Liverpool FC Forum

[112-1077774096]

is the league not important to rafa because its not 'his' league? would the spanish league be more important to him if he managed in spain?  just a thought

know it was just a thought...but in all honesty rafa not wanting the league as much cos its not 'his' league...i think thats a bit naive. as he says, thats what he wants to bring home to anfield - number 19! i mean we ALL want that! i think that if we are going to win the title tho, we are going to need to start being more ruthless away from home, and maybe it'll be brought about being able to field a world class attacking player who can open up defenses out of nowhere! we all have hope of that with this 'money'...however much it turns out to be. i do believe we would have seen a different lfc against city if we were still in the race...but that is not an excuse for how we played! and i totally agree that we need to start approaching every single game as a MUST WIN game! that is the only way 19 is coming...and i believe it will come, sooner rather than later

yeah i was playing devils advocate with the comment, but i really think he hasnt paid enough respect in the league and he hasnt learnt from his previous two seasons that he cant mess around with the team too much.

i think rafas priority is the champions league mate, my prority is the premier league and thats why i get frustrated when i see the negative tactics we employ when at the same time i am watching the mancs destroy teams with a worse squad than us, well definitley a worse midfield but they still steamroller teams because they have a belief that they can win with attacking football.

rafa needs to have more confidence in his first team that we can win away from home with attacking football, is there really that much of a difference between one pitch and another

[metalhead]

He should start with a settled side next season, he should change that for starters, find a simple formula and stick with it.

thats the worrying part, what if he doesn't stick with the same game plan and keeps changing his lineup, what happens?

[112-1077774096]

He should start with a settled side next season, he should change that for starters, find a simple formula and stick with it.

thats the worrying part, what if he doesn't stick with the same game plan and keeps changing his lineup, what happens?

same as this season, we will be out the title race before xmas, but we will have fresh players with no league title to play for come april

[metalhead]

I'm getting really p!ssed off with the way we are playing! Its getting very annoying how we play away from home, very cautious and defencive! I agree with you peewee, we should play attacking football, maybe we will concede a few goals but at least we would score more goals and play some entertaining football.

We need to fix this away problem, rafa needs to stop acting stupid and cautious and must concentrate on attacking attacking and attacking!

[Lando_Griffin]

Did we lose yesterday?

It seems we didn't win 4-1 against Arsenal (with a defensive 4-5-1), 0-3 against PSV (Defensive again), 1-0 against Reading and 1-0 again against PSV. A draw away after an european game and people saying Rafa is defensive and everything is wrong?

Call me of the happy clappy brigade,  but I don't see major troubles. Rafa HAS NOT enjoyed this season of the signing funds he'll have now, and we're asking him to compete against team that has enjoyed bigger sums.

Why we do this? BEcause we won a CL cup, a FA cup, and we inmediatly think that these things are easy. Back to the semifinals of the competition of the very best, we draw away, and the negative posts appear.

I know all this post appear because people want our team wins but, hey, we're not doing so badly.

Sorry mate.... but I strongly disagree.........

We didn't show enough respect to them by fielding a weakened side when we didn't have to...... and to top it off, we had the arrogance to think that a 4-5-1, with the weakened side, against the likes of man city was enough to beat them.......

We are out of every competition cept one now..... I hope Rafa brings back the Champions league but in truth I'd take the league title ANY day of the week....

To answer Ciggy's question...... the reason? Our tactics in away games aren't anything to write home about.....

A weakened side?:


                                         Reina

          Finnan            JC                    Agger                Arbeloa


Pennant                Alonso               Mascherano               Riise

                                Gerrard
   
                                              Kuyt,


I don't see it myself. I'd say that this is just about our strongest team, with the possible exception of Crouch in for Kuyt on current form.

1 player off our strongest team is hardly a "weakened side".

[Sabre]

I understand and respect that most of readers of this forum do not like the football we played.

It's a matter of tastes. The point of being weakened side have been answered by Lando and I agree with him, just a couple of rest of players like Crouch cannot be considered IMHO a lack of respect.

I'm going to try to explain why I don't consider the way we played defensive, agree or disagree, we all have a right for an opinion.

