, Id love to have a bevvie with him to talk about Liverpool.

[Bad Bob]

Mick also said something like Rafa isnt having success in the league because he isnt focusing on the league.

So either he is focusing on the league and coming up short all the time, or he isnt focusing on the league. Whatever the case maybe, and it can ONLY be from those two options, Rafa especially and the players arent getting something right.

Meant to respond to this when Mick said it originally.  Of the two, there's no doubt in my mind that it's option one: trying hard but still coming up short.

I think Rafa has the ability to get it right, though, and that's why I still support him.

What I don't support, as yesterday's discussion made clear, is this notion that he doesn't care about the league.  I'll accept that he cares strongly for the Champions League as well as the league and makes adjustments accordingly.*  (And, that word from the "horses mouth comment" is just common sense.  What, we're not supposed to focus on a competition we can win when another one is beyond us? Nothing damning in saying that, IMO.) But I can't except that someone as passionate and committed to the game as Rafa can't be a.rsed about winning the league.  He's said he hates losing to his daughter at chess, FFS, so why would he be indifferent about not competing in the league?


*And the adjustments go both ways.  Yes, there's the infamous Reading game (still think his head was on the block if we lost to Marseille) but there's the weaker team he put out against Marseille at Anfield--an instance of prioritizing the league it would seem.

[bigmick]

Very nice of you to say that Lynds and Sabes, I appreciate it. I'd love to have a bevvie with you as well Lynds, so there you go

As for the length of post thing, in truth I dont get offended (and definately not by Judgie the cheeky fecker ). I think they've got longer (my posts) cos I've got nobody to tak football with over here. It was different when we had the pubs, even if nine times out of ten you were talking to a balding scaffolder Chelsea fan you did occasionally get the odd one who you could have a conversation with, and we used to get a few players in so I kind of got me fix. Now though, everyone either wants to talk about V8 racing (whatever the feck that is) or Rugby. That's why I inflict meself on you poor feckers.

Most of the people who I enjoy the nipping and tucking of debate with most seem to be able to wade through em so its ok I reckon. Most of them who find em a bit long should probably just give 'em a miss, thats what I'd do. I's funny when someone calls a post boring, it's as if they've got to read it as part of their homework or something      I think secretly their scared of missing something

[Ciggy]

As for the length of post thing, in truth I dont get offended (and definately not by Judgie the cheeky fecker ).

Judge is the last person to comment on footie posts, I dont think hes ever wrote 2 lines about Liverpool since hes joined. 

[JoeTerp]

BigMick is certainly NOT from the ADD generation

[stmichael]

If we had sunk without trace in Europe and failed to get the 82 points and win the FA Cup in Rafa's second season, I'd have some sympathy for what some are saying. However, the fact is that he achieved wonderful things with many of the "weak squad" he inherited. My gripe, as I have consistently said, is that in 2006 he needed to stop buying in bulk and start buying quality. He didn't do that.

Many teams have achieved a handsome points score in isolated seasons. What tends to happen the following season is that teams adapt to the way they play and the next season they might struggle, relatively speaking. All the time, in life and in nature, competition is punctuated by adaptation and counter adaptation. Unless a team can adapt against a counter adaptation they will struggle. That team we had in 2006 could not. Rotation and the ability to rest players is vital. Rafa speaks about "options" all the time and he is right to do so because it gives him the ability to make changes where needed. What was the issue, though was a relative lack of money to our competitors and a complete lack of patience in our fan base.