Liverpool FC Forum

by **Leonmc0708** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:47 pm

How is there page 4 with no posts in it ?

by **stmichael** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:48 pm

I agree with Owzat to an extent.

United haven't strengthened in the right areas at all. They've got no cover in defence and have only got one out and out striker who's ridiculously injury prone anyway. The last place they needed to buy was in midfield. Their buys tell me that their priority is the Champions League this season.

Chelsea are obviously strong but there's problems there aswell. If Drogba gets an injury they're screwed. They've still not got a decent right back and at the moment their best player (Joe Cole) can't even get in the side.

I couldn't understand why everone wrote Arsenal off before the season started. They're still a class team to watch although they are a bit lightweight and inexperience may cost them over the course of the season. They also have a weakness in the goalkeeping position imo.

Our squad, along with Chelsea is the best in the League without any shadow of a doubt now. I mean you just have to look at the strength of our bench every week. The fact that Crouch (the top English goalscore in the last year) gets left out of the sixteen on a regular basis is proof of our strength in depth now.

by **account deleted by request** » Wed May 14, 2008 6:42 am

I thought I would bump this, as it seems to be quite revealing as to why some people are a little unhappy with Rafa while others still think he is a genius.

I thought we had a team (maybe not squad) good enough to push for the title with a couple of quality signings at Christmas to give us the edge, coupled with our relatively easy run in. I thought if we could steer clear of injuries to Reina, Carra, Masch, Gerrard and Torres we had enough quality to be there or there abouts.

I know when we drew with Wigan was when I finally gave up all hope of the title and it took me more than a few days to recover. I really thought it was going to be our season, and the downside of that is you look for reasons that the team and players underperformed.

For the people who never really believed we would challenge or win the league its easy enough to say that the team was never good enough, rather than Rafa fkd up.

I believed (and still believe) that we had good enough players but too many of them never reached the level that they are capable of, while others should have played out the season on the bench or in the reserves. We never really got a settled formation until it was too late. Tbh I wonder looking back if the players actually ever believed enough in themselves to win the title.

I was way off (as most were ) about Spurs, while Arsenal gave Babu a good run for his money before they ran out of steam. The mancs seem to have won the league on the back of Ronaldo and a great defence, while Chelsea after seemingly being out of the running came back strongly once the players realised that Grant wasn't going to disappear just because they didn't like him.

Still there's always next season

by **Owzat** » Wed May 14, 2008 8:06 am

Maybe if Liverpool fans stopped predicting we'll win the league then they'll stop jinxing it..............

Reading through some posts I have to single out three people :-

Babu - picked up on Arsenal doing well, few of us thought they would. Shows you don't have to outspend the big two to give them a fright.

Deep456 - daftly predicting Newcastle for top four, couldn't be more wrong on that shout. Even Keegan has now admitted they are way off the big four.

Saint - sorry mate but you've tried to egg everyone on and criticised a lack of optimism. We're not "dismissive", merely cautious and after such a long time since the last title and with the mancs and Chelsea streets ahead in the values of their squads, why are you so surprised? We haven't been top two since 2001/2, in fact that is our only second place in the Premiership.

It is hard to compete with the mancs and Chelsea in spending, we don't help ourselves by over-expectation and the side doesn't win games it should be. We dropped too many points against relegated sides and if we can't beat the mancs then it just makes it harder playing catch up. Look at it this way, if we'd done the double over them instead of them over us WE'D BE ABOVE THEM! And had we lost away to Chelsea CHELSEA WOULD BE CHAMPIONS. That point at SB cost us another title in favour of the mancs, didn't do anything for us.

Hard as it is for me to say it, Houllier was closer to winning the league than Rafa. Maybe not by much, but he worked out a way to beat the top sides. We may have a better squad, but as Wenger and other lesser clubs show it isn't who you have but what they do on the pitch. Without Gerrard and Torres we'd be mid-table.