Manchester City played a very defensive and continental formation yesterday. Playing at *home*. Typical display when you face a big team and you are happy with a point.

The points I'd like to discuss:

*Where* did they start to press our possesion? Almost always in their side of their pitch.

*Where* did they settled their back four? a couple of metres on front of the area line.

Which leaves you few space to move the ball. When they had possesion they advanced their back line and they had all the lines very together, with little space between them. They reached our goal with 3 or 4 men, at best.

To face that, you can play 2 strikers. OK. They'll leave you reaching the middle of the pitch and start pressing. If you play with 2 strikers, they'll have the number superiority in the middle, you can send a long ball if you're not patient enough because you're not comfortable and face a counterattack.

Instead, you can play as we did yesterday. Have the most and best part of the possesion and reach comfortably their area with *6* men. We had the chances. Only in the first half Pennant had a clear one, Carraguer had another one who kicked against the side of the net, Riise should have done better to put the last ball to Kuyt with a header, we were reaching quite well.

This was the very formation 4-4-1-1 that gave us at home a 4-1 against Arsenal. Man City were the ones that were terribly cautious yesterday. We played them the right way (always IMHO). We didn't score, but we could have, that's football. I respect people do not like it, but I can't agree we were terribly defensive, or we lacked respect towards City...

I know it sounds terrible, but I liked the game, I would be even more happy with 3 points, needless to say, but I did like the game.

[zarababe]

keeping the rosey tinted brigade in touch with reality.

Referring to me then are ya     

Me specs are a bit tainted - but on a serious note I believe that with some good signings this summer the club will be challenging for the league.

Al Ferguson took 7 years to build a Championship winning side - building a team capable of sustaining a title challenge does take time and in his 4th season - next time around - I think we can do it. We are still lacking in some important, areas, particulalrly up front, we need a consistant goal scorer - an abosolute must.

Benitez has broken the monopoly in one of the most oligarchic Leagues - with limited funds and tactical know how - he can do the same here, however he needs the personnell who can go out and show the same hunger and drive to achieve that on the field. I think there will be another clear out this summer and decent signings coming in.Then we'll see.

[The_Rock]

My take is that...if rafa wins the champ league.....this thread will be forgotten in an instance  .....


For me...its not the tactics or the football. Its just that we don't have an imposing striker.......I know this is my 32456th post on kujt.....but he just doesn't cut it in the premierleague. If rafa is gonna play 4-5-1...he has to have a striker who is capable of fitting in that formation. None of our strikers are capable of leading the line well as a lone striker (maybe crouch....but he misses a lot of easy chances).

If rafa insists on playing this 4-5-1...then we need a drogba.., an anelka.... or a klose.....

So rafa..play 4-5-1...but make sure u have the players capable of playing in this formation...

[hello_red]

rafa can field a team that will beat a full strength barca team at the nou camp but we cant win a away at man city? most of the blame can be laid on the players i think, we need a player that can unlock a defence or nick a half chance. plus some of our key personal have not performed this season. im hopeful for next season i really, a good start is needed! and atleast 2 away wins against the big 3 will do me!

im hopeful

[zarababe]

My take is that...if rafa wins the champ league.....this thread will be forgotten in an instance  .....

lol de ja vu - bring it on 

[kunilson]

76 points is the maximum we can get this year.....which is a step down from last season.
im a bit surprised because i thought that it would be worse with the amount of matches we have thrown away.

new signings, bad injury timing and all that does come into it.....but we haven't been clinical away from home which is clear for all to see. garcia is one of our only creative players and he has been missed, as has kewell.
the new signings took a while to do their bread and butter job which is to play consistantly well in their positions, but none of them can score a goal out of nowhere. Stevie G has had a poor season by his standards in that department also....Alonso has been too on/off too, even though he's not considered an attacking player. (what happened to the days when 2 CM's did a bit of everything and none of this "one has to stay back and cover the back 4, the other has to help in attacking play").

Consistancy is all that seperates us from the top two. and that luck factor.

