Liverpool FC Forum

Bam wrote:

I have got a couple of excellent write ups on Sacchi and the influence on Rafa, both from Rafa interviews and Sachhi interviews - I will try and find the links as there well worth a read.

Any chance of finding these articles before the turn of the year Leon ?

GYBS wrote:did he ? playing for who ? cant remember that

Leonmc0708 wrote:

Bam wrote:

I have got a couple of excellent write ups on Sacchi and the influence on Rafa, both from Rafa interviews and Sachhi interviews - I will try and find the links as there well worth a read.

Any chance of finding these articles before the turn of the year Leon ?

Sorry mate, I am in work and the links are in my favourites on my home PC. I am on the lash tonight so earliest will be Satdee afternoon mate.

Soz

GYBS wrote:which is pretty much what rio was when he started but learnt those things which is what richards is doing watching him last night .

Fo Dne wrote:

Leonmc0708 wrote:On paper, whats wrong is nothing.

Your (Stu) system of rating players is entirely your own, and good luck to you with that. But I must disagree on a few things....

Centre Half's

Between Agger, Carra and Skrtel we can produce a centre half pairing better than everyone else in the league bar United and Chelsea. However in the same breath, as far as depth is concerned I feel that once you lose Carvalho/Terry or Ferdinand/Vidic they are weaker than us in that we have three of the same level of ability. Hyyppia is better back up to those three than either of the members of the top four have got in my opinion. So for me there is no problem with the bentre halves.

Full Back

I feel we could do with more attacking players, when I look at the quality of Evra, Bosingwa and Cole. However in our system that Rafa employs attacking full backs are not as important as the front four/five are so fluid in their movement that anyone of them can bomb on at anytime. So for me I dont think the full backs create as much of a problem.

Rafa changing costing points

As for the Rafa losing us points through tinkering, he hasnt this season, and I personaly beleive thats cus he is more trusting of the quality of the players he has at his disposal that he doesnt feel the need to. We will see if he does in the future, but I feel he wont.

Richards

He will be a centre half in due course, thats for sure, so as for having hte best right back in the country I am not sure. For me Bosingwa fits that bill.

But its all about opinions . . . .

All of the top three in terms of ability of the centre backs are absoloutely miles ahead of us and I find it quite laughable for a second anyone could even attempt to dispute that.

Vidic and Ferdinand, as much as I hate to admit it are absoloutely light years ahead of anything we have in that department and for anyone to even question that shows a distinct lack of judgement. Carvalho, Gallas and Toure are also alot better than anything we have as individuals. Terry is probably equal. The difference being is Arsenal's pair don't have the balance. Chelsea are also along way ahead of us in this department.

Also, you only have to look at the number of goals our centre halfs get from set peices (not all to do with delivery, its as much to do with attacking the ball) in comparrison.

How you can sit there and even suggest that Dossena and Arbeloa are good enough is quite simply beyond me and smacks of rose tinted glasses. You clearly fail to look beyond your own garden when comparing players. These positions are a major part of the problem and a major part of the reason we lack creativety. The lack of movement, pace, passing ability and ability to actually overlap restricts the team rediculously and for a second I can't believe that someone as supposedly "knowledgable" as you can't see that.

So that leaves the question then, if we're as good as you are presumabley saying we are then why haven't we challenged in years? Whats wrong?

I'm guessing you rate the other players the same as me. If not maybe I'm overating them.

Igor Zidane wrote:On paper there's nowt wrong , it's on the ptch that the problems start .

Now young stu , one minute your suggesting Rafa sorts a couple of positions out before we get found out so to speak . On another thread though your saying if it ain't broke don't fix ,but guessing that rafa will change things against citeh.

Make your mind up lash , either it's wrong and we've just been lucky that noone has caught us out yet or the team he's picked so far are doing well and he should pretty much stick with it .

Regarding Arbeloa , well i've championed his corner for a while now , i think he's the best right back at the club now and is playing himself into form . Don't know what matches you've been watching but ,he's overlapping a fair bit and pushing on . He does offer an attacking threat , defensively he's doing alright aswell .

