Liverpool FC Forum

[The Manhattan Project]

Next, this dude will produce scientific formulas linking Liverpool's form with the movements of Jupiter and its gravitational effects.

Look, we've drawn too many games at home.

We cannot kill off teams.

But we've only lost three games.

Against the other "big three" we are .

That's what's has killed us this year.

[tubby]

Next, this dude will produce scientific formulas linking Liverpool's form with the movements of Jupiter and its gravitational effects.

Look, we've drawn too many games at home.

We cannot kill off teams.

But we've only lost three games.

Against the other "big three" we are .

That's what's has killed us this year.

Hit the nail on the head. Thats the difference between the likes of us the real title challangers. At the end of the day you have to look at the squads. How many Man Utd, Arsenal & Chelsea players would get into the Liverpool sqaud? Most I would have though.

Now ask yourself how many Liverpool players would get into Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I think only Gerrard, Torres, Carra, Reina, Masch and maybe Alonso although not on his form this season so ill leave him out altogether.

Sure Rafa has spent alot but its not like hes spent vast sums on individual players, hes had to form a whole sqaud with the occasional dip into the double figure range. Not good enough and thats the reason why we can sustain a challange for the title. Right now we are at best a cup team and its just not on given what we used to be. Things have got to change. I dont care if its Rafa, I dont care if we have to sell big players, I dot care if its the owners. I just want this club to get back to what it used to do best. If not, you only have to look at the likes of Notts Forrest, Blackburn and dare I say Leeds.

[god_bless_john_houlding]

Next, this dude will produce scientific formulas linking Liverpool's form with the movements of Jupiter and its gravitational effects.

Look, we've drawn too many games at home.

We cannot kill off teams.

But we've only lost three games.

Against the other "big three" we are .

That's what's has killed us this year.

Hit the nail on the head. Thats the difference between the likes of us the real title challangers. At the end of the day you have to look at the squads. How many Man Utd, Arsenal & Chelsea players would get into the Liverpool sqaud? Most I would have though.

Now ask yourself how many Liverpool players would get into Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I think only Gerrard, Torres, Carra, Reina, Masch and maybe Alonso although not on his form this season so ill leave him out altogether.

Sure Rafa has spent alot but its not like hes spent vast sums on individual players, hes had to form a whole sqaud with the occasional dip into the double figure range. Not good enough and thats the reason why we can sustain a challange for the title. Right now we are at best a cup team and its just not on given what we used to be. Things have got to change. I dont care if its Rafa, I dont care if we have to sell big players, I dot care if its the owners. I just want this club to get back to what it used to do best. If not, you only have to look at the likes of Notts Forrest, Blackburn and dare I say Leeds.

I agree that not many of our players would make other first teams for the title challengers, but at the start of the season I recall many people on here as well as pundits on the telly telling us "we had the best squad in the league" where has that gone? Has the sale of Sissoko made us have one of the worst squads?

Also it's all very well saying who'd get in our squad, but I wouldn't change the partnership of Carra and Agger for anyone. Again the partnership of Crouch and Torres could blossom into one of the best any side has seen in recent years, so I think questioning who'd make our side is a silly and time consuming excercise.

What would be worthwhile is looking at the positions we are in need of and suggest a suitable player for that position. For example a half decent left back because what we have to choose from is a disgrace. I still like the look of Threllfall, good up and coming scouse kid.

[tubby]

Next, this dude will produce scientific formulas linking Liverpool's form with the movements of Jupiter and its gravitational effects.

Look, we've drawn too many games at home.

We cannot kill off teams.

But we've only lost three games.

Against the other "big three" we are .

That's what's has killed us this year.

Hit the nail on the head. Thats the difference between the likes of us the real title challangers. At the end of the day you have to look at the squads. How many Man Utd, Arsenal & Chelsea players would get into the Liverpool sqaud? Most I would have though.

Now ask yourself how many Liverpool players would get into Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. I think only Gerrard, Torres, Carra, Reina, Masch and maybe Alonso although not on his form this season so ill leave him out altogether.

Sure Rafa has spent alot but its not like hes spent vast sums on individual players, hes had to form a whole sqaud with the occasional dip into the double figure range. Not good enough and thats the reason why we can sustain a challange for the title. Right now we are at best a cup team and its just not on given what we used to be. Things have got to change. I dont care if its Rafa, I dont care if we have to sell big players, I dot care if its the owners. I just want this club to get back to what it used to do best. If not, you only have to look at the likes of Notts Forrest, Blackburn and dare I say Leeds.

