Liverpool FC Forum

[whylongball?]

Rafa overdoses on tactics, but starves them of inspiration

good post and right sentiments expressed by peewee!
Overdose? yes! Rafa needs to know not all players are tactical like him. And at the end of the day, if your opening is not good(with chess in comparison), no point fighting middle game let alone end game.
And rafa should learn something from Ferguson which is fighting spirit he brings to man u

[112-1077774096]

pretty much the same apart from nevertons short lived escapade last season  .

to be fair mate i dont think out league is any poorer than other leagues, if you look at the french league, or german or spanish you will see weaker teams there also that sometimes spring a surprise on the bigger teams, we are not alone with weaker teams, even if a super league was formed there would still be so called weaker teams in that.

but the fac remains that we are underachieving in our league, i know we are third and some clubs will be happy with that, i could even accept that if we were third at the end a couple of points behind the winners, but we are nowhere near the top mate. its a sad fact. i dont want to seem all doom and gloom but the table doesnt lie, our results dont lie and our performances dont lie

[neil]

the sad fact- as far as every team outside the current top four are fully aware of- is their pathetic success rate Europes premier comp.

[112-1077774096]

mate forest won it twice and villa once so we are not the only english club to win it, even arsenal got the final last season.

i am struggling to understand what you are saying neil, are you saying the champions league is more important than the premier league?

are you happy with our league position as long as we are in the semis of the champions league?

[bigmick]

This is a good thread. In fairness to Peewee, he was one of the blokes at the start of the season (along with myself) who bemoaned the ridiculous rotation policy which put us out of the title race by the end of September. That he/we were right on the button to say after the opening fixture of the seasons disappointing draw at sheff Utd while man Utd were playing a full team and spanking Fulham 5-1, that the manager had made a huge mistake is surely now beyond dispute. I remember people saying at the time "you don't lose the Premeirship in one game" which of course was true. Some of us did ask the question "well just say we get beat at Everton and Bolton, will we have lost it then?". The reality of course is that we had. The league was over for us after seven games which is an absolute travesty and something for which the blame lies firmly at the managers door. I think rafa has been fantastic for the club and if he left it would be a disaster, but his rotation policy particularly at the beginning of a campaign is absolutely ridiculous. If he revisits that stupidity in the early games of next season, I would be on here advocating a change of management and I don't say that lightly.

You cannot win the English Premiership by way of mass rotations every week. No team has ever done it, and no team ever will. You quite simply have to play somewhere very close to your strongest team every week, and when playing the likes of sheffield united away from Home you have to approach the game with the attitude that anything less than a win is a disaster. if it's 1-1 with ten minutes to go, you have to hit 'em with the kitchen sink. A draw at such grounds is not in any way shape or form a good result, unless by some freak of nature/dodgy refereeing decisions you find yourself 2-0 down or something. In this regard in terms of picking the correct team to do the job and in instilling this attitude of win at all costs, Rafa has so far failed in the Premiership.

I have a hunch though that he has learned his lesson. I hope so, because silliness at the beginning of this season prevented us from mounting a title challenge. I am absolutely convinced that had we played with as settled a team as possible in the first ten games, the title race would now be involving three teams and not two.

[neil]

mate forest won it twice and villa once so we are not the only english club to win it, even arsenal got the final last season.

i am struggling to understand what you are saying neil, are you saying the champions league is more important than the premier league?

are you happy with our league position as long as we are in the semis of the champions league?

huh? forest 30 years ago dude, villa 25. Arsenal are in the current top 4 as I'm sure you must know(though I can understand your finger not quite being on the pulse of late) I personally prefer the European footy to the domestic scene. So Fvckin what?
To the last question, I'm hardly inconsolable yet optimistic. Your point?
Do you support the team(in a fashion) more in the premier league than the Champions league 

[66-1112520797]

This is a good thread. In fairness to Peewee, he was one of the blokes at the start of the season (along with myself) who bemoaned the ridiculous rotation policy which put us out of the title race by the end of September. That he/we were right on the button to say after the opening fixture of the seasons disappointing draw at sheff Utd while man Utd were playing a full team and spanking Fulham 5-1, that the manager had made a huge mistake is surely now beyond dispute. I remember people saying at the time "you don't lose the Premeirship in one game" which of course was true. Some of us did ask the question "well just say we get beat at Everton and Bolton, will we have lost it then?". The reality of course is that we had. The league was over for us after seven games which is an absolute travesty and something for which the blame lies firmly at the managers door. I think rafa has been fantastic for the club and if he left it would be a disaster, but his rotation policy particularly at the beginning of a campaign is absolutely ridiculous. If he revisits that stupidity in the early games of next season, I would be on here advocating a change of management and I don't say that lightly.

