Liverpool FC Forum

[Elchris]

Hopefully finnan will be fit for the second leg so our defence will look more solid and arbeloa could play Lb behind riise, that itself will improve the team alot in my opinion. Hope bellamy scores this weekend against portsmouth to make him confident abit , at least give him a full 90 minutes game, we need him to be onform for the second leg , he can do some damage ..at least that is what i hope.

As for alonso , he was missing the kop yesteday

[jaytoothetee]

he still must be the worst ever footballer with a "Z" in his name though.

unless djimi's middle name was zacharias 

[Gerrard30391]

Rafa-dodd, I disagree with you there mate. I don't think he did take on Ferreira very often and his distribution of the ball wasn't great for any stretch of the game. I think Mark Gonzalez running at Ferreira with pace would have done the trick. Ferreira had no cover in front of him, so he was exposed and we didn't do that last night. I do agree we wern't good as a team, and if we were we would've murdered chelsea because they wern't on the money either. We can do it at Anfield

YNWA

P.S Xabi Alonso had a shocker

[Emerald Red]

If had a better english I would have written Rafa Dodd's post exactly.

I agree with him totally. He's some sort of a sand bag. Made mistakes, but not as important as Arbeloa's, Agger's mistakes yesterday. Hence, I don't understand the stick.

I do understand there might be better options, but that's Rafa's decission.

The point is that Agger and Arbeloas error were down to the opposition doing well against them, maybe they are not good enough, but nobody stopped Bolo putting the ball in properly.

So when he picks the ball up in a decent position he looks accross and sees Terry Carvalho and Cole, with Bellamy at the far post and Kuyt not even in the area most of the time where do you suggest he crosses it ?
He picked Gerrard out and Kuyt both should of done better.

I agree totally with this what ever Zenden did produce was never attacked mainly because there was no one there to attack it.

This was the main problem. I recall only one real penatrating run by Bolo into the area with scream from me to "F'ckin' CROSS IT!". He never, and waited to get to the bi-line and instead it hit the defender who got too close (can't remember who) and went for a corner. On the replay it showed Crouch making a run across the defender in the 6 yard box, and Kuyt at the back stick and little else. He should have fizzed that with pace across that area right in front of the keeper: a deflection, own goal, pen, keeper fuck up, anything might have happened. But he didn't do it. I was furious. So the Zenden bashing for the rest of the game began. He simply wasn't at the races last night and should have been subbed at least.

Oh, and Crouch should have started.

[Gerrard30391]

This was the main problem. I recall only one real penatrating run by Bolo into the area with scream from me to "F'ckin' CROSS IT!". He never, and waited to get to the bi-line and instead it hit the defender who got too close (can't remember who) and went for a corner. On the replay it showed Crouch making a run across the defender in the 6 yard box, and Kuyt at the back stick and little else. He should have fizzed that with pace across that area right in front of the keeper: a deflection, own goal, pen, keeper up, anything might have happened. But he didn't do it. I was furious. So the Zenden bashing for the rest of the game began. He simply wasn't at the races last night and should have been subbed at least.

Oh, and Crouch should have started.

Couldn't agree more!

[Santa]

benitez played zenden knowing that if we lost zenden  will get the blame, rather than any focus on benitez being .

what are you talking about...Benitez picks the team, his team...we lost he gets the blame, PERIOD!!! As for your other comments, I won't even worth me acknowledging it!!!

[Santa]

the pitch was slippery y'day and the played long balls all night to Drogba's strength and he made it very difficult for our defenders to cope. We were relying on Bellamy's pace in the counter attacks and I didn't even notice he played at all! Terry and co had Kuyt in their pocket all night and no one seems to be able to cross the ball from either flanks hence we do not pose any attacking treats at all. Very poor team performance considering the opponent are not playing that well either. Zenden sucks as I expected him to when I saw the team sheet, but was surprised by the low key/ineffective performance of guys like Kuyt, Bellamy, Alonso and Agger (but to be fair he had his hands full coping with Drogba)

Chelsea did not make use of their chances y'day and I can see us having a more than reasonable chance to turn the over next week. For heaven sake Rafa has gotta start Pennant and Crouch on the return leg as they are our most in-form attacking threats right now (tho that's not saying much) 

[eds]

I don't care what any of you say, Zenden is; abhorrent, appalling, atrocious, awful, bad, dire, dreadful, horrendous, poor and very unwelcome.

How any of you can sit there and say, "Thats OK, poor bloke" is beyond belief! If I was him and played the way I did I would put my hand up and said "Guys, I'm sorry I realized yesterday that football is no longer my sport, please end my money leaching contract and ship me off back to the land of tulips"
End of argument!

Scapegoat! When has anyone suggested or mentioned that Liverpool lost because of him yesterday? The whole team was poor but Zenden was beyond that. He gave nothing and stuffed up more than 75% of the time he had the ball. As a professional that was dia-F>U<C>KING-bolical. I don't care whether he was 1 of 2 options, we are better than that, why does Benitez have clowns like this still in the squad? He clearly isnt up to our level let alone the premiership level as he has shown (or not shown) against lesser teams. No injury excuses (like that being written) or anything else can dismiss the fact that he pure and utter rubbish.

As for Gonzalez, he isn't at our level either but he would have been a much better option, at least the lad has speed and had a greater chance of grabbing a goal for us.

The real problem is not Zenden it is that:

- Aurelio is injured
- Garcia is injured
- Kewell is STILL recovering
- Gonzo has not impressed

and we are then left with a 4th-5th choice washed up has-been player who should be playing in one of the European minor leagues, a sad state of affairs indeed.

[Stu.Murph]

No-one made Zenden a scape goat. The fact is it was an awful performance and Zenden was amoungst the worse performers yet again. He offered no penetration, he had an age to cross the ball after once beating Ferreira, it was crying out to be stood up and he ended up only getting a corner.

His use of the ball was shocking and the amount of times he could have turned but chose to pass backwards or play the wrong pass was a joke.

Zenden was one of the worst on the pitch. Its as simple as that and no amount of sympathy hides that fact. As a team we weren't upto it. But it just shows, if Gerrard's not on his game and Alonso plays a bit poorly we become a distinctly average team. Players like Zenden are the reason for this. Not players like Gerrard and Xabi.

[Lando_Griffin]

I'm getting a bit p*ssed off with saying this:

Just because Xabi wasn't on top of his game, it doesn't mean he had a shocker!

Open your f*cking eyes you imbeciles - actually LOOK at what he does for the team, THEN judge.

If you still think he played sh*t - learn more about the game.

[Stu.Murph]

The problem is Lando, players like Xabi and Stevey vary rarely play a 6/10 game. When they do it stands out for us as they are the two players that seperate us from the likes of Everton, Spurs other sides in and around the Uefa places.

Xabi this season by his own standards has been very average but the fact is in his averageness he's very rarely one of the worst players on the pitch and always does good things.

Xabi HAS to improve next season, but I'm sure he will.

[Fowler_E7]

I think some of the critiscism of Zenden has been a tad harsh considering tried his best the other night, and gave it a real go, when plenty of others looked nervous and unready for a such a big occasion. But when your rubbish, that cant be disguised. Zenden is not good enough to play for Liverpool, this has been proved time and time again, and i have no idea why we signed him in the first place. He will be the first out the door in the summer.

[Bad Bob]

I'm getting a bit p*ssed off with saying this:

Just because Xabi wasn't on top of his game, it doesn't mean he had a shocker!

Open your f*cking eyes you imbeciles - actually LOOK at what he does for the team, THEN judge.

If you still think he played sh*t - learn more about the game.

       

[Fowler_E7]

I think Alonso has been unfairly singled more than any other player IMO, him Reina and Gerrard were the only players in out team that put in some kind of a performance! Alonso wasnt great but he had quite a good second half, where i though he distributed the ball well, but what can u do when u barely have any players making any runs for him?

[stmichael]

Pi$$ing me off now everyone having a go at Zenden. Ok the lad aint good enough for us but he always gives 100% and at least he was trying to attack Chelsea and not pass the ball back all the time.

They were players out there on Wednesday that are deemed good enough for Liverpool who were sh#te so all this Zenden bashing is stupid.

Agger was being fouled everytime Drogba went near the ball. Drogba had hold of Aggers shirt and attempting to pull him over whilst backing into him, Drogba throws himself to the floor and gets a free kick.

I thought we should have started with Gonzalez or Pennant on the left and the problem with starting with Crouch was as we witnessed on Wednesday we just hoofed the long ball up to him. Its not Crouchs fault we do that but we were just giving the ball away everytime by hoping Crouch would get on the end of a long ball.