now sabre i dont wish to squabble with you again so lets not go down the route of scoring points of each other, you just had your dig, i had mine, but when you start calling peoples support into question expect some response, remember mate you have supported us for 3 years and we are your second team, bear that in mind when you want to try and take the high ground with supporters about loyalty
The difference with my dig and your dig, is my "dig" is nothing more that something you've written recently in this forum. And your dig is just your assumption of when I started to follow the reds. You say Alonso, I say Aldridge times. Anyway, what's the problem with that to discuss about football?
You might discover that if you talk about football with me, and don't comment things like "stupid post ever", I'll be the good old peaceful Sabre. Just try.
Back to football.
now people blaming rafa selections as oppossed to budget etc, again i will say that we have a team capable of beating barcelona and chelsea, so why are we not capable of beating everton, shef utd, fulham, blackburn etc etc etc, because of poor team selection, nothing to do with budget, we have the players to beat these teams but lack of respect, lack of team selection, lack of motivation, call it whatever you will, but to blame budget when we have proved we can beat these teams is wrong and the for these decisions the finger has to be pointed at rafa, just like it has to be pointed at rafa for bring on arbeloa in athens and leaving crouch so late.
We're not beating this teams for a number of reasons. Our squad wasn't deep enough (apparently Board's mistake), some Rafa's mistakes, and of course the opposition also plays. We should analyse aswell if the work done in the preseason was correct and the impact of the world cup. Excuses? maybe, but this kind of things, and other factors like dressroom atmosphere also counts to win points (Chelsea for instance had discussions (Roman, Mou, Sheva) and they didn't win the league)
At full strenght if you compare yourself to Everton, the likes of Gerrard, ALonso, Mascherano and Crouch are much better than the Cahills and Artetas.
But back in September, when Alonso came from holidays not in his best form, you didn't have Mascherano, you had Sissoko and Zenden. And a Sissoko and Zenden are not above the level of Cahills and Artetas.
That, alongside football is football and it's a very uncertain game (bets wouldn't exist if this was very predictable) can make you lose points. It's a global phenomenom in Spain, Italy, France and England that the top teams have harder times beating mid table teams. Bosman has made that many teams have the best of minor countries and have a competitive squad. Only super rich clubs had until now enough quality depth to overcome this.
If you play the FA cup, Champions league until the final, the Premiership, with those Christmas games that come in a row, the international games, the injuries, you'll find yourself in stadiums that want to beat you because you're Liverpool, and you're resting Gerrard and Crouch. And then you play Bellamy, Zenden, and Gonzalez. And mind you, they can beat you in a good day.
So replace the Zendens and Gonzalezs for better players, then rotation will work.
CL diminishes a lot the strenght of the team. If you don't believe me remember how we finished the season yesteryear after being eliminated by Benfica. we even had a streak of 10 games without losing and with a lot of victories, IIRC (haven't checked).
Also why so much importance to the gap of points and not to the position in the league?. It's the position who makes you champion and it's the second place which gives you direct spot in the CL (a pity we didn't get that). GAp op points is hardly a consolation, nobody will remember when 10 years passes that you lost the league for 1 point, they'll remember that you lost.
We finished the league only thinking in the final (imagine if you lose Carra or Gerrard in a game against Fulham) and we even could line up God to say good bye. So points gap never seemed to be important, position was.
Perhaps we're discussing because I don't have troubles with criticism that comes with praises aswell, because in my view, the correct thing is to see the goods and the bads. And you must admit you're spotting a lot of bads as of late. Not only you, mind you, quite many posters and journos aswell. Not to mention Alan Hansen.
vacation. I'll be waking up Monday with my laptop on soccernet, and hoping that when I hit refresh there isn't a picture of Rafa on the front page. What an absolute nightmare that would be. Personally I think all these "reports" are rubbish, but that fraction of doubt with us isn't as easy to shake off as with supporters of the smaller clubs. Thats why I feel like one muppet dropped a lie and it caught like wildfire.