I agree that not many of our players would make other first teams for the title challengers, but at the start of the season I recall many people on here as well as pundits on the telly telling us "we had the best squad in the league" where has that gone? Has the sale of Sissoko made us have one of the worst squads?

Also it's all very well saying who'd get in our squad, but I wouldn't change the partnership of Carra and Agger for anyone. Again the partnership of Crouch and Torres could blossom into one of the best any side has seen in recent years, so I think questioning who'd make our side is a silly and time consuming excercise.

What would be worthwhile is looking at the positions we are in need of and suggest a suitable player for that position. For example a half decent left back because what we have to choose from is a disgrace. I still like the look of Threllfall, good up and coming scouse kid.

I wasnt one of those people saying all those things in pre season. I think most level headed people would agree that even from the start we knew we were a few players away from really challanging. It was just the papers getting excited becasue we had just signed Torres. And of course no manager is going to come out and say "i still need more" after spening 20Mil on a player.

I dont mind Carra and Agger but we are still lacking a world class CB. Will Skirtl become one? Who knows.

We are lacking decent wingers on both the right and left sides. I really dont know what to make of Babel. He can run and he knows how to score but other times ive seen him give the ball away in a school boy fashion. Im not so convinced he has the "raw" talent everyone talks about. Kewell is a has been and Riise and Aurelio dont make the grade. We cant play Stevie on the right becasue we lack anything from the centre then.

And whilst Crouch and Torres may work out well if one of them gets injured then what? In comes horse face the 2nd and Voronin (a signing that up to this day I still dont understand). If we keep signing players the way we do then the world class ones we have will go to waste, or worse - leave.

[The Manhattan Project]

Crouch and Torres would be a good partnership for the time being if Rafa actually played Crouch.

But he persists with Kuyt.

[god_bless_john_houlding]

I think Agger is world class, I know I've sung his prasises many times, but that's because I rate him so highly. I wouldn't swap him for anybody.

We need another world class forward? Well that goes without saying, but it looks as if it'll be Crouch who has to suffer if we bring another 1 in, which means we're back at square 1.

[Emerald Red]

How about getting us record points ever in the league.   

It's worth mentioning this because normally 80+ points in the league would normally win it. It's just a testimony to how far advanced the other teams have progressed also.

[bigmick]

Is it worth mentioning though? Surely, the points totla is only relevent in comparison to what everyone else gets. If we only get 73 points next season and won the title who would give a feck?  And if the points total of two seasons ago is the holy grail, isn't it then fair to conclude that we have taken massive strides backwards as we have come nowhere near reaching it again?

[god_bless_john_houlding]

Benitez may of got us the highest total, but that still wasn't good enough which proves we are still a club not capable of winning the league, and like Mick said, it does go to show how far backwards we are now.

[neil]

I'm with Bigmick on this, the job is far from impossible.
1 Stabalize the starting 11, picking 11 regulars and dropping none performers, it incentivises the players
2 Harrass the ref over every single decision, much like chelsea arsenal & man u, they dont let a fookin throwin go against them without puttin the fear o god in the ref, it then becomes incremental,later decisions tend to go your way-fact
3 siege mentality, good teams have when necessary
4 only buy players that you feel will improve the first 11.

[The_Rock]

Stupid Tompkins..... He is the chairman of the "happy-clampy...rose tinted" brigade.

1)Too Many stats
2)Too many redundant tabulations
3)A super long post which goes no where. He merely repeats whatever he said in the previous post...


And all this adds up to confusing the reader...

[112-1077774096]

i notice he mentions that wenger won nothing between 98 and 02 and dein was patient with him. thats all well and good but wenger had already shown he can win the league and he has already shown he knew how to build a winning team, that can just be seen as a few lean years as they were overtaken. rafa however has shown us nothing in the league to suggest that more time will win us the league.

everything people do with figures can just be counteracted with more figures to be fair, but in my mind the performances this year speak volumes and trying to justify rafas decisions is beyond me, i wont even try and justify them as it would just me look foolish when someone can point to our performances and results as proof that we are gash under rafa

Just what the hell is your problem?  Did you not see our league form this season before this sh!t with the owners happened? 