What are my predictions for next season? Depends who we sign, but unless we make some big signings in the summer then I suspect it will be pretty much the same order. People talk of the 'big four', in truth it is the 'big two' and then us with Arsenal and others around. Arsenal over-achieve practically every season, they had a couple of off-seasons for them, but since Wenger first won the Premiership they only finished outside the top two THREE times - all the past three seasons when Chelsea and the mancs' spending became too much to compete with. They only finished 2nd in 2004/05 because the mancs had a bad season (by their standards)

The bar has been raised, maybe too high for us to reach. Our highest Premiership points tally is 82, the last time that would have won the title was 2001/02. I feel too many of our players aren't capable of upping their game enough, certainly not over the course of 38 games. I'm sure I said at some point that we needed to beat the mancs this season and until we had done so I wouldn't be optimistic of winning the league (until such a time as we had) If we'd beaten them this season I'd have cause for optimism for next season, Rafa has only ever taken one point off them in eight games.

by **stmichael** » Wed May 14, 2008 11:03 am

No-one could possibly deny that the off the pitch nonsense of this year was detrimental to the team, but to lay all, or even most of the blame at that door is to deny the plain facts of Rafa's overall league record.

I think his first season should be discounted in the interests of fairness because it was his first season. His second season was a dramatic improvement and saw him hit upon a system that worked (sound familiar, anyone?). However, he then messed with that system and we went stumbling backwards. I think that was at the heart of a lot of the perceived player antipathy towards him this season which he was only able to deal with by finding a better system.

We will only progress next season if Rafa can resist lots more change. Footballers, like most people in general, are creatures of habit; they don't want to have to do something different every week. If Rafa recognises that, we'll have a respectable campaign at worst. If he manages that and adds more genuine quality, we could challenge for the title.

by **bigmick** » Wed May 14, 2008 11:28 am

Well I'm a bit gutted I didn't post in the original thread, I do in most of the others so I don't know what happened there. If I had, I probaly would have been quite optimistic at the start of the season if for no other reason than you just hope against hope it's going to be your year. Had you have told me that Torres was going to score in practically every game though, I would have been thinking we would go very close to winning the title (well either that or I would have thought you were mental). Anyway it didn't come to pass and there are other threads discussing the reasons why.

As for next season, I think it's unlikely bordering on impossible for us to win the league as we're coming from too far back. Had we have got within a win, or at the most two of the eventual Champions we might have kicked on but not from where we are I don't think. That said, it doesn't mean we should give up and not bother, it just means that we have to give it our absolute best shot and see if we can't set ourselves a platform for the following season. There is also the provisio of course that you never know, and if we got off to a flier then who's to say where me might end up.

Hand on heart though I think it is going to be difficult, probably more so than last season. This season, both Man Utd and Chelsea fell out of the blocks and I wouldn't be expecting that next time around. Ferguson got quite flirtatious with the styling, and given the fact that it very nearly cost them the title to a Chelsea team which is in no way as good and which started from well back, I'd be surprised if he continues with it next time around. Added to that of course both of the big money clubs are already looking to flex their financial muscle, buying up yet more players so it is hard to imagine they'll be worse or even equal to what they were this season.

Arsenal will no doubt be stronger, even if a couple of players do leave. No doubt wenger will produce a couple from the youth team and they have the advantage over us of having "tasted" the top of the table this season. They'll be up there I'm sure of it.

And what of us? Well given we can't compete in terms of bucks, we need to be making sure we maximise the bang within the team. No surprises here, but given the fact (and it is a fact lets face it) that we are outgunned financially, the correct policy surely has to be to concentrate whatever rescourses we can muster and spend them on first team players. If that means we have to ship out a few "options" to get some cash in, then so be it. If we gave it a real good go next season and ultimately fell short, kind of Arsenal style this season at least we could sleep easy knowing we gave it our absolute best shot. It might well not work, but at least you'd be giving yourself a chance.

by **account deleted by request** » Wed May 14, 2008 1:38 pm

Owzat wrote:Maybe if Liverpool fans stopped predicting we'll win the league then they'll stop jinxing it..............

