Liverpool FC Forum

s@int wrote:Evans last season 97/98 POSITION 3RD Points 65
Houlliers last season 03/04 position 4th points 60 after spending £125million

PROGRESS?

As for the players I mentioned James, Owen, Murphy, Carra, Gerrard, Rednapp,Ince, McManaman, Fowler  they are ALL England international players.

McManaman had shaken hands on a deal to stay at liverpool only to then be offered a reduced contract.

We also had Berger, Matteo, Thomas ,McAteer,Freidel, Thomson, Reidle.

And Houllier took over a poor team ? Don't make me laugh.

Just try to find one post of mine where I call Fowler.

Evan's never came even remotely close to winning the league. Nor at any point under Evans did we even look CLOSE or BELIEVE we had a slight chance, even with Fowler planting 25 and 28 goals in a league season. Evans never won anything apart from one league cup, now to you, winning a league cup against the mancs might not mean anything, winning a uefa cup and an fa cup might not mean anything, winning a super cup might not mean anything and finishing above the mancs in the league might also mean nothing. Consistently beating Everton and Man Utd might mean nothing...

To me it means a hell of a lot. Especially when you're actually there and you see it happen infront of your eyes and you pay good money to see it happen.

But of course they mean nothing to you. You can look at Owen's winner in the cup final without a tear in your eye, you can picture the players celebrating the Uefa cup win infront of your eyes without being emotionally attached to it. The wins at old trafford and goodison meant nothing. Thats fine, thats your perogative, that shows what kind of "supporter" you are.

Whats your point about the england internationals? Whats that gotta do with anything? So's Crouch, Glen Johnson, Andy Johnson, that doesn't mean they are great players.

The players we had at the time were . Ince was awful for us. Redknapp was like Alonso with his passing but had no athletic ability, creative play, passion, heart or determination. Murphy was made into the player he was by Houllier, Gerrard was given his chance by Houllier, Carragher would have been sold if the idiots had there way.

You're clearly only picking up on the negatives. You haven't once argued your point against anything positive I have said with a reasoned arguement.

shanks wrote:nobody is argueing with you stu people look at you as a village idiot, too say that beating man utd does not mean any thing to any body on this web site is total rubbish and you no it but you are just after a arguement nah not me

Who was talking to you ya fool?

Kharhaz wrote:This whole topic is nothing but negative, yes weve signed new players that havent performed and yes at the minute it looks like rafas signings have been but lets not forget our legends, Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish and Bruce Grobbelaar all these players didnt get off to the best of starts but they all had the one thing that no-one seems to be able to give them now, and that is time, time to get used to whats happening at there club and there life. Yes it sucks that we aint any closer at this minute but give it time, the players mentioned who we could have had (ashton, bullard, anelka) wouldnt have made a jot of difference look at anelkas scoring record when he was here ! he wasnt exactly prolific was he? heres an idea whether we get the money or not DONT SIGN ANYBODY and just let who we do have here settle in

The topic isn't negative at all. The topic's a reality check. We aren't as good as some people want to believe we are. Not by a long shot.

We also have a manager who's made mistakes in the market and signed the wrong players. Yes, he's signed some decent ones, but the point is he could have had better in a few of the cases and we could have had better for less money. Thats my point....

You say the listed players wouldn't have made a difference, but I disagree with you completely. They are by far better players than what we have already, so how wouldn't they make a difference? Especially the two strikers who are both in a different class to what we have at the top end of the pitch.

You mention Anelka's scoring record while he was here, you're right, the lad wasn't prolific here, but he's been prolific everywhere else and when he played for us he shown class and quality. He was absoloutely outstanding in some games, Newcastle at home springs to mind where he ran the show without scoring. He completely took the and it was a joy to watch. They couldn't get near the lad. He has a touch, intelligence, strength, pace and ability to finish.

timmit wrote:Great debate this that could splinter into lots of little ones if necessary.

Under Roy Evans we never really had a PROPER title challenge although we did go close to challenging (remember the "4th in a 2 horse race" season?) Some of the football under Evans was great to watch though and the first season of Fowler-Collymore was brilliant to watch.

