Liverpool FC Forum

by **woof woof !** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:30 pm

Just been reviewing our game against Benfica .Surely they are the Charlton of the champions league . How we failed to roll over a side that spent 70% of the match playing like the away team beggars belief .

How much longer before Rafa realises that a strike force with limited appetite and zero pace are gonna win f'uck all .How Rafa continues to persevere with Morientes is quite frankly beyond me . It's a bit like buying a secondhand Rolls Royce ,great pedigree but no matter what you do you just can't get it to perform like it used to. Garcia is imo fast becoming a luxury we can't really afford . Yes he's a flair player , yes he scores some brilliant goals and yes I love the bones of the fella BUT when the chips are down and I'm just looking for a result why would I pick a player who apparently only turns it on one game in four ? Quite frankly I'd rather see Pongo and Mellor instead of the above mentioned ,but in his wisdom Rafa has elected to farm them out on loan .
There is no doubting that Rafa has turned the clubs fortunes around , our defence is nothing less than heroic , our midfield can live with the very best but by comparison our strike force is a shambles . Is this Rafa's achilles heel ? ie . He's a brilliant general when sitting on his a'rse waiting for the opposition to make a mistake but when the enemy surrenders the field he's somehow unable to take advantage ? . Time to wave goodbye to Morientes Rafa , time to admit that Garcia is no more than a sometimes incredible sub . Time to stop firing blanks and give LFC upfront some real ammunition .

by **Sabre** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:38 pm

Neil Mellor, eh?

But neither Mellor nor Pongo are here, so what would it be your realistic proposal? stick with Fowler and Crouch unless injuries come?

by **stmichael** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:39 pm

i'll admit, letting pongolle go out on loan is still baffling. we could have done with him the other night.

by **Judge** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:41 pm

i loved cisse when he came to lfc, thinking he would blow us all away, but to be frank i think he is a shoulder shrugging whiner who tends to give up a little of late (i know that will annoy dawson, but he is).

i agree on the garcia thing aswell woof. great flicks, scored a few important goals, but much of the time gets caught on the ball dwelling and his passing at times is somewhat wayward. Morientes is suffering bad at the moment, and couldnt score in a brothel if it were being given away free and the bird has a four foot gash to aim at............know what i mean

we are very lightweight on the scoring front, and i think some teams have sussed this, so are willing to play on the back foot for a while, knowing we average one goal every other game or so (stats men please dont quote me)

over to you lot

by **redmikey** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:42 pm

is this not something that has been done to death! we all know that the strike force is weak but my angle on the benfica game was that moro did alot of first line defensive work. fowler tried to link up with some good movement and touches but

how are they going to score if we don't create goal mouth chances. fowler never would have or could have carried the ball past the last man. nando is supposed to be feeding off cross into the box but they didn't come

i could understand your rant at rafa if you had been disappointed with the amount of clear cut chances we didn't create, but the strike force issue we are just doing the best with what we have at the moment

this is just another moan.... why

by **Judge** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:44 pm

redmikey wrote:is this not something that has been done to death! we all know that the strike force is weak but my angle on the benfica game was that moro did alot of first line defensive work. fowler tried to link up with some good movement and touches but

how are they going to score if we don't create goal mouth chances. fowler never would have or could have carried the ball past the last man. nando is supposed to be feeding off cross into the box but they didn't come

i could understand your rant at rafa if you had been disappointed with the amount of clear cut chances we didn't create, but the strike force issue we are just doing the best with what we have at the moment

this is just another moan.... why

coz we love liverpool and want our team to do well at all costs

by **redmikey** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:58 pm

i agree judge but all i am saying is that if a newbie had started another tread on our poor strike force they would have been told to read the old treads.

we all want sucess and to see us dominate again and not win is frustrating as hell but rafa will address it as soon as poss, i think that it obvious that rafa dosn't trust cissie in the same way he didn't trust baros put put in the work needed for the team to be successful and not just indivuals which cissie is guilty of imo.

by **woof woof !** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:20 pm

Sabre wrote:Neil Mellor, eh?

But neither Mellor nor Pongo are here, so what would it be your realistic proposal? stick with Fowler and Crouch unless injuries come?

Firstly get don't get cute and get a Fu*king grip! dyer think i don't know Mellor and Pongo aren't here ! ? Perhaps my reference to Rafa's faith in our current strke force and subsequent "ironic" mention of Mellor and Pongo got lost in translation.

Secondly , yes , if we bounce out Morientes and Garcia,attack wise we are stuck with two from Fowler ,Crouch and Cisse , can't see tham performing any more dismally than a past sell by date Morientes and a spluttering Garcia .

by **dawson99** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:25 pm

sorry to say but this is very similar to my post about the strikers

i sort of agree with u but i like garcia... yes hes a flair player and can be a waster, but we should have the skill around the pitch to help him out so he can do his thing. We need for him to do what he did against teams like arsenal and juventus and i wouldnt want him to change his game.

by **Sabre** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:25 pm

Firstly get don't get cute and get a Fu*king grip! dyer think i don't know Mellor and Pongo aren't here ! ? Perhaps my reference to Rafa's faith in our current strke force and subsequent "ironic" mention of Mellor and Pongo got lost in translation.

