Liverpool FC Forum

by **Rush Job** » Mon May 12, 2008 12:47 am

NiftyNeil wrote:76 points, over 110 goals scored in all competitions, Torres breaking the record for goals scored in debut premiership season, Reina winning Golden Gloves for a third season running, Torres breaking the goals scored in consecutive home games record, 6 players scoring over 10 goals (two of which scored over 20), third Champions League semi final in 4 years, only 4 league defeats all season and undefeated until (in league) December.
I'd say it was an above average season. If it wasn't for all those draws, we could have been celebrating number 19 right now.

I`ll agree with that, we are a very tuff side to beat. I think we have built a platform this season i cant see us losing anymore next season than we did this we just need to draw less and get a win or 4 against the top sides.
If it wasnt for our COMPLETE loss of form mid season when the troubles at the top started i think we like Chelsea who were never in it through most of the season would have been in the mix at the end.
Slightly above average but with many possitive`s for next season, its obvious where we need to improve/strengthen and if we are able to i cant see any reason why we shouldnt do better next year.

by **Kharhaz** » Mon May 12, 2008 12:57 am

I`ll agree with that, we are a very tuff side to beat. I think we have built a platform this season i cant see us losing anymore next season than we did this we just need to draw less and get a win or 4 against the top sides.

We are a tough side to play against, as are many of the teams in premiership. It doesnt represent progress. Niftyneil has raised some good things to be positive about but individual achievements do not win much in a game which requires a team. It helps that we have a great keeper, defender, midfielder and striker but if just one of those which are our key players goes off form or injured we are in trouble.

Any kind of win against the top 4 would be nice. Our record, despite the positives of our achievements, against the top 4 are still the same as was last season, season before that...

by **account deleted by request** » Mon May 12, 2008 12:58 am

I voted below average, as I still believe we had the squad to challenge this season and we failed. As I expected a good CL run took the focus off Rafa's earlier failings and most of us are now back on the team bus.

At the end of the day we dropped 7 points against teams that were relegated (4) Birmingham, (3) Reading, failed to beat any of our rivals and allowed too many teams to come back at us after we had taken the lead.

Considering we had the addition of Torres who had an unbelievable first season, I believe we should have done much better, but we had too many players who never showed anything like their best form this season (Riise, Finnan, Alonso and even Carra), too many players who just arn't up to the job (Kuyt, Voronin, Pennant, Benayoun) and Crouch who just wasn't given enough opportunities to play.

We had too many games where only 6 or 7 of our players where on top of their game and at this level you can't carry too many passengers, even with Torres and Gerrard.

Agger's injury I believe was the turning point for us, we had no ready replacement other than Hyypia who came in and did a tremendous job, I think though it was only when Skrtel had settled in that we started to really play well from the back again, as our back line moved too far back with Sami.

I still believe we wont win the league because of Rafa, but I hope we win it inspite of Rafa. He makes too many changes, and the more changes you make the more likely that one of them will be a mistake.

To be fair I thought his change to a 4-2-3-1 was an inspired move, but one that was maybe forced on him by poor buys (Voronin, Kuyt, Pennant, Benayoun).

Last chance for Rafa next season I think. CL RUN OR NOT ..... if we don't challenge for the title, he should go.

by **bigmick** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:12 am

s@int wrote:Last chance for Rafa next season I think. CL RUN OR NOT ..... if we don't challenge for the title, he should go.

Yes at some point we are going to have to bite the bullet on the Champions League thing. We are guaranteed to qualify every season (unless we make a complete nonsense of it) and pretty much certainties to get out of the group as well.

From there we won two more ties and if that is the criteria for a Liverpool manager being considered successful, as I've said before Rafa has a job for life.

As an add on, I know some people will dispute that we should be certainties to qualify. If you check out the league table, despite all the boardroom wrangling which has cost us untold points

we have finsihed the season eleven points ahead of everton in fifth, 16 points ahead of Villa in sixth and 20 ahead of Portsmouth/Blackburn or whoever it is in seventh. Now if we see that deficit overturned next season then we really have got a problem.

by **Rush Job** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:30 am

Kharhaz wrote:
I`ll agree with that, we are a very tuff side to beat. I think we have built a platform this season i cant see us losing anymore next season than we did this we just need to draw less and get a win or 4 against the top sides.

We are a tough side to play against, as are many of the teams in premiership. It doesnt represent progress. Niftyneil has raised some good things to be positive about but individual achievements do not win much in a game which requires a team. It helps that we have a great keeper, defender, midfielder and striker but if just one of those which are our key players goes off form or injured we are in trouble.

Any kind of win against the top 4 would be nice. Our record, despite the positives of our achievements, against the top 4 are still the same as was last season, season before that...

Being harder to beat and losing less games IS progress, small yes but you cant say it doesnt matter, and when you bare in mind we lost Agger for the whole season, a player who can win you games at both ends and its vital when your playing sides that are happy to just sit in to have a CB who can bring the ball out of defence other wise you just have JC pumping balls though to their keeper all day. We would of drew less games with Agger at the back.
Like i say we need to win against the top 4 but its hard to catch them up because their hardly standing still, the gulf between us is there because they can go out and strenghen areas that dont even need it with another 3 or 4 or 5 20m+ players.
Is it any great shock that the only team we can get results against is arsenal.

by **Rush Job** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:42 am

bigmick wrote:
s@int wrote:Last chance for Rafa next season I think. CL RUN OR NOT ..... if we don't challenge for the title, he should go.