Gerard brought something different to the club with some great signings and some bloody awful ones too. What we did get was a side that around 2001 and 2002 was VERY hard to beat and you knew that if we scored a goal (and we usually did) that we wouldnt lose. The cup treble of 2001 was amazing and the following season to score 80 points pushed up right up there. The problem was that a lot of teams discovered that you could combat the pace of Owen by defending very deep to not let him use his pace to get behind the back four. This resulted in most of the games involving Liverpool being utter to watch as teams sat back and we never quite worked out how to break them down. This spawned the beginning of the end for Houllier and it became clear that he was struggling to forumlate a "plan B" now that teams had sussed us out.

Post heart op the man also became very stubborn. The Heskey situation was crazy- Emile had  a great start to his Liverpool career but never found the heights of that first season. Most games he stunk, but was continually played IMO as he cost £11m and to drop him would be akin to GH admitting that he may have been wrong. Sometimes its best to swallow your pride and leave the ego behind and do whats best for the club. The situation spiralled out of control from there and GH along with Thommo thought the whole world was against them and retreated into their little bunker only to emerge about how many corners we had had all season and other snippets of nonsense. No doubt in my mind that (despite falling over the line to 4th place) in May 2004 we needed a change.

So on to the current regime. A lot of what Stu says makes sense but some of it is tripe.

25/05/05 was the greatest day of my life and we will ALWAYS be grateful for that. Last season was a great improvement in terms of league form but this year we have fallen short.

Why? 

Its a combination of things I feel. The fixture list has made it very hard to determine how good we are against Utd. We had a horrible start away from home and while would have liked to have picked up some points, its no disgrace to lose away at Arsenal, Chelsea and United and Goodison is one of those where anything can happen. I never thought that we were good enough for the title this season and this has been proven. Its quite ironic now that everyone is talking up our home form when we still have to play the above 4 teams at Anfield. Dont get me wrong , we may beat them all but at this stage the home games coming up look very difficult. By contrast away from home, we should pick up a lot more points with the fixtures left and that is proving to be the case. I still think Chelsea will be champions especially with Utd having to go to Us, Arsenal,Chelsea and Man City yet.

My point here is that the strange fixture quirks have made possibly us look worse than we are and Utd look better than they are. We bought players would need time to gel and the FA rewarded us with all our important away games first, thats just bad luck

In terms of our current squad, I am impressed with Kuyt who will score goals and set them up as well. Crouch blows hot and cold but his goals record this season stands up very well.
Nobody is a bigger Fowler fan than me but I would say that 4th choice is probably about right at present. Bellamy has been good and Pennant looks like maybe fulfilling some of the promise that we saw early on but he still needs to take players on a lot more.

To sum up, are we on the right track?

Yes I think we are, but we are still a fair way behind. Rafa is NOT perfect and whilst rotation is needed it should be done sensibly and not just used to rest players. There is lot to be said for a "horses for courses" policy, such as not playing Garcia against the bluenoses when the game just flies past him.

Personally I think we can finish 3rd at best and that will be acceptable at present. The league cup is a distinct possibilty , too early to comment on the FA Cup as we may beat Arsenal then get Chelsea away! whilst progress in Europe will be very difficult.

Rafa will always draw great debate as some people will only see good in him after Istanbul, whereas other will only see bad as they expect a european cup every year, the reality is somewhere in between. He IS a good manager, who can be tactically astute but can also sometimes balls it up big time but nobody is perfect.

Lets just hope we get some silverwear this year and try to stick together as this one thing we have in common is to be supporters of this GREAT club

timmit wrote:Great debate this that could splinter into lots of little ones if necessary.

Under Roy Evans we never really had a PROPER title challenge although we did go close to challenging (remember the "4th in a 2 horse race" season?) Some of the football under Evans was great to watch though and the first season of Fowler-Collymore was brilliant to watch.

Gerard brought something different to the club with some great signings and some bloody awful ones too. What we did get was a side that around 2001 and 2002 was VERY hard to beat and you knew that if we scored a goal (and we usually did) that we wouldnt lose. The cup treble of 2001 was amazing and the following season to score 80 points pushed up right up there. The problem was that a lot of teams discovered that you could combat the pace of Owen by defending very deep to not let him use his pace to get behind the back four. This resulted in most of the games involving Liverpool being utter to watch as teams sat back and we never quite worked out how to break them down. This spawned the beginning of the end for Houllier and it became clear that he was struggling to forumlate a "plan B" now that teams had sussed us out.