Your still hung up Mick about a result nine months ago, I remember it vividly. As I said to you that one game wont lose you the league. I'm not sure but since then I think one or possibly two of the other top four dropped points there (Brammal lane).

I was content with that, and I wasnt in the " We've lost the league after one game brigade" I was in that brigade after the next three months or so. When some of the worst results and performances were played, amongst it all was the over rotating of players. Rafa mass rotated to early on, and since we've never recovered as we were way to far behind. Since the turn of the new year (in the league) we've improved more on our results, I honestly dont mind a little rotating this time of year ONLY if quality out quality in type thing proceeds with personel.

The only way to tell if Rafa learns by his mistakes is if we see how he starts the campaign next season and even if thats a 1-1 draw at The riverside I'd be happy, AS LONG as the same pattern doesnt emerge after that, like it did with this season.

[bigmick]

I agree BM that of course that result didn't lose us the league. The trouble is, and this is where the nonsense of unneeded rotation falls down, is that one thing leads to another. Each game is not played in isolation, the result of the previous games has a bearing on the next one. Why? It just does. You start as you mean to go on. Spank Sheff Utd 4-0 and get some momentum going. I would've said exactly the same had we won 2-1 with a last minute goal. It weas ridiculous and unnecessary.

BTW I agree with you about rotation as the players are beginning to get tired, round about now. That said, as has been pointed out, Man U and Chelsea players seem to be coping Ok. No, it's complete nonsense, it doesn't matter which way  you look at it, it's nonsense.

[112-1077774096]

mate forest won it twice and villa once so we are not the only english club to win it, even arsenal got the final last season.

i am struggling to understand what you are saying neil, are you saying the champions league is more important than the premier league?

are you happy with our league position as long as we are in the semis of the champions league?

huh? forest 30 years ago dude, villa 25. Arsenal are in the current top 4 as I'm sure you must know(though I can understand your finger not quite being on the pulse of late) I personally prefer the European footy to the domestic scene. So Fvckin what?
To the last question, I'm hardly inconsolable yet optimistic. Your point?
Do you support the team(in a fashion) more in the premier league than the Champions league 

i support the team in every game in every competition hence my annoyance at 3 of our chances for a trophy being given away cheaply, the point i am trying to find out from you is does your comment about judging ourselves against european teams mean that us winning the premier league would be devalued in your eyes as we have only beaten rubbish to win it.

you posts come across as the league not being important, and a few small personal digs does not help your course now does it.

and do i think the premier league is more important that the champions league, damn right i do

[kunilson]

so rotate extensively, but only in the later parts of the season then......

my take on the whole thing is that rotation is good in small doses, but the core of the team must remain.

you rotate here and there to keep the squad hungry for gametime, but not 5+ changes week-in week-out at the beginning of a season...thats what we were doing at some point.

but what do i know? rafa's the man in charge.

[neil]

mate forest won it twice and villa once so we are not the only english club to win it, even arsenal got the final last season.

i am struggling to understand what you are saying neil, are you saying the champions league is more important than the premier league?

are you happy with our league position as long as we are in the semis of the champions league?

huh? forest 30 years ago dude, villa 25. Arsenal are in the current top 4 as I'm sure you must know(though I can understand your finger not quite being on the pulse of late) I personally prefer the European footy to the domestic scene. So Fvckin what?
To the last question, I'm hardly inconsolable yet optimistic. Your point?
Do you support the team(in a fashion) more in the premier league than the Champions league 

i support the team in every game in every competition hence my annoyance at 3 of our chances for a trophy being given away cheaply, the point i am trying to find out from you is does your comment about judging ourselves against european teams mean that us winning the premier league would be devalued in your eyes as we have only beaten rubbish to win it.

you posts come across as the league not being important, and a few small personal digs does not help your course now does it.

and do i think the premier league is more important that the champions league, damn right i do

Small digs  you gave the forum the impression you had banned my postin for as long as you could and I have been a gent about it ever since, dont push it is all, dont question my views in your modus operandi whilst I am still annoyed. nuff said move on.

[112-1077774096]

banned your posting??

yeah move on as you are making no sense now   

[Bad Bob]

Plenty of good threads going at the moment so I'll save my comments on rotation revisited for that thread.  Since this one's about our away form, I'd like to take issue with two comments that came up early in this thread and suggest my views on why we've struggled away from Anfield this season. 

