Liverpool FC Forum

by **tubby** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:41 am

And another thing, Benayoun is :censored:

!!!!! How many times did he get beaten to the ball last night. Absolutley shocking!

by **Scottbot** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:53 am

LegBarnes wrote:Fact that me and few others had been saying this for a few years now and some of you only understand this to be since listening to townsend on ITV today.

Glad you caught up now stfu.

I wouldn't get too carried away with your own insightfullness mate, it's not exactly hard to see is it. Just about everyone has been saying it for bloody ages now.

by **andy_g** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:56 am

this place is becoming a joke. not content with slagging off players to ridiculous lengths and getting all personal about it, we're now resorting to bitching about who thought of the most obvious idea first. the performance of the forum closely matches that of the team.

by **Ciggy** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:01 am

Only one solution we have to go back to our old formation, Torres cant play with a strike partner for Spain nor Liverpool.

And we have to get the wings sorted out, Bennynoun, Kuyt and Arbeloa is not working.

by **112-1077774096** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:04 am

andy_g wrote:a few ideas off the top of my hungover head. not too well thought out for now... i'll try and do that later.

we really aren't anywhere near as good as we keep trying to tell ourselves that we are. we have a couple of very good players and 2 or 3 half decent players and the rest who aren't really that good at all - and the better players we have don't seem able to peform consistently. we have a manager who seems to be too stubborn to admit that things aren't working and who refuses to or is incapable of finding the solution. we don't play well as a team and are often too impatient to get the ball on the ground and play football. gerrard tries far too often to do it all himself and fails. we have no width and little creative quality in the final third. the famous anfield '12th man' is over exaggerated and nowhere near as effective as romantic and mistaken football pundits like to believe and bang on about. no single team anywhere is afraid of us any more.

of course there are also a few positives but we are currently a team who are as far away from winning the league as just about anyone bar the top two. something has to change drastically before we can begin to dream again and i think some very hard decisions need to be taken.

ok, krap post over.

call yourself a fan, all fans praise everything to do with the team and the club, if you cant do this go and support man utd blah blah blah

i thought i would just fill you in on the comments if you have the audacity to be honest about the state of the team

by **andy_g** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:06 am

peewee, i'm not interested in getting involved in or even acknowledging any of the bu'llshit that permeates this forum at the moment.

by **112-1077774096** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:10 am

andy_g wrote:peewee, i'm not interested in getting involved in or even acknowledging any of the bu'llshit that permeates this forum at the moment.

so dont come on here then and you will avoid it all.

i agree with your post mate but i am just trying to be light hearted

by **Scottbot** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:59 am

What worries me the most is that Rafa has publicly recognised the problems we have at the moment, the lack of width, the need for our fullbacks to get involved in attacking play, to get ahead of their wideman etc. He acknowledged it the back end of last season and alluded to it throughout the off-season. So no-one can say he is blind to the problems or that he sees things differently. But who can explain the signings this past off-season? I like Robbie Keane, I wanted him at the club and I think he will be a success. He's a quality player and he will prove it. But in the wide areas? The area he (Rafa) had pin-pointed as our weak spot. I'm not sure what he was thinking? None of our dealings make sense to me. I know it's early (sorry Mick) but Dossena is not going to be our version of Ashley Cole or Patrice Evra, he might turn out to be a solid little player, he looks like he wants to get forward but it won't be enough, we need a LOT more from our full-backs. We haven't seen a lot of Degen on the right so it's hard to say but he was a free-transfer and clubs don't let their best players wind down their contracts (see Andrei Voronin as one of many examples). Our pursuit of Barry is another one that leaves me confused. I like Barry, always have, he's an excellent player and i thinkg he might have come in and been an upgrade on the performances of Alonso (over the last 18 months) but comments from Rafa indicate that he may have been buying Barry to play primarily for the left-hand side. Add the purchase of Riera, a solid if unspectactular left-sided player from Spain whom City could have bought for £3 mill a couple of years ago and you have to ask the question.

Is our manager a genius when it comes to identifying and utilising talent through the middle of the team and absolutely clueless when it comes to the flanks?

We watched 'Deadly' Dirk and Yossi struggle manfully on the flanks for 70 painful minutes last night and when Rafa reflected on the goal (with Babel and El Zhar in place) he (bizarreley considering the starting line-up) alluded to the importance of good wing-play and the difference it can make to the team.

