Liverpool FC Forum

[Scottbot]

I'm more disappointed with yesterday than with any other result or performance this season,

Agree with you there Scott, and with the fact that Rafa didn't seem to change
enough on the pitch.

It's because I saw the press-conference on Friday as 'fighting talk', it was putting down a marker, letting everyone know we're in the race for the duration, 'we're top and that's where we intend to stay'. But I don't believe the performance of the manager matched it yesterday. Unlike the press-conference, It was timid, hesitant and Laissez Faire.

I'm not sure they have got much credit so worth pointing out that Stoke were excellent yesterday, well worth a point and who could have argued if they had won the game?

[lakes10]

I would is it was not both Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson who said it.

Thats bullsh!t lakes sammy & rafa havent had a bust up atall, rafa is goin back in hospital for another op, lawro is full of sh!t anyway.

You might be righ, i have heard in the past that Lawrenson has said some stuff that was ment to be true and was not.

I do tend to trust Hansen, but as he is best friends with Sammy lee it should be takent with a pinch of salt.


seems the old boys are are unhappy with the 0-0 with lower teams.

just hope its 0-0 today and we can get away with that poor game.

but i di think there is a point to what they have said in that the players did not look happy before the game, i posted the same thing during the game.

at the end of the day it was the worts time for Rafa to get a 0-0 with Stoke after what he had just come out and said.

old Plum nose will have a field day if they win today.

[HacksawJimDuggin]

Rafa knew, or should have known, that Stoke were going to set up two lines of four. So why the hell did he choose to go out with a defensive formation against that? That was just stupid.

The formation wasn't necessarily the problem mate, the problem was the personnel used to play it. Stick Torres in for Kuyt, swap Gerrard back for Lucas (or Mash) and then play keane in Gerrard's position and there is nowt wrong with the formation. The biggest concern for me was watching our best player starved of possession for massive spells of the game with no effort to change it. I can see the merits of playing him behind Torres, you only have to look at the Newcastle game to see it in full-flight but when it's not working (see 90 minutes yesterday) then surely you have to find a way to get the Captain on the ball? It would have been easy to drop him back into the central-two and bring in Keane or Babel to play in the hole. Alternatively, he could have gone wide right and suddenly we would have had a genuine threat on the flanks. He played (pretty much) a whole season out there (his best season for me) and yet now it is a complete no-go? Even as a change-up in a game.

I'm more disappointed with yesterday than with any other result or performance this season, especially after the tub-thumping (which I loved) of the previous evening

Spot on re formation. It's served us well this season. The problem last night was the players deployed in the formation and the fact that Xabi was missing!!

[Number 9]

Anyone just wish Rafa would have ignored Fergie now and concentrated on beating Stoke!

Im starting to worry now,if thats the fecking team he fields when we dont have another match for a week,whats he gonna do when the midweek C/L fixtures start again?
FUC'KING FIELD YOUR BEST TEAM..unless forced to change it!
At least if we'd have had our best 11 out yesterday you just have to accept it.Dropping 2 points with a tgeam out like that just makes ya feel theyt were thrown away!!

[lakes10]

Rafa knew, or should have known, that Stoke were going to set up two lines of four. So why the hell did he choose to go out with a defensive formation against that? That was just stupid.

The formation wasn't necessarily the problem mate, the problem was the personnel used to play it. Stick Torres in for Kuyt, swap Gerrard back for Lucas (or Mash) and then play keane in Gerrard's position and there is nowt wrong with the formation. The biggest concern for me was watching our best player starved of possession for massive spells of the game with no effort to change it. I can see the merits of playing him behind Torres, you only have to look at the Newcastle game to see it in full-flight but when it's not working (see 90 minutes yesterday) then surely you have to find a way to get the Captain on the ball? It would have been easy to drop him back into the central-two and bring in Keane or Babel to play in the hole. Alternatively, he could have gone wide right and suddenly we would have had a genuine threat on the flanks. He played (pretty much) a whole season out there (his best season for me) and yet now it is a complete no-go? Even as a change-up in a game.

I'm more disappointed with yesterday than with any other result or performance this season, especially after the tub-thumping (which I loved) of the previous evening

Spot on re formation. It's served us well this season. The problem last night was the players deployed in the formation and the fact that Xabi was missing!!

so if we all know this why did not Rafa?

[Scottbot]

Rafa knew, or should have known, that Stoke were going to set up two lines of four. So why the hell did he choose to go out with a defensive formation against that? That was just stupid.