You say Rafa's shown us nothing that suggests he can win us the league.  How about getting us record points ever in the league.   

the problems off the pitch are nothing to do with the problems on the pitch, and lets just say for one second that they are, then this also shows a failing of rafas management that he would let this affect him and the players.
.

i have already pointed out we have failed in his three previous seasons to mount a title challenge, i suppose you will now make an excuse for this such as it was the chance that we would have american owners in the future that affected us   

the simple fact is mate, as much as you want to argue agaisnt it, that rafa does not cut the mustard and its about time we parted ways with him.

i got dogs abuse on here for my beliefs earlier in the season about rafa and his limitation and how is tactics will not work in england, now the people who were giving me this abuse are saying exactly the same things I was saying last year, this is not gloating on my part, it is simply to point out that people who had your mindset have been big enough to change their stance, maybe you will do the same at some point.

but really trying to dress this up as anything other than bad management on the football side takes away any credibility you may have in other posts mate.

come on lets call a spade a spade

[112-1077774096]

in fact i would go as far as saying that JBGs post was better and more balanced that this latest tomkins one

[66-1112520797]

So Tompkins has gone from being the most ever optimistic journo of LFC, to now saying its ni on impossible to win the league in the "foreseeable future". The bloke is now throwing the towel in.

What an idiot.

[account deleted by request]

I think that Tomkins latest effort is still miles away from reality and those tables are a little crazy to say the least :-

1/liverpool
2/Arsenal
3/Chelsea
4/Man Utd

This table is based on which teams I like best out of the big four and proves conclusively that we should win the league every season.

I do however think Tomkins makes one or two good points (for a change), if we had won the CL last season rather than being losing finalists, would there now be such an outcry for Rafa to go? 2 CL's and an FA CUP would be hard to criticise in 3 seasons. Remember it was a game that we should and could have won given reasonable luck (and finishing)

Yes, Kuyt is having a stinker of a season, and yes, Crouch, on paper ‘deserves’ more playing time; but that would mean two spearhead strikers, something no other top club deploys –– each has at least one player working the space between the lines (United have two, in Rooney and Tevez!). And yes, Babel looks suited to the role in theory, but he’s still a kid and still new to England; so it’s not like Rafa is ignoring an obvious, fail-safe immediate solution. Yes, it may be the manager’s fault that he doesn’t yet have a second-striker who is good enough to link play between the midfield and also score goals. But then again, Kuyt looked good enough in the role last season, and at the start of this

To an extent I agree with tomkins on this. Yes we desperately need a creative second striker to play between the lines linking attack and midfield, but no, Kuyt was neither good enough in the role last year or the begining of this season. Its not just the goals he hasn't scored, but his touch and vision arnt good enough either. Kuyt tries to offset his limitations with tremendous hard work , but unfortunately its creativity and inspiration we are lacking not just effort and persperation.

The season before we bought Kuyt, I and quite a few more on here were pushing for us to not spread our money around on 4-5 or even 6 players but to just bring in a couple of top quality players instead. I went for Aguero a young creative second striker(he later went to Ath. Madrid) and Joaquin (he was popular at the time). When we bought Kuyt,Palletta,Aurelio,El Zahr, Pennant and Bellamy I was a little surprised (and having seen Kuyt in the world cup, worried as well!) Money (or the lack of) had obviously played a big part in Rafa's options.

In total hindsight, I think it was this transfer window that set liverpool back and from which we have never really recovered. We went for stopgaps rather than top quality, and paid the price accordingly. Even a great CL run couldn't hide the fact that domestically we had not improved (infact we seemed to have gone backwards). Which is surprising when you think that we had also sold a couple of "lemons" in Morientes and Cisse.

I think Rafa has learned from that mistake and has brought in some top class players in Mascherano and Torres and some players with great potential in Lucas and Babel this season, but for whatever reason we do seem to have taken another backward step (certainly in the quality of our football), and he has never really addressed the genuine lack of creativity.

After the CL FINAL Rafa said he needed a player that could create and score goals for himself. I believe he has found such a player in Torres, but we still need to address the creative second striker problem before we can take the next big step forward.

"Cups are usually won by teams with great defenses, Leagues are won by teams that can score goals." Paisley said that (or words to that effect) years ago, I still believe it to be true.