It's great that we're winning games LATE and VERY ugly at the moment and when we find some form (which we will) the lads will fanct their chances to nick a close game as they have done here but, FOOOKIN HELL!!!! they've got some serious work to do the next couple of weeks without our Captain Marvel.

by **stmichael** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:41 pm

Scottbot wrote:Is our manager a genius when it comes to identifying and utilising talent through the middle of the team and absolutely clueless when it comes to the flanks?

We watched 'Deadly' Dirk and Yossi struggle manfully on the flanks for 70 painful minutes last night and when Rafa reflected on the goal (with Babel and El Zhar in place) he (bizarreley considering the starting line-up) alluded to the importance of good wing-play and the difference it can make to the team.

Good post Scottbot.

The thing is, your wide players coming in off the line can be a good thing, but only if you've got top class fullbacks willing to run into the space we create. Go back a couple of years and Gerrard was willing to cut in from the right flank because more often than not he could guarantee that Steve Finnan would overlap him. Neither Arbeloa or Aurelio last night seemed confident enough to get forward into the attacking third. Dossena has only done it in fits and starts.

In the last week I watched Wigan-Chelsea and Pompey-United. Now neither United or Chelsea played with any width. Chelsea virtually played with five central midfielders and United had Fletcher playing wide who's not a winger by any means. However the difference is, United had Evra (who was their best player) and Brown who bombed forward at every opportunity. For Chelsea, Ashley Cole and Boswinga virtually play as wingers half the time. I still don't see us having anywhere near the same quality in the fullback areas.

by **mkingdom** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:37 pm

Shouldn't Babel play on the right...with him being...you know...right footed??

He cuts in, or doubles back onto his right all the time (he did last night). It isn't as if we have a proven right winger there now that he can't displace!!

I'm not saying he is the answer as his all round play last night was dreadful, with a woeful first touch, but it can't be worse than where we are today.

Or, for £9m, snatch Chelsea's hand off for SWP.

by **Scottbot** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:53 pm

stmichael wrote:Good post Scottbot.

The thing is, your wide players coming in off the line can be a good thing, but only if you've got top class fullbacks willing to run into the space we create. Go back a couple of years and Gerrard was willing to cut in from the right flank because more often than not he could guarantee that Steve Finnan would overlap him. Neither Arbeloa or Aurelio last night seemed confident enough to get forward into the attacking third. Dossena has only done it in fits and starts.

In the last week I watched Wigan-Chelsea and Pompey-United. Now neither United or Chelsea played with any width. Chelsea virtually played with five central midfielders and United had Fletcher playing wide who's not a winger by any means. However the difference is, United had Evra (who was their best player) and Brown who bombed forward at every opportunity. For Chelsea, Ashley Cole and Boswinga virtually play as wingers half the time. I still don't see us having anywhere near the same quality in the fullback areas.

Aurelio can do it to some degree IF (and it's a big if) he can stay fit. He's a good passer of the ball, can cross it and most importantly, he isn't afraid of the ball. Problem is he is still not a patch on the full-backs at our rivals. On the right-hand side I don't know why Finnan has fallen so far from favour but he's a far better player than Arbeloa. The Spaniard is a trier, he's strong in the tackle and generally fairly solid defensively but with the ball at his feet he is no threat whatsoever. He's a crab with the ball, passing it side-ways or backwards everytime. Unfortunately Kuyt pretty much has to do the same thing (from the right) because he lacks the burst to go past a defender even if he can get the ball past them. We saw it last night when he put a nice spin move as a ball was played in to his feet, it fooled the defender but Dirk wasn't able to take advantage. So the two players on our right side both (generally) pass the ball backwards/sideways and neither has the confidence, pace or skill to take on their man and reach the byline. And then we've got pretty much the same thing going on over on the left flank.

Is it any wonder Torres and Keane are having a tough time at the moment? It's not difficult to defend against. They dared us to get behind them last night. We managed to do it once in the game. We scored!!!

by **Ciggy** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:56 pm

We will see a big difference when mash is back, bloody big gapping hole in the midfield, and as Ive said before I really think we should go back to the formation that served us so well last season.

by **DLS** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:56 pm

lets do the easy thing and blame the americans that seems to be an easy excuse.

by **GYBS** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:58 pm

or blame kuyt that seems easier as well .

by **DLS** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 2:01 pm

I'll go along with that. Blame Kuyt, Benayoun, Alonso, Arbeloa, Keane. Everyone except Benitez who is still picking players out of form, buying players not good enough for Liverpool and constantly whinging for more money to buy more :censored:

.

Liverpool FC Forum

The reason we are playing sh*t - Its not rocket science....

Who is online