The formation wasn't necessarily the problem mate, the problem was the personnel used to play it. Stick Torres in for Kuyt, swap Gerrard back for Lucas (or Mash) and then play keane in Gerrard's position and there is nowt wrong with the formation. The biggest concern for me was watching our best player starved of possession for massive spells of the game with no effort to change it. I can see the merits of playing him behind Torres, you only have to look at the Newcastle game to see it in full-flight but when it's not working (see 90 minutes yesterday) then surely you have to find a way to get the Captain on the ball? It would have been easy to drop him back into the central-two and bring in Keane or Babel to play in the hole. Alternatively, he could have gone wide right and suddenly we would have had a genuine threat on the flanks. He played (pretty much) a whole season out there (his best season for me) and yet now it is a complete no-go? Even as a change-up in a game.

I'm more disappointed with yesterday than with any other result or performance this season, especially after the tub-thumping (which I loved) of the previous evening

Spot on re formation. It's served us well this season. The problem last night was the players deployed in the formation and the fact that Xabi was missing!!

so if we all know this why did not Rafa?

It's just his way unfortunately. It's very frustrating but it's part and parcel of the Rafa experience. It doesn't mean he isn't doing a good job because we're having a good season but it drives you nuts when you can see how close we are to having an amazing season. It wouldn't surprise me to see us beat neverton comfortably in these next two fixtures and it will all look rosy again. He'll play 4-4-2 in both games with Keane and Torres up-front and Gerrard in the centre with Xabi, and we'll all be dancing on our keyboards! He is a VERY enigmatic manager isn't he?

[lewerty]

Lawrenson also says one thing b4 a game then if we win says another contradicting little c**t, when rafa puts a formation out he dont change it he just changed players like for like should have gone to 4-4-2

[Scottbot]

Lawrenson also says one thing b4 a game then if we win says another contradicting little c**t, when rafa puts a formation out he dont change it he just changed players like for like should have gone to 4-4-2

I wouldn't bother with Lawrensen mate, the guy is an . No real affinity with the club, I never pay any attention to anything he says. You only have to look at Hansen and see how much he's hurting when the club have a bad game. The club is in his blood. Lawro is a cold fish who talks bulls....h....i....t.

[Bloodknuckles]

I think that might of been our most disapointing performance of the season. Credit to Stoke thow, they defended well yesterday and I was impressed with the centre back Shawcross.
Steve Clarridge made a good point on Setanta News saying this isnt a bad result for Liverpool. Stoke have won 5 home games this season and The Brittania Staduim is a difficult place to go. I feel as disapointed with he result as I did againts Villa away. We never really played to our advantages. I honestly cant understand why Rafa dropped Robbie AGAIN. The lads confidence must be at low. Even when Torres is on the bench, the lad cant get a game.
  I just wish Benitez could see what is happening in the game earlier. Yesterday Lucas should of been taken from the field in the second half. He was making rash challenges and his passing was nothing too the standard of Alonso and even Mascharano.
  I was pleased with the performance of Skrtel yesterday. I thought him and Hyppia were excellent yesterday and were solid all game. Maybe we could of played a lot better then we did yesterday but we are still top of the league. I would rather be sitting on the top than having to play games in hand.
Man of Match V Stoke for me was Sami Hyppia!!

[tonyeh]

Rafa knew, or should have known, that Stoke were going to set up two lines of four. So why the hell did he choose to go out with a defensive formation against that? That was just stupid.

The formation wasn't necessarily the problem mate, the problem was the personnel used to play it. Stick Torres in for Kuyt, swap Gerrard back for Lucas (or Mash) and then play keane in Gerrard's position and there is nowt wrong with the formation. The biggest concern for me was watching our best player starved of possession for massive spells of the game with no effort to change it. I can see the merits of playing him behind Torres, you only have to look at the Newcastle game to see it in full-flight but when it's not working (see 90 minutes yesterday) then surely you have to find a way to get the Captain on the ball? It would have been easy to drop him back into the central-two and bring in Keane or Babel to play in the hole. Alternatively, he could have gone wide right and suddenly we would have had a genuine threat on the flanks. He played (pretty much) a whole season out there (his best season for me) and yet now it is a complete no-go? Even as a change-up in a game.

I'm more disappointed with yesterday than with any other result or performance this season, especially after the tub-thumping (which I loved) of the previous evening

I disagree, 4-5-1 is no good for Liverpool. It'll always mean that the lone striker will get isolated and we'll be chasing a goal from anywhere, meaning no clear focus and that's bound to come undone at some stage.

Rafa's approach seems to be to wait and see what the other team will do. That's dangerous ground IMO.

I've maintained since the beginning of the season that Liverpool should go with an attacking 4-4-2 and stick with it. Hit teams hard from the start and let the opposition worry about us, rather than the other way round.

4-5-1 just places extra pressure on the team for no good reason. Take a look at the replays of the game last night of you can. Most of the time Kuyt is stuck on his own with 4 Stoke defenders glued to him and the Liverpool midfield miles away from any real attack on the box. That's no good for a team supposedly going for a title win. Even with Torres up front, it didn't work. He too was isolated and recieved little in the way of service from the mid section.

