Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:14 am

I'm as excited about this season as any for years, because we are real, genuine contenders. For my money, the title push starts from game one. No Bramhall Lane balloney this time around, we need to be going for it from minute one of game one.

Now in the past, people have often said you don't win the title in September after we've lost or drawn and they're right. You can though be totally out of it after 7 or 8 games, as we've proven before a few times .

Anyway, I've been a thinking about the top five (I've included City) and been giving it some thought as to how well they NEED to start, in order to be right up there at the end. My guess is the Mancs could probably lose their first two and still challenge, just because they always do. You could almost say the same about Chelsea, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, us as well. Arsenal though desperately need a good start or any belief will quickly ebb away, while Man City need to absolutely ping out of the traps in order to get some belief.

Lastly I have a feeling that the Mancs got a bit of a fright last season with us, and they won't want to make the same mistakes again. Last season they fell out of the blocks and it nearly cost them, they'll want to make ammends this time around. Needless to say the fixture "computer" has been kind to them, and I've a feeling anyone who doesn't come out firing on all cylinders is going to be under extreme pressure in terms of keeping up very quickly. Here's a look at each teams opening fixtures:

The Mancs Chelsea Liverpool

Birmingham (H) Hull (H) Spurs (A)
Burnley (A) Sunderland (A) Stoke (H)
Wigan (A) Fulham (A) Villa (H)
Arsenal (H) Burnley (H) Bolton (A)
Spurs (A) Stoke (A) Burnley H)
Man City (H) Spurs (H) West Ham (A)
Stoke (A) Wigan (A) Hull (H)

Arsenal Man City

Everton (A) Blackburn (A)
pompey (H) Wolves (H)
Man U (A) Pompey (A)
Man C (A) Arsenal (H)
Wigan (H) Man U (A)
Fulham (A) West Ham (H)

Now a couple of things are obvious. Firstly, if you were Arsene Wenger you'd want to wreck the computer, secondly, Man Utd and in particular Chelsea have easy starts. We've got to get rid of the monkey on our back of drawing winnable Home games straight away, And we are going to need I think to get at least 5 out of the first 9 points (1 win 2 draws) to be not immediately under pressure.

Does it matter anyway? What do you reckon?

by **bigmick** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:27 am

I should also say that both Arsenal and Man City have a cancelled match up in the first few games, which puts them at a further disadvantage. If Arsenal are even slightly in contention after seven or eight matches, they'll be doing well. we really don't want to be getting beaten at Spurs in the first game (stating the obvious but you know what I mean). I expect both the Mancs and Chelsea to win their first three, a defeat at Spurs would make the Home game with Villa a massive one so early in the season. My guess is that if both Chelsea and the Mancs start well (which I think they will) if at any stage you are more than 6 points behind the pair, you are gone for all money. May sound harsh, but we found out in the run in just how hard it is to pull these teams back once they're on a roll. Crucial I think that we don't lose at Spurs, and a win would be a huge result.

by **Madmax** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:32 am

Consistency is the key and all teams will drop points which is inevitable.. Out of the first 9 points getting 5 points would not be a good start in my oppinion. Would'nt say it would put us in immense pressure because it would just be the start of the season but not an ideal way to begin a campaign. From the first 3 games i could see scums, chelsea and probably man city snapping full points. Arsenal on the other hand got a tricky list and with us spurs and villa are tough matches and games which could turn out to be draws.

Interesting is after scums first 3 games they have got a slight tough one ahead with arsenal,spurs and man city. Considering that maybe 5 out of 9 points would not put us in immediate pressure but would not be ideal!

Any fixture is unpredictable we could win against the top sides and yet lose points against the dire ones. Goes for all the teams!

by **ConnO'var** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:34 am

I think it definitely matters.... For what it's worth, I think we've got the 2nd best fixture list of the big 5. Chelsea having caught the golden goose.

With the loss of Alonso and Aquilani not being available for the 1st few games, our midfield is going to be tested and tested hard unless we bring Gerrard back. This will however completely wreck any confidence that Lucas has left. Having said that, I think it's absolutely essential we bring Stevie back for the spurs game and this will give a very clear shot across the bow of our statement of intent.

If we screw the start up, there is going to be a huge amount of pressure on Rafa and there will be questions raised and second guessing of his decisions from his critics and we all know that the British press is not exactly in love with us are they? As it is, Ferguson has already started the mind games and dismissed us contenders..... something which IMO fairly screams that he's a little worried about us.

We need to keep the pressure up from Day 1. If (and I fully expect us to) come away from White Hart Lane with 3 points, the stage will be nicely set for the next 6 or so games. With that kind of platform, the self belief in the players will amplify and the negative debit on morale caused by the departure of Alonso will be forgotten.

The start, to me is of extreme importance and something we should not discount easily.

As such, I would start the following team.