First, my objections:

1) Surely Arsenal at home proved that 4-5-1/4-3-3 is not a negative formation?  At least not necessarily so.  In fact, if done well, it can be a quite potent attacking formation, with two wingers and an advanced central midfielder all given license to get forward.

2) That was far from a "weakened side" that Rafa fielded on Saturday so I don't buy the notion that we did not give Man City, or the Premiership, enough respect.  We had the personnel on the pitch to really hurt them so the problem, for me, was not the formation nor the personnel (save for one instance, which I'll get to in a minute).

So, what's gone wrong on our travels this season?  For me, there are four main factors and while we've largely put the first behind us, the other three have persisted:

1) Defensive problems -- this was an issue early in the season, partly due to injuries (Carragher, Riise), partly due to the relatively poor form of some key players (Reina, Finnan) and partly due to rotation.  Shoddy defending cost us the match at Everton, Bolton, Arsenal and Man U, at the very least.  So much of our early away woes was down to the fact that we did not have the iron-clad defensive shield of the previous season in place yet.  As I say, though, we'd turned that around by Christmas and have become as tight as the back as ever.  So, that moves us to...

2) Poor finishing -- we've seen several games this year (home and away, but it's really cost us on our travels) where we've created a glut of chances and failed to bury them.  The trips to Blackburn and Newcastle spring immediately to mind but there were also those instances, such as at Chelsea and Everton, where we were finding the woodwork rather than the net.  If we had been more clinical in many of our away games, particularly to open the scoring, I think we would have kicked on and got the result.  But, it's not just about the end product because...

3) We've struggled to create chances -- this especially apparent in games like Saturday's, where you'd be forgiven for not recognizing who was the home team and who was the away team.  Certain teams have shown such a lack of ambition against us, that they've packed the defense and played for the draw, even at their own gaff.  This, however, should not be a cause for frustration.  Rather, it should be seen as a challenge to surmount.  This is where the Mancs and Chelsea excel, while we (and Arsenal) struggle: breaking teams down.  You saw it on Saturday, a few decent chances created in the early stages of the game, before the defensive team has settled into their shell but then a dirth of real incisive football for most of the rest of the match, bar (in Saturday's case) a few decent runs from Pennant.  The Garcia injury is the obvious excuse but that simply highlights the problem--we don't quite have enough quality in the side to break resolute teams down when they sit deep.  We rely on defensive slips in these games more than on the creative genius of one our own lads and this is a shortcoming that must be corrected next transfer window.  But, this is exacerbated by...

4) Overly cautious managing -- As I said above, I don't think it has to do with the formations he picks or the personnel he starts the match with.  To me, though, Rafa waits to long to change things when the plan isn't working.  Take Saturday, where Man City were camped on the edge of their own area and Kuyt was getting no change whatsoever from them.  That situation screams out for Crouch but Rafa left it very late to bring the big man on.  Moreover, his substitutions seem to rob us of attacking flair rather than injecting us with it.  How often has he taken a striker off for a midfielder when we are in search of a goal?  How often is Pennant--say what you will, but he's one of the few players with pace who can dribble, therefore, he's one of the few players who can get in behind a defense on his own--taken off when the strikers need service?  How many times does Kuyt get the full 90 minutes, despite being completely knackered by the end of the match and despite failing to carry a goal threat?  Rafa seems unwilling to throw caution to the wind when we're controlling the game, and go hammer and tongs for a goal.  We managed it against Reading but that was a rare instance where the subs came on and made the difference.  I'd love to see him be much more positive in his substitutions away from home.

[Sabre]

I agree paragraphs one and two, but not that much three and four. All of them were a pleasure to read as they are well explained.

Yes we make defensive mistakes. In fact I was surprised you gave a point to Arbeloa last match because he did a couple of mistakes that made me swear. Yes he fixed the mess himself later, but shouldn't have done the mistake in the first place.

Poor finishing, yes, it has been a trouble. I also agree that sometimes (not usually) he waits too much for making a sub. And what I don't understand is this new fashion of making the players warm up in the fist half if they're not going to be used. Some sort of telling the men in the pitch who's not happy with? It's strange (in my book) to see that kind of warm ups if there's not an inmmediate sub incoming.

Anyhow, good post Bad Bob.

[neil]

banned your posting??

yeah move on as you are making no sense now