Mister Kuyt on the right seems stuck out there as he's doing a job closing down defenses and starting to link well with torres and keane imo. So pennant would be an option out there ,but imo doesn't offer as much workrate or commitment  (you don't really see him closing down or getting stuck in do you ). What he does bring is width and a threat from the wide areas with crosses , but not enough to justify him in the side at the minute. That could change though if the creativity cloggs up all together and we need his ability (which he does have in abundance imo ,but doesn't show it) to change the attacking style and get some decent crosses in to keane and torres.

Now with the defense ,they seem to have sorted some of the early season sillyness out regarding set pieces and winning comfortable headers. Like you've already said in another thread , if it ain't broke don't fix it . Watching mr skrtle closely ,he is pretty comfy on the ball yer know and his distribution is'nt that bad , anyway the way were playing at the minute it's not a problem ,as we're not hoofing as much and we seem to be playing through Alonso Gerrard and to a lesser extent (but not enough) Riera more .Which is good ,so it sort of nigates our defensive frailties regarding distribution .

No i'm not saying were going to win the league , but i do like our balance and think were going pretty well . If it carries on until christmas i might actually start believing were in with a shout . Leave it be i say and if we can strengthen in Jan (which i doubt very much if the yanks are in charge) we should. With who though , heavan only knows .

I was clearly talking about the central midfield pairing. I don't think theres anything wrong with the Alonso and Gerrard combination.

I also don't think theres alot wrong with Riera, Keane, Torres, (one of Carragher, Hyypia, Agger or Skrytel) and Pepe.

As for you saying theres nothing wrong on paper, well I'm sorry but I disagree strongly. Infact, I think theres a fair bit wrong on paper and to be fair, I'm obviously right as Liverpool are still yet to put in a title challenge, let alone actually go and win the thing. So if that doesn't prove that there are faults there and the players we have simply aren't good enough, then I have absoloutely no idea what will.

Arbeloa doesn't know what a cross is. Every attempt to put one in gets blocked and he's never blocked one going into our box in his career. He's a very very average full back with absoloutely no stand out attributes. Whats worse is he you say he over laps? You're having a laugh? He stands there looking lost and has absoloutely no idea how to create space for a team mate. His technique is also poor for a premier league player. The only decent things about him is he concentrates well, positions himself ok in general play and reads the game fairly well. He's also got about as much pace as Sami Hyypia. The lads nowhere near good enough and for people to even suggest he is is sheer madness and a complete lack of standards.

Compare him to Rob Jones or Markus Babbel and its a bit of an embarresment. I'd go as far as to say even the likes of Luke young is a better full back. In the premier league alone theres, Richards, Johnson, Neville, Brown, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Sagna, Eboue, Hutton, Corluka etc etc etc who are all far better in just about every aspect of the game.

On Kuyt, work rate means all. Most of the time he's working to recover a ball he's lost in the first place. I'm sick of hearing about his work rate, I'd much rather a good player out there with an average work rate rather than Kuyt. Its not like we have a lazy side anyway, Alonso, Gerrard, Torres and Keane certainly aren't lazy players. Riera certainly doesn't appear to be either. I'd certainly sacrifice Kuyts "amazing work rate" in order to keep more possession and have a natural right sided player playing in that position.

The fact is these are the reasons this club has failed to kick on over the years. It gets close to cracking it, then the people in charge, be it Houllier or Benitez it up and try and build a new side. The club "just waits to see" if what we have is good enough and "gives players time" even though we can all see they aren't good enough.

Sabre wrote:You know what, I agree the diagnostic, Arbeloa is a decent-goodish RB but I wouldn't dream of him as a regular starter in the club.

But you'd be more convincing to other mates if you didn't exagerate. As only in the LAST match he has blocked two crosses with a good tackle, and put a couple of good balls to the box. It's like when we discussed once about Carra, I also agreed he makes little mistakes, but you had to tell me he doesn't make mistakes at all!!.

You're right often Stu, but by exagerating you make it easy to others to counter and the debate becomes too white and black. Arbeloa is a decent player, above average but without being something especial, but it's important not to exagerate and acknowledging when he's doing better. And right now he's doing better than most moments of last season.

Fo Dne wrote:I also don't think theres alot wrong with Riera, Keane, Torres, (one of Carragher, Hyypia, Agger or Skrytel) and Pepe.