Post heart op the man also became very stubborn. The Heskey situation was crazy- Emile had  a great start to his Liverpool career but never found the heights of that first season. Most games he stunk, but was continually played IMO as he cost £11m and to drop him would be akin to GH admitting that he may have been wrong. Sometimes its best to swallow your pride and leave the ego behind and do whats best for the club. The situation spiralled out of control from there and GH along with Thommo thought the whole world was against them and retreated into their little bunker only to emerge about how many corners we had had all season and other snippets of nonsense. No doubt in my mind that (despite falling over the line to 4th place) in May 2004 we needed a change.

So on to the current regime. A lot of what Stu says makes sense but some of it is tripe.

25/05/05 was the greatest day of my life and we will ALWAYS be grateful for that. Last season was a great improvement in terms of league form but this year we have fallen short.

Why? 

Its a combination of things I feel. The fixture list has made it very hard to determine how good we are against Utd. We had a horrible start away from home and while would have liked to have picked up some points, its no disgrace to lose away at Arsenal, Chelsea and United and Goodison is one of those where anything can happen. I never thought that we were good enough for the title this season and this has been proven. Its quite ironic now that everyone is talking up our home form when we still have to play the above 4 teams at Anfield. Dont get me wrong , we may beat them all but at this stage the home games coming up look very difficult. By contrast away from home, we should pick up a lot more points with the fixtures left and that is proving to be the case. I still think Chelsea will be champions especially with Utd having to go to Us, Arsenal,Chelsea and Man City yet.

My point here is that the strange fixture quirks have made possibly us look worse than we are and Utd look better than they are. We bought players would need time to gel and the FA rewarded us with all our important away games first, thats just bad luck

In terms of our current squad, I am impressed with Kuyt who will score goals and set them up as well. Crouch blows hot and cold but his goals record this season stands up very well.
Nobody is a bigger Fowler fan than me but I would say that 4th choice is probably about right at present. Bellamy has been good and Pennant looks like maybe fulfilling some of the promise that we saw early on but he still needs to take players on a lot more.

To sum up, are we on the right track?

Yes I think we are, but we are still a fair way behind. Rafa is NOT perfect and whilst rotation is needed it should be done sensibly and not just used to rest players. There is lot to be said for a "horses for courses" policy, such as not playing Garcia against the bluenoses when the game just flies past him.

Personally I think we can finish 3rd at best and that will be acceptable at present. The league cup is a distinct possibilty , too early to comment on the FA Cup as we may beat Arsenal then get Chelsea away! whilst progress in Europe will be very difficult.

Rafa will always draw great debate as some people will only see good in him after Istanbul, whereas other will only see bad as they expect a european cup every year, the reality is somewhere in between. He IS a good manager, who can be tactically astute but can also sometimes balls it up big time but nobody is perfect.

Lets just hope we get some silverwear this year and try to stick together as this one thing we have in common is to be supporters of this GREAT club

STR_18+5 wrote:Firstly before any numbnutz says is this a Rafa out thread no it is not. The mans a living legend and I love him to peices for whats he's done so far. He's also tactically extremely clever and potentially a world class manager...

He has however up this season and NEEDS to have a look at himself and the things he's done and learn from it.

An absoloutely awful first half to the season. Quite simple really...

Poor management, poor team selections, poor signings and a little bit of bad luck aswell.

Firstly the "bad luck". I'm not a fan of this excuse at all. But missing Kewell and Sissoko for long periods has caused us massive problems this season. Especially Kewell's absence. Kewell was excellent at times last season and held the ball up aswell as using the ball intelligently he helped out defensively and gave us good balance. We've missed that this season. Sissoko's loss hasn't been as important for me, however its still not allowed us to place out a tried and trusted midfield.