Pepe

Glen Jamie Daniel Emiliano

Javier Stevie
Yossi
Dirk Albert
Nando

After the Spurs game though, I would give the Masch-Lucas midfield axis a go.

by **Madmax** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:36 am

bigmick wrote:I should also say that both Arsenal and Man City have a cancelled match up in the first few games, which puts them at a further disadvantage. If Arsenal are even slightly in contention after seven or eight matches, they'll be doing well. we really don't want to be getting beaten at Spurs in the first game (stating the obvious but you know what I mean). I expect both the Mancs and Chelsea to win their first three, a defeat at Spurs would make the Home game with Villa a massive one so early in the season. My guess is that if both Chelsea and the Mancs start well (which I think they will) if at any stage you are more than 6 points behind the pair, you are gone for all money. May sound harsh, but we found out in the run in just how hard it is to pull these teams back once they're on a roll. Crucial I think that we don't lose at Spurs, and a win would be a huge result.

A loss soo early would put us in a predicament but agree with what you said 6 points behind the lot could mean goodbye. Its important anyhow that we stick close to the challenging pack and keep consistency.

Last season we crept away from the lot but just failed to build a lead which cost us in the end. I feel when were on top for a while we let the pressure get to us and that tend to destroy our chances.

Would obviously prefer to be clear by a margin but realistically few points clear, level on points or a couple adrift is what our aim should be.

by **account deleted by request** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:46 am

I don't really see the mancs as having much of an easier start than us Mick , athough we both have a much easier start than Arsenal ,and a harder start than Chelsea who look to have the best IMO.

I think we may see the benefits of a more settled squad early on , usually by this time we have 4 or 5 new faces who are still settling in, this time (unless we buy more?) we will only have Johnson to accomodate and that shouldn't prove too difficult. I certainly felt that last season we benefitted from less changes and hopefully we will again. (although we bought 6 last season apart from Riera and Keane early on, they hardly made much of an impact).

I would be hoping for 17 points from those 7 games .... draw at Spurs and West Ham, the rest I see as games we should be winning. A bit of luck for us is a lot of the Spurs players are going to miss the first couple of games, so maybe we could get a win there too.

Hopefully by the time Aquilani is fit and raring to go we will be already established near or at the top and we can then integrate him into the team gradually.

I think we need to make a good start and we certainly can't afford to start dropping points against the "lesser sides" again.

In fact things may work in our favour if Arsenal make their traditional strong start to the season and thrash Everton, Manu and Citeh. I fancy our chances of catching Arsenal much more than I would having to chase the Mancs or Chelsea.

by **LFC2007** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 2:22 am

The first three in particular are likely to be very important (usual disclaimers apply). If we lose or draw against Spurs, beating Stoke would become essential. You don't want to be heading into a tough one against Villa potentially three or four points behind one of the others (Manc's/Chelsea, that is). It's slightly more than just a points thing though. Of all the 'park the bus' teams we faced last season, Stoke parked the biggest bus and so it presents an almost perfect opportunity to dispell the lingering doubts about our ability to penetrate, and defeat, stringent opposition. It's an early opportunity to prise that monkey off our back.

On paper though, you wouldn't take any less than 7 from the first three. 5 or 6 wouldn't be a disaster, but any less probably would. You have to see your home games as near enough bankers because that's how the other three will approach their home games. It's how I perceive their home games too; you see a home game and you tick a box.

Those are the three that set you up. If it goes well - or if you at least get the results - it can set you in the flow of things, but if you stagger out then you put yourself under immediate pressure, especially so in our case.

From then on you'd think Bolton, Burnley and Hull we all ought to win (we don't have to win all three, and although we ought to, we'd probably get away with winning two out of the three), with the West Ham game being the third tricky one, but one you'd expect us to get at least a draw from. It's never as simple as picking out the ones we should win, draw etc...and accepting them as the absolute, because it's usually a bit of a mix and match - there will be surprises in both directions. However, if we take these parameters as a guide I think we'll be more or less on a par with Chelsea and perhaps a couple ahead of the Manc's - we'll be 'in it', put it that way. All in all it's a good set of openers, with the first three being especially important.

How we approach them is now the real topic for discussion given the Aquilani state of affairs. Under the assumption we don't sign someone else before the Spurs game, I might be inclined to drop Gerrard back into midfield and slip Benayoun into the hole, but I'd have to give it some more thought.

by **baldricks_cunning_plan** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 2:47 am

Personally, I think we should go full throttle at Spurs. They don't have a fit centre half as King can't stand up for more than 20 minutes, neither Dawson or Woodgate should be fit and the new lad from Newcastle, Bassong, is suspended. So that leaves Corluka and probably Huddlestone. With that in mind it's got to be Nando up top with Stevie just off him, this is a real chance to do Spurs over. We lose there twice last year, we need payback and we won't get a better chance than this with three first team centre halves doubtful and the other suspended.

Our other games? Stoke, