Liverpool FC Forum

by **dawson99** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:05 pm

For those of you who dont read bbc sports, alan hansen has a column, and this ones pretty good so i thought id post it. Whatever you say about the hansen, the guy knows football.

Liverpool's rise to second place in the Premiership is confirmation that manager Rafael Benitez has at last found that magical formula between attack and defence.

I felt once Benitez could strike that healthy balance between attack and defence Liverpool would be on their way

And while we would be getting carried away to talk about the title coming back to Liverpool, no-one should be in any doubt that they are moving in the right direction, and quickly.

Now they are in Japan for the World Club Championship, and time will tell whether it benefits them or whether it has provided a crucial interruption to their growing momentum.

So what has changed at Liverpool?

Ten clean sheets say it all - Liverpool attack as a team and defend as a team, and that's the secret.

I was in the last Liverpool side to achieve that feat, and while so many rightly lauded it as a great attacking side containing talents like John Barnes and Peter Beardsley, we were acutely aware of our defensive duties.

And it was an awareness the whole team possessed, not just the defenders.

Liverpool may have drawn too many games at the start of the season, but I felt the signs of improvement were there in the goalless draws at Middlesbrough and Spurs.

Last season Liverpool looked vulnerable in those games, but even though they didn't win them this term, I never actually felt they were going to lose them either.

It was a big difference, and I felt once Benitez could strike that healthy balance between attack and defence, Liverpool would be on their way.

They had a blip at Crystal Palace and at Fulham, which left questions being asked about Benitez's side.

Ten clean sheets and a run of victories has been the response, so that's as emphatic an answer as you can deliver.

And there are good reasons for it.

As well as a defence playing at the top of its game, Liverpool's strength and balance in midfield looks good. If you are weak there, you can forget success.

Mohamed Sissoko is up for the fight and even someone like Luis Garcia, who I know many fans have doubts about in the Premiership, is showing signs of coming to terms with the league.

Xabi Alonso has a year's more experience, so things are going well.

As a Liverpool fan I'm really excited. I feel this is a better side than the one that won the Champions League last season.

I know better than anyone the dangers of getting carried away. It was drummed into me at Liverpool that this was the time football could kick you in the teeth if you were not on your guard.

But Liverpool fans have every right to think things are on the up.

In the last few seasons, I went to Anfield hoping they would win. Now I expect them to win. The expectation is back and it's a great feeling for those Liverpool fans who had forgotten what that felt like.

If Liverpool can add maybe a defender and perhaps a wide man with pace in the January transfer windown, then I think they can really go places.

There is a lack of pace in the team, Steven Gerrard apart. Djibril Cisse's quick, but his days are clearly numbered so he won't figure in that equation.

Peter Crouch has done well for Liverpool, despite the criticism he has received. He holds the ball up well, ensuring Liverpool retain possession.

If you retain that possession, you build up pressure on defenders and that's when they make mistakes.

Chelsea will win the league, unless something truly remarkable happens that none of us can foresee, but Liverpool will be among the closest challengers.

However, they have some testing games coming up, such as against Newcastle and the increasingly dangerous Everton.

The results in those games will go a long way to determining whether the trip to Japan was a good or bad idea.

But for now, Liverpool and their fans can bask in a surge of renewed optimism - and rightly so.

by **Lando_Griffin** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:55 am

Top lad Hansen.
An ex-red who still holds the club in his heart.

by **greenred** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:07 am

Yeah,well said Hansen.But nothing you couldnt read on here these last couple of months.Sometimes i wonder if these ex-pro`s know anything more than we do.

by **A.B.** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:54 am

Well, positive comments from Hansen............. I wonder if it might rain cats and dogs tomorrow........

by **azriahmad** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:06 am

Alan Hansen also writes for the Telegraph and sometime last season he wrote in the Telegraph that the jury is still out on Benitez's purchases and there is a worry that "Liverpool will be a conveyor of churning out mediocrity" after taking into account of Benitez's and Houllier's purchases.

Of course, all this was said before Benitez guided Liverpool to a very unexpected and unlikely Champions' League victory.

Pundits jump on and off the bandwagon at will, to preserve their own popularity anf thus, longevity. While I have no doubts that Alan Hansen knows his football, somehow he has tended to criticize Liverpool a bit too heavily/unfairly when things are not going well. He had not hit very hard on Manure and Ferguson over their recent failings in Europe.

by **babu** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:16 am

azriahmad wrote:Alan Hansen also writes for the Telegraph and sometime last season he wrote in the Telegraph that the jury is still out on Benitez's purchases and there is a worry that "Liverpool will be a conveyor of churning out mediocrity" after taking into account of Benitez's and Houllier's purchases.

Of course, all this was said before Benitez guided Liverpool to a very unexpected and unlikely Champions' League victory.

Pundits jump on and off the bandwagon at will, to preserve their own popularity anf thus, longevity. While I have no doubts that Alan Hansen knows his football, somehow he has tended to criticize Liverpool a bit too heavily/unfairly when things are not going well. He had not hit very hard on Manure and Ferguson over their recent failings in Europe.

I agree with your assessment. I will take his comments with a grain of salt. He has criticised LFC a fair bit in the past (rightfully or not).

However this is a nice article

by **azriahmad** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:28 am

Yes, babu.

Alan Hansen is a legend and I have seen him play for Liverpool many times (fortunate enough to have watched him in a live match for Liverpool in the late 80s). Tommy Smith is also a legend, I only remembered him in the 1977 European Cup final, when he scored 1 goal in Liverpool's maiden victory in the European Cup over Borussia Mohcengladbach.

But there, the similarity ends. On the subject of Liverpool Football Club, Tommy Smith will give a general criticism in his norlmal Liverpool Echo column, but Hansen goes much further and dishes out a much stronger one, especially in the Telegraph. I don't know if these are his words or if they are "ghost" written, but why does he have to hit Liverpool so very hard? if he hits that hard, he should hit hard on manure, arsenal, chelski etc also, when the situation warrants.

No matter, Liverpool's fortunes does not depend on these lopsided pundits, they depend on teh hard work of the peopel inside and they are inspired by the support from people like us.

YNWA...

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