If you check out the league table, despite all the boardroom wrangling which has cost us untold points

If thats one of your sly digs i only brought it up because the players and im very sure the manager seem to think it made a difference.
Sure your right though.

by **bigmick** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:48 am

Rush Job wrote:
bigmick wrote:
s@int wrote:Last chance for Rafa next season I think. CL RUN OR NOT ..... if we don't challenge for the title, he should go.

If you check out the league table, despite all the boardroom wrangling which has cost us untold points

If thats one of your sly digs i only brought it up because the players and im very sure the manager seem to think it made a difference.
Sure your right though.

It was a sly dig, but not at you Rushie I didn't even know you'd mentioned it TBPH (although if you did then I guess by default it is a at you, but not intentionally if you know what I mean). No it was a sly dig at the debate which has been going on for a while now in the thread started (I think) by LFC 2007, in which there has been an attempt to quantify how many points our wrangles have cost us.

FWIW I don't think it's done us any favours but I wouldn't be expecting a radical improvement next season purely because of any boardroom harmony, I think that'd be unrealistic.

The point I'm making really is that even though we haven't oprooted trees in the league, we've still finished a mile in front of all the challengers for fourth. My feeling is that we will next season as well, making Champions League qualification nigh on a certainty.

by **bigmick** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:52 am

Rush Job wrote:Sure your right though.

Forgot to mention as well, nice sly dig yourself :;):

The truth is of course nobody can say for sure how much effect the "boardroom wranglings" have had, but in that thread which i mentioned earlier somebody did post up some interesting stats which would appear to suggest the effect was minimal.

by **Thingy** » Mon May 12, 2008 1:56 am

Who the feck said excellent?

by **Rush Job** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:28 am

bigmick wrote:
Rush Job wrote:Sure your right though.

Forgot to mention as well, nice sly dig yourself

The truth is of course nobody can say for sure how much effect the "boardroom wranglings" have had, but in that thread which i mentioned earlier somebody did post up some interesting stats which would appear to suggest the effect was minimal.

Yes i know what your saying but i dont go with the idea of if this came out then it could only of affected this game which we may have won so there by there was no ill affect.
We had a complete loss of form and imho the trouble at the top contributed, 3 more wins in that mad couple of months when speculation and draws were rife and we would have been in it, we wouldnt of won it and neither should we tbo but we would maybe of had our best season under the gaffa.
Its just the way i see it lad, or it could all be down to rotation but i see this and losing our ball playing CB as factors. You could add to that Parry cocking up Rafa`s top targets and generaly holding the club back year after year and expecting all these top players to take a pay cut to join us but thats for a different thread.

by **SupitsJonF** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:41 am

In the league we didn't do to hot against the top 3, but in the CL we showed that we don't play like an 11 points behind team. HOWEVER, these top 3 in the league are the most important matches, they can result in 6 pointers.

But end of the season (CL) we showed Arsenal we can beat them, and taught Chelsea that even at Stamford bridge they are just as easy to score on. I think next season we will play the top 3 like our form in the CL, because the CL against the better teams were at the end of the season, with new found and better form.

by **ConnO'var** » Mon May 12, 2008 2:56 am

Bamaga man wrote:
bigmick wrote:For me in one sense it's average as under Rafa we generally finish third or fourth and a mile off the pace in the league, have a good Champions league run etc etc but in another sense it's a bitterly disappointing season. I actually think we've wasted a massive opportunity to make huge progress, and at the very least we are a season behind where we ought to be.

FWIW I think that we began the season with a miniscule chance of winning the title, but with a good chance of being right in the rattle. Once the Mancs had crawled out of the blocks and Chelsea had imploded, those chances had increased to an outside chance of title and "should be good things" to be in the shake up to some extent. we didn't manage to achieve that (and I should imagine most people know why I think we didn't so i won't go over it all now) and for me it's a wasted season. Had we have managed to get within five or six points of the Champions, as well as being in with a chance for much of the season, then we could have looked forward to next season as genuine contenders. As it is, we went backwards in the league and once again have the most miniscule chance of winnijng it next term.

Yes we had a Champions League run, but so did all the other English teams as well and so will they next year. We got beaten in the FA Cup at Home by Barnsley when the competition was there for the winning, and perished away at Chelsea in the Carling Cup which was fair enough, particularly with a second string team.

No it wasn't good enough for me I'm afraid and if we make the same mistakes next season it's time for a change.

What he said ^^^

What they said ^^...

by **Toffeehater** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:55 am

Those saying rafa should go , i completely understand but on what criteria? Lets say he receives 20 million this season to spend and can only buy 1 quality player , who's fault is it then? Rafa is a good manager but his budget compared to the others is peanuts

I voted for above average as i think rafa and the team has done brilliant to ignore the fact that during december it was a tough month with klinnsman lining up to replace rafa , this 2 yanks fighting with rafa , hicks in particular and krusty the clown acting behind rafa's back . We got fourth finished better then last season cept that we are 4th , got the the semi finals in 3 out of 4 season . Signed a wonder kid named torres and tied up the signing of mascherano too

by **Toffeehater** » Mon May 12, 2008 4:56 am

Thingy wrote:Who the feck said excellent?

someone with rose tinted glasses

Or it could be peewee being sarcarstic

by **NiftyNeil** » Mon May 12, 2008 6:27 am

bigmick wrote:As it is, we went backwards in the league and once again have the most miniscule chance of winnijng it next term.

For once Mick, I disagree with you. How have we gone backwards in the league when we have got 8 points more than last season? We haven't lost so few games in a single season since our "better than Brazil" side of 1987-1988. Given all the off-filed goings on, I think we've done remarkably well.

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