I don't blame the players last night, I really don't. I'd say they say that formation and lineup and went "what the fück?" Knowing full well that when it was tits up, nothing will be changed until an hour into the game, due to Benitez's stupid, pigheaded, stubborn and incredibly damaging subbing policy.

It was bound to have an effect on the team morale. That, more so that Rafa shooting his mouth off the night before.

If Benitez is going to stick to this 4-5-1 rubbish, then he needs to instill into his midfield an attack mindset. But so far that hasn't happened and all too often our lone striker is left to battle his way through 4 or 5 defenders in persuit of a goal. Liverpool just doesn't move up with the ball, or at least they don't follow through quick enough for an effective attack. That's why they are lacking that final third of any attack the embark on.

[dawson99]

Gutted, worst game ive watched in along long time. Need to play the best players all the time but with what we had on the pitch we could have tried a lil bit more. and Lucas right back to his useless old self, need soemthing to happen majorly

[Scottbot]

I disagree, 4-5-1 is no good for Liverpool. It'll always mean that the lone striker will get isolated and we'll be chasing a goal from anywhere, meaning no clear focus and that's bound to come undone at some stage.

Rafa's approach seems to be to wait and see what the other team will do. That's dangerous ground IMO.

It's not as simple as that, otherwise we would see the lone striker getting isolated and starved of possession on a regular basis. 4-5-1 works fine IF:

- You have good spells of possession (which we generally do)
- You get your wide-men high and wide to occupy their full-backs which gives your lone striker a much better chance against 2 centre-halves
- You get your full-backs involved in play and if possible, push them on
- BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY you have to have the right man to do the job up-front (see my previous post on Kuyt in this thread). We didn't (and often don't) play this system with the right front-man.

We (as fans) and the media get too caught up in 4-4-2 but let's be honest, does anyone actually play a classic 4-4-2 anymore? It's always one playing high up with another playing in the withdrawn role or in the hole, whatever you want to call it. On the face of it, it's not that dissimilar to the way we set up yesterday with Gerrard playing 2nd striker.

[Scottbot]

Double post

[JamCar05]

Utterly disappointed with yesterdays performance . For the first 20 minutes or so we seemed to be in control and had a lot of possession, though we didn't exactly create many chances (Kuyt missed a couple). Still it looked ok to me, but after that it all went downhill, and we could as well have lost the game as won it. None of our players did well (except maybe Hyypia who was definitely our MOTM imo), and as such you can't expect to win any PL game. I do feel some people are going overboard critizising just a few select players (the usual suspects: Lucas, Kuyt and to some extent Benayoun), when clearly our entire team was more or less rubbish yesterday. I wasn't exactly too happy with some of Rafa's decisions either, though they have undoubtedly already been mentioned many times in this thread, so I won't bother going through them again (would have liked to see Keane play at least some part though).

Just a quick thing regarding the ref as well: I won't pretend he did anything which cost us the win, as there weren't exactly too many "delicate situations" near our or their penalty box, but I do think he was rather poor giving Stoke a freekick on many 50-50 occasions, whereas we didn't get anything though Stoke were very rough in many challenges. It doesn't hide the fact that we should be able to win a game like that though, and Stoke must also receive some credit for limiting us to so few chances, unfortunately .

Let's just hope the boys take this out on Everton next week, as we need to get back on track as fast as possible, and there's no better way of doing that than thrashing the blueshite at Anfield 

[metalhead]

I disagree, 4-5-1 is no good for Liverpool. It'll always mean that the lone striker will get isolated and we'll be chasing a goal from anywhere, meaning no clear focus and that's bound to come undone at some stage.

Rafa's approach seems to be to wait and see what the other team will do. That's dangerous ground IMO.

It's not as simple as that, otherwise we would see the lone striker getting isolated and starved of possession on a regular basis. 4-5-1 works fine IF:

- You have good spells of possession (which we generally do)
- You get your wide-men high and wide to occupy their full-backs which gives your lone striker a much better chance against 2 centre-halves
- You get your full-backs involved in play and if possible, push them on
- BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY you have to have the right man to do the job up-front (see my previous post on Kuyt in this thread). We didn't (and often don't) play this system with the right front-man.

We (as fans) and the media get too caught up in 4-4-2 but let's be honest, does anyone actually play a classic 4-4-2 anymore? It's always one playing high up with another playing in the withdrawn role or in the hole, whatever you want to call it. On the face of it, it's not that dissimilar to the way we set up yesterday with Gerrard playing 2nd striker.

Also, if you have a play maker type player like scholes, aimar, kaka, diego, etc... who can link up with both midfield and attack.