Reading through some posts I have to single out three people :-

Babu - picked up on Arsenal doing well, few of us thought they would. Shows you don't have to outspend the big two to give them a fright.

Deep456 - daftly predicting Newcastle for top four, couldn't be more wrong on that shout. Even Keegan has now admitted they are way off the big four.

Saint - sorry mate but you've tried to egg everyone on and criticised a lack of optimism. We're not "dismissive", merely cautious and after such a long time since the last title and with the mancs and Chelsea streets ahead in the values of their squads, why are you so surprised? We haven't been top two since 2001/2, in fact that is our only second place in the Premiership.

It is hard to compete with the mancs and Chelsea in spending, we don't help ourselves by over-expectation and the side doesn't win games it should be. We dropped too many points against relegated sides and if we can't beat the mancs then it just makes it harder playing catch up. Look at it this way, if we'd done the double over them instead of them over us WE'D BE ABOVE THEM! And had we lost away to Chelsea CHELSEA WOULD BE CHAMPIONS. That point at SB cost us another title in favour of the mancs, didn't do anything for us.

Hard as it is for me to say it, Houllier was closer to winning the league than Rafa. Maybe not by much, but he worked out a way to beat the top sides. We may have a better squad, but as Wenger and other lesser clubs show it isn't who you have but what they do on the pitch. Without Gerrard and Torres we'd be mid-table.

What are my predictions for next season? Depends who we sign, but unless we make some big signings in the summer then I suspect it will be pretty much the same order. People talk of the 'big four', in truth it is the 'big two' and then us with Arsenal and others around. Arsenal over-achieve practically every season, they had a couple of off-seasons for them, but since Wenger first won the Premiership they only finished outside the top two THREE times - all the past three seasons when Chelsea and the mancs' spending became too much to compete with. They only finished 2nd in 2004/05 because the mancs had a bad season (by their standards)

The bar has been raised, maybe too high for us to reach. Our highest Premiership points tally is 82, the last time that would have won the title was 2001/02. I feel too many of our players aren't capable of upping their game enough, certainly not over the course of 38 games. I'm sure I said at some point that we needed to beat the mancs this season and until we had done so I wouldn't be optimistic of winning the league (until such a time as we had) If we'd beaten them this season I'd have cause for optimism for next season, Rafa has only ever taken one point off them in eight games.

In defence of my optimism, we had Rafa saying " we have the squad to challenge for the title". Gerrard saying this could be our year. We signed a great player in Torres and spent a lot more on squad players and "stars of the future".

The mancs had no striker and how was anyone to know that Ronaldo would have such a fantastic season, while Tevez and Rooney looked on paper more likely to struggle than compliment each other.

I still look back on this season as a missed opportunity rather than one in which we never had a chance before the off. I just think we went into the season with one hand tied behind our backs, having no real set formation, our best striker of last season frozen out and Kuyt looking like he couldn't score in a brothel.

The real key to our disappointing season has been our failure to keep a lead. In the past it was getting the first goal that has been our achilles heel, but this season we have lost or drawn too many games after getting the all important first goal. From the first game of the season against Villa we had this problem, and while a wonder strike from Gerrard saved us that day, other days we could find no answer. Maybe if Agger had stayed fit we may have overcome this problem, but it cost us both in the league and eventually the CL.

I was wrong to dismiss Arsenal out of hand, but I really thought the loss of Henry would find them struggling.

I still find it hard to understand how people can be so negative about our chances before the start of the season. I suppose I have more in common with GBJH than I would like to admit, in that I always think we are going to do well and challenge if not actually win the league. Once the season starts and reality hits, I adjust my thinking accordingly

by **66-1112520797** » Wed May 14, 2008 3:23 pm

Bamaga man wrote:I've changed my spots, 4th or 3rd place will be a success and I'll be happy with that, or SHOULD be happy.