The only ironic mention was Neil Mellor one, and, I don't know why you respond that way, it's just an opinion, and I did in the best manners I could.

If you said that anywhere around Europe they wouldn't know Mellor, and if they did, they'd laugh, so you can't actually complain about the irony, so it's you who should get a fecking grip, if you ask me.

It's a bit like buying a secondhand Rolls Royce ,great pedigree but no matter what you do you just can't get it to perform like it used to. Garcia is imo fast becoming a luxury we can't really afford

Shall you give me more footy arguements, rather than cheap literature?.

If you dare to say Rafa doesn't get it and you have another fecking opinion, expose it properly, just like bigmick does. If not, at least be ready to read different opinions.

Thank you.

by **tommycockles** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:26 pm

I completely agree with redmikey- we're all getting frustrated with certain performances (don't forget we're doing much better in the league than we'd have thought at the start of the season) but there's no point having a go at Rafa. He's not going to come out and say that he knows we haven't got a strike force and knock the last bit of confidence out of them when we need them for the CL (and remaining premiership games). He's building a team- he's not Moaninho who can bring out his company cheque book and buy whoever he likes- and several options so that if one doesn't work he's got another three on the bench.

Rafa seems to be building from the back forwards- i don't think even he thought our strikers would perform as badly as they have this season- but this is the case and as he can't change it until the summer we're stuck with what we've got and he's rightly supporting them(as we should be). In the summer i'm sure he won't hold any sentiments when he kicks out those that haven't improved and will then bring in the strikers and winger that we need.

To start questioning rafa's ability is ludicrous. We went undefeated for longer than any team of recent years, are looking to finish 2nd in the league and are still in the CL (and i reckon we'll beat Benfica at Anfield to go through) but yet you're questioning his ability. And Woof -to say "Time to stop firing blanks and give LFC upfront some real ammunition" - how exactly is he supposed to do this? Unless he can get some incredible player that's not cup-tied, which isn't likely, we're stuck with what we have and have to do the best we can. In hindsight he probably shouldn't have let Pongo go, but hindsights a wonderful thing!! When he brought Fowler in everyone thought we would sudenly start scoring goals but we haven't, and to be honest in the last few games i wouldn't just put the blame on our strikers- we haven't exactly been giving them any quality of supply for the strikers to capitalise on!!

I understand your frustrations but questioning Rafa's ability is taking things a bit too far- when we go and win the CL for the 6th* time you'll be the first saying that Rafa's a god-like genius.

*fingers crossed this is this year!! either way i honestly believe Rafa will bring us a 6th time and much more to be happy about.

by **woof woof !** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:27 pm

redmikey wrote:is this not something that has been done to death! we all know that the strike force is weak but my angle on the benfica game was that moro did alot of first line defensive work.

this is just another moan.... why

Think you answered you own question .

Yeah , when we are under the cosh i want to see our "strikers " putting in some defensive duty but when we are clearly superior and more than comfortable I want to see them looking to fulfill their primary task .i.e look to score some f'ucking goals ! .

Another moan why ? . Cause sometimes we don't take a game even when it's offered to us on a plate . THATS WHY ! :angry:

by **tommycockles** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:31 pm

woof woof ! wrote:Another moan why ? . Cause sometimes we don't take a game even when it's offered to us on a plate . THATS WHY !

Sorry did you watch a different game to the rest of us? I thought we controlled the game pretty well- but to say it was offered to us on a plate is a bit soft.

by **dawson99** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:44 pm

1st half we should have finished them, but we didnt. 2nd half they came more into it (the pitch thing they did was a disgrace) but we just cant kill teams lately

by **redmikey** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:57 pm

woofy Everyone is frustrated at controlling games and not smashing teams to bits

man u away
charton
benfica
etc etc

but we havn't been creating chances for anyone to finish and there are threads galour moaning about it, i just don't think it justified a thread, we would all love robbie nando crouch and cissie to be smashing goals in from every angle but there is feck all we can do about it till the summer, if we don't sign a striker and lose cissie i will be the first one moaning that we are not going to challange with our front line, but until then we have to get behind the team and stop sniping at every chance

nandos rubbish
crouch can't header
garcia is lightweight ( i bet my left ball you didn't say that in the champions league last year)
cissie enough said
robbie is a stop gap

none of this helps anyone, and if you were in the pub i would tell you to stop moanin, we are all as footy fan entiltle to a good moan but the same subject over and over gets boring

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