Liverpool FC Forum

[teamleader1]

i'm not Rafa's biggest fan but some of the drivel in the match thread is absolutely unbelievable

Ok then; Hes fkn brilliant, nothings ever his fault so we must all follow him blindly to the promise land

ps;
What part of his grand scheme was this latest tactical masterclass?
Insua was having a mare, so why was Aurelio taken off? simple enough to drop him back!

Reading out played, out fought and out thought us, we are lucky to still be in it 

fk me your post above is so OTT it's ridiculous. Your ciriticising of rafa is justified but some of your comments borderline pure hatred for the man. If you've read my posts recently I'm begginning to believe that rafa is the wrong man for the job but just spouting pure and utter tripe about Rafa gets my back up.

Behave yourself!

Believe me I don't hate the man, I do hate the fact that hes being allowed to fiddle while Rome burns.
LFC are far more important to me than Rafa, hes hit a brick wall and needs to go for the sake of the club.
Frustration and concern about how far the club is slipping, not hatred!

[Emerald Red]

I think this sums up why Rafa should go

from the BBC

Championship strugglers Reading deservedly forced a replay against Liverpool after an entertaining and finely balanced FA Cup third-round tie at the Madejski Stadium.

Reading have won only five of their 24 Championship fixtures and are 20th in the table after a disappointing season that saw them recently part company with manager Brendan Rodgers.

But the Royals, thrashed 4-1 at Plymouth on Monday, had spells when they were the superior side against a Liverpool team determined to prosper in the competition after their elimination from the Champions League and travails in the Premier League.

Lakes, your dependency of the negative media onslaught against our club is disconcerting to say the least.

[DRARREG8]

I think that rafa must get the chance this season and hopefully we can b at the top four at the end of the season ... I don't blame rafa for our performance at all we r facing a problem and it's a bad time so what does he suppose to do ... shall he wear the jersey and play with the players ?!! ... I blame the whole team and the poor performance they lack the self esteem and the motivation they used to have before

We are not doing good even in front of the crappy teams =S ... we must regain the confidence quickly and hopefully we will be back on track after this holiday but even the performance today against reading in the FA cup is so worrying and if this doesn't change in the next month max we won't finish in the top four and i can assure that especially with the great performance from some of the team that are seriously threatening our place in the top four like tottenham aston villa and man city

[lakes10]

I think that rafa must get the chance this season and hopefully we can b at the top four at the end of the season ... I don't blame rafa for our performance at all we r facing a problem and it's a bad time so what does he suppose to do ... shall he wear the jersey and play with the players ?!! ... I blame the whole team and the poor performance they lack the self esteem and the motivation they used to have before

We are not doing good even in front of the crappy teams =S ... we must regain the confidence quickly and hopefully we will be back on track after this holiday but even the performance today against reading in the FA cup is so worrying and if this doesn't change in the next month max we won't finish in the top four and i can assure that especially with the great performance from some of the team that are seriously threatening our place in the top four like tottenham aston villa and man city

"I think that rafa must get the chance this season"

is that not what he has been given for the last 5 years.

[teamleader1]

I think you will find that motivation is part of his remit!
As is taking action (Drastic if need be) to get the team back on track.
He is failing on both counts so he is at fault!

[bigmick]

I always think it's a bid odd, this "it's the players innit?" arguement. If you went to a car factory which was producing only 20% of the projected output and discovered the lads off the shop floor sitting around playing cards, you wouldn't think too much of a manager who said "it's the workers innit?". If you went in Macdonalds and couldn't get a burger despite there being plenty of staff because they were all fecking about, you'd be looking for the spotty 19 year old with the five stars who's in charge. If you go in a restaurant and find the plate which they've served your T-bone on has a big baked bean stain on it from this mornings breakfast, you don't ask the waiter if you can speak to the Albanian bloke who is washing the pots, you ask if you can speak to the manager.

If indeed the players have lost motivation, if indeed they are swinging the lead, you get someone in who can change the situation. That's what a manager does, or at least that's what good ones do anyway.

[Masch79]

I've been one of Rafa's backers for a long time and try to reason with those who simply say sack him but I am wondering if his reign has hit a wall. I am praying that we get in the CL next season as the financial implications of not doing just do not bare thinking about imo. I keep justifying Rafa's continuation as manager by pointing to how well we did in the league last year although he did appear to 'stumble' on the formula that worked for us - at home v Real Madrid it was as if he just said feck it we've nothing to lose and he let the shackles off. We hit form & confidence and went on a great run that brought us closer to Utd but we were already too far behind due to the previous problems (mistakes?).