Seriously though, realisticly though, I can see us finnishing 3rd or 4th But so long as we dont wimper out before Christmas and stay in the hunt I'll be pleased with that from the manager and players.

But this finnishing 3rd or 4th every season cannot go on every year, and smeared over with the same old excuses, eventually somethings going to give.

Well the prediction was right, but we did wimper out again.

Maybe this should be in JBG'S thread, because earlier on in the season I was frustrated by Rafa and the team. Namely because of his folly to rotate. I said he should go at the end of this season if things didnt improve. League wise they havent but I'm willing to give the Spaniard another season, afterall we did look good in the final months of the campaign.

I'm also eager to see if and when the same old posters who excuse him as a manager patients will run thin. My mind has been changed largely due t the signing of Torres and Mascha, and the fact that the manager found a good formation which allowed our best players to play well in their positions. By and large he stuck with that formation and personell so (sigh) I'd give him one ast chance at the job, t enable us t become serius title challengers, if not hes got to go.

by **Sabre** » Wed May 14, 2008 3:37 pm

I also missed the original thread, I probably was on the beach, or discussing with Bamaga in another thread. Or maybe I was wound up by the comment of the rosed brigade and skipped the thread

Anyway I would have been wrongly optimistic. Back in July, I thought new ownners meant lots of money. I thought Torres would improve the set of forwards we had, but I didn't expect him to triumph, I expected him to be more dangerous than Bellamy as pacy option, but I didn't expect the massive success.

Back in July I thought we'd get sheer quality for the wings, and that we'd sort that out with financial muscle. I expected a serious title challenge.

by **Leonmc0708** » Wed May 14, 2008 4:16 pm

Bamaga man wrote:I'd give him one last chance at the job....

I love the way people who have fuc.k all influence on the club post stuff like this.

by **Sabre** » Wed May 14, 2008 4:24 pm

Leonmc0708 wrote:
Bamaga man wrote:I'd give him one last chance at the job....

I love the way people who have fuc.k all influence on the club post stuff like this.

Well it's a way of speaking Leon!! When Liverpool are champions, I also say "We've won the champions league!" as if I played there and scored a goal!

by **Rush Job** » Thu May 15, 2008 3:41 am

Come on guys we are not that behind if we can bring some quality, your aways going to lose a point here and there just like utd did thats league football, now course there were too many draws we all know that but what we really need is that little bit more quality where it counts in the big games, like Owzat says a double on the mancs and we`d be above them, thats 2 GAMES and it could have been oh so different.

by **account deleted by request** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:11 am

Rush Job wrote:Come on guys we are not that behind if we can bring some quality, your aways going to lose a point here and there just like utd did thats league football, now course there were too many draws we all know that but what we really need is that little bit more quality where it counts in the big games, like Owzat says a double on the mancs and we`d be above them, thats 2 GAMES and it could have been oh so different.

IF we had beaten the mancs twice we would still only have finished 3rd mate.

If we had won all the games were we scored first we would have won the league and also be in the CL FINAL.

by **Rush Job** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:27 am

s@int wrote:
Rush Job wrote:Come on guys we are not that behind if we can bring some quality, your aways going to lose a point here and there just like utd did thats league football, now course there were too many draws we all know that but what we really need is that little bit more quality where it counts in the big games, like Owzat says a double on the mancs and we`d be above them, thats 2 GAMES and it could have been oh so different.

IF we had beaten the mancs twice we would still only have finished 3rd mate.

If we had won all the games were we scored first we would have won the league and also be in the CL FINAL.

If you take 6 points off them and give em to us we`d still only be 3rd.But wouldnt they be on 81 with us on 82? I must have the table wrong sorry.

by **account deleted by request** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:32 am

Chelsea got 85 points and Arsenal 83 points, we would be on 82 points with the mancs on 81

Stick to my way mate - we win the league AND get to the cl final

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