[monkey 20]

is the league not important to rafa because its not 'his' league? would the spanish league be more important to him if he managed in spain?  just a thought

know it was just a thought...but in all honesty rafa not wanting the league as much cos its not 'his' league...i think thats a bit naive. as he says, thats what he wants to bring home to anfield - number 19! i mean we ALL want that! i think that if we are going to win the title tho, we are going to need to start being more ruthless away from home, and maybe it'll be brought about being able to field a world class attacking player who can open up defenses out of nowhere! we all have hope of that with this 'money'...however much it turns out to be. i do believe we would have seen a different lfc against city if we were still in the race...but that is not an excuse for how we played! and i totally agree that we need to start approaching every single game as a MUST WIN game! that is the only way 19 is coming...and i believe it will come, sooner rather than later

yeah i was playing devils advocate with the comment, but i really think he hasnt paid enough respect in the league and he hasnt learnt from his previous two seasons that he cant mess around with the team too much.

i think rafas priority is the champions league mate, my prority is the premier league and thats why i get frustrated when i see the negative tactics we employ when at the same time i am watching the mancs destroy teams with a worse squad than us, well definitley a worse midfield but they still steamroller teams because they have a belief that they can win with attacking football.

rafa needs to have more confidence in his first team that we can win away from home with attacking football, is there really that much of a difference between one pitch and another

gonna have to say though that i absolutely agree with you. i do believe that rafa is trying just as hard to win the league as the european cup, i just think that he's been frustrated( and i believe that this is his own fault) that we've thrown away the league so quickly that there's no coming back. and that's all partly due to some key members of our squad (xabi, carra, stevie) being off colour and jaded at the beggining of the season as well as not having a side that is settled from the start because of rotation and integrating the new signings. i am a believer in rafa's rotation policy to an extent...it does keep the squad fresh later on in the season, but what's the point if we're gonna be out of the title race by the time that comes!! we need a settled side that can hit the ground ruinning as we say every season! we're still fresh in europe at this stage which is good, hopefully man utd and chelsea wont be as they've got four trophies up for grabs still. the league must come first though, and every red knows that now!
totally agree that we also need to be much more aggressive away from home! dominate teams like we do at anfield...

[112-1077774096]

76 points is the maximum we can get this year.....which is a step down from last season.

and yet the happy clappers still enter the thread and tell us everything is ok, clear out, new signings etc and all will be well, and how we beat barca so everything must be ok etc etc etc.

then next season when we are out the title race by xmas again they will be on here making excuses for the new signings etc, and blaming a couple of players for a poor start etc etc etc.

come on guys at some point the excuses have to stop and reality needs to kick in.

either rafa is not tactically aware in the premier league, or the premier league is not rafas prority, if it was we would be looking to win rather thatn looking to not lose. this is his third season and he is making the mistakes as the last two seasons. blaming it all on the new signings etc is just detracting from the mistakes rafa has made this season.

he has notlearnt from his first 2 seasons in the league and thats worrying, last season i cried out for a steady team, he picked one and we started winning, this season was the same, the steady team settled the ship but too late, but he still has this desire to hange formation when not really needed, when it comes off we all say he is a tactical genius, when it doenst come off not many of us come on and say he got it hugely wrong, people wpuld just rather make excuses for him.

really guys i used to be the same, i wouldnt hear any criticism about anything to do with liverpool, but now its better to be realistic.

let me make it clear, i am not saying rafa should go, i am just saying this stubborness that undone houllier needs to ironed out of him and he needs to accept that soemthing doesnt work before its too late, rtaher than persisit until we are out the title race

[Effes]

A weakened side?:


                                         Reina

          Finnan            JC                    Agger                Arbeloa


Pennant                Alonso               Mascherano               Riise

                                Gerrard
   
                                              Kuyt,


I don't see it myself. I'd say that this is just about our strongest team, with the possible exception of Crouch in for Kuyt on current form.

It looks strong on paper;

But it was the team that started away to City -
they played cack.

Can we stop messing about with Gerrard?
I can just about bear him playing right mid but NOT behind
the striker please.

[red_guy]

I just hope that Rafa had a new plan for next season. Maybe he could be less stubborn or anything. Next season is a very crucial season...by any means neccesary, we need to win the PL next year, no excuses.