Secondly the team selections. A blind man can see that Liverpool have been playing BETTER (not good) football in the previous weeks so why change is again? Why does Rafa feel the need to fix something that isn't broken? I like rotation, i think it works. The pace the games played at these days you HAVE to rotate but you don't drop an on form player or your best player unless you have equal quality to replace them. Rafa often goes on about percentages and how its important that players are at 100%. Often the case but not always, you lose percentages when teams arent settled just as much as you do from rotation, you lose that telapathy, you lose confidence in players knowing that no matter how they play they could be on the bench the week after... Also, why has the defence changed so much last season? We were outstanding at the back this year, we've been very average so far. Agger has shown promise but thats all. He's not at Sami's level yet and we miss Hyypia when he doesn't play alot. The best back four is the one that played last season.

Poor management comes under the tactics and team selections. Crouch in for Kuyt at the weekend? Why? Playing out and out wingers who like a cross when theres two forwards who can't head a ball to save there life in there? Why? Playing a 3 man midfield? Why? Taking strikers off when you're losing? Why? Not playing your best goalscorer and one of your best players? Why?

The signings over the years...

Aurelio - Seems excellent technically but poor physically. He doesn't seem to have the mentallity either nor the tactical quality to play in defence...

Gonzalez - Quite simply not good enough and never a Liverpool player. Has shown glimpses of quality occassionally but never had a good 90 minutes.

Kuyt - I like, a decent player, but not good enough to be our main striker. He's a decent finisher not a great one and he's awful in the air. His ability to attack a moving ball and anticipate something in the box isn't great either. He's fairly strong and the ball does stick alot of the time with him but it should stick more than it does.

Pennant - Has shown glimpses but in general looks petrified to play at the minute. Looks like he knows this is his last chance and has no belief in his play. Simply isn't showing what he's capable of. Also, the point in him playing with Bellamy and Kuyt is what exactly? Pennant's a good crosser, Fowler attacks the ball as he shown against Galatasary, Kuyt and Bellamy don't. The aren't going to score goals from crosses. Feel sorry for the lad at the minute.

Crouch - Why did we pay £7million when Ashton went for 7million to West Ham? Crouch has better dribbling ability than Ashton, Ashton pisses all over him at EVERYTHING else bar height.

Bellamy - £6million. A good player, definately. Like him, got him for his value. First choice though? Do me a fucking favour. We're used to Owen's, Fowler's, Rush's...

The ones that got away...

Ashton £7m, self explanatory. Better than all of our strikers. Better finisher than them all, more of a goalscorer than them all and can play with his back to goal better than them all.

Anelka £8m, pace and quality personified. Excellent player. Him and Ashton would have been a hell of a partnership. Pace, power, intelligence, goals, strength, arial ability, poaching and Anelka even runs the channels.

Bullard £2m, a bit of quality on the ball in the attacking third. Will make a pass, take an extra touch, make a decoy run, will try and play a one two, can dicate the play in the opponents half of the pitch aswell as covering more ground than nearly every player in the league. A workhorse with quality at a bargain price.

              Ashton         Anelka
Kewell                                     Gerrard
              Alonso         Bullard   

Riise        Hyypia       Carragher    Finnan
       
                       Reina

Would have been nice... Still...

We lack quality individuals. Fowler is still an excellent player and never gets a look in and certain players we have aren't as good as made out. Its as simple as that.

timmit wrote:My point here is that the strange fixture quirks have made possibly us look worse than we are and Utd look better than they are. We bought players would need time to gel and the FA rewarded us with all our important away games first, thats just bad luck

Ace Ventura wrote:

timmit wrote:My point here is that the strange fixture quirks have made possibly us look worse than we are and Utd look better than they are. We bought players would need time to gel and the FA rewarded us with all our important away games first, thats just bad luck

Thats spot on and the sooner people realise it the better.

I have said since the start of the season that our fixtures where an absolute nightmare and uniteds a piece of p!ss, and i actually believe uniteds were fixed (it may sound like sour grapes) but look at it this way...fans were losing interest in the premiership, as it was a one horse race for 2 seasons and was predictable, so lets give the best supported club all of the hardest games at home in the first half of the season, and the likes of Watford and Charlton away early in the season, let them pick up form and confidence and turn it into a two horse race this season, neutrals will stay interested.
That is firmly what i believe.