Against Villa we seemed to do similar in that we started with probably our most attacking line up (by this I mean the players, I have now accepted that we will not change the 4-2-3-1). Away from home against a top 6 side that was bold but to me was the right thing to do - go for it & grab an early goal against a team who had just lost 3-0, potentially their confidence would go. It didn't quite work like that but I still liked the idea.

Contrast that to playing Dossena wide left against bottom o the feckin league!!! Bizarre

Talk of MON or JM replacing Rafa to me is ridiculous, either of them would have to be feckin mad to come ere from where they are now given the internal problems with cash & owners.

[Espionage]

Edit: wrong thread

[shawnk]

I always think it's a bid odd, this "it's the players innit?" arguement. If you went to a car factory which was producing only 20% of the projected output and discovered the lads off the shop floor sitting around playing cards, you wouldn't think too much of a manager who said "it's the workers innit?". If you went in Macdonalds and couldn't get a burger despite there being plenty of staff because they were all fecking about, you'd be looking for the spotty 19 year old with the five stars who's in charge. If you go in a restaurant and find the plate which they've served your T-bone on has a big baked bean stain on it from this mornings breakfast, you don't ask the waiter if you can speak to the Albanian bloke who is washing the pots, you ask if you can speak to the manager.

If indeed the players have lost motivation, if indeed they are swinging the lead, you get someone in who can change the situation. That's what a manager does, or at least that's what good ones do anyway.

Good point.

[Effes]

Let's remember Plymouth tonked Reading 4-1 last Monday

[bigmick]

Let's remember Plymouth tonked Reading 4-1 last Monday

That said I think you'll find Plymouth have outspent us over the last six seasons Eff, particularly when "add ons" are taken into consideration.

[Effes]

Let's remember Plymouth tonked Reading 4-1 last Monday

That said I think you'll find Plymouth have outspent us over the last six seasons Eff, particularly when "add ons" are taken into consideration.

Mick, If they had bought Keane - they could have sold him and bought 50% in Man City with
the profits!

[boodiddy1]

No time to reason about why he shold stay or go.

Bottom line, rafa has lost this squad. By that i mean both in belief and direction. He doesn't know were to go with it and the main players aren't believing it either.

Get rid now, so at least kenny can try to salvage the season from now on.

Just go rafa. We've had enough. You cant fool fans anymore, we know were its heading. If were bothered about his payoff, then lets have a whip round and give thirty quid.

This is worse than houllier left us. Mind you, if you look back, most of houlliers players have a champions league medal. How many of rafas have won anything? Answers on a postcard.

[Owzat]

Let's remember Plymouth tonked Reading 4-1 last Monday

That said I think you'll find Plymouth have outspent us over the last six seasons Eff, particularly when "add ons" are taken into consideration.

Yes, net spending Plymouth haven't sold anyone that any of us have heard of, they didn't sell an Alonso for £30m so they must have outspent us.

Have you seen their nets? Bloody expensive looking

Why didn't we beat Reading? Because we only played decent football in spells. We by-passed the midfield too much, the left was a waste of space and where their goal came from, and Rafa did diddly to change things when the second half was going so wrong.

Have a WILD GUESS when the first substitution was. SIXTY-EIGHTH MINUTE. Taking a striker off isn't necessarily negative, but is it that positive? N'Gog didn't play badly, but like a lot of our players he wanted too much time on the ball, in his case and Torres', in and around the box. Are those wanting Gerrard in the role he played happier? I think he and Aurelio playing in midfield more or less killed the midfield, especially when Lucas sat too deep and Kuyt was pushing forward too much ie there wasn't a midfield.

He should have brought Benayoun or Babel on, tried to create a link between defence and midfield. The main reason we got the equaliser was down to Kuyt and the Reading defence not holding a good line, getting caught out by an excellent timed run (take note FERNANDO) by Kuyt and he distracted their keeper enough for Gerrard's 'shot' to go in. Yet Kuyt gets all the blame, he was far from the worst player on the pitch and my first-half MOTM with Lucas having a good all-round game as well - bet he doesn't get any credit either. Insua had a shocker, should have come off at half-time with Aurelio playing LB and Benayoun or Babel on the left. Rafa knows a lot about tic-tacs but zilch about tactics and when to employ them.

I will blame the owners for one thing, giving Rafa a long contract based on ONE good season in the last three. I wonder if we'd played more of a second string if they wouldn't have shown up the supposed better players.

[Avi Cohen]

Sack him. For the love of God, sack him.

I think Fifa should intervene and ban him from football... for the love of the sport.   If Rafa is successful that negative, methodical, football-by-numbers approach will be copied and copied and soon football will be mind-numbingly boring.

Avi, how can you go from being one of the more balanced posters on here to writing sh*te like that? Really.

Tone of my post is missing - I can never get the smileys in the right place for some reason. I wanted a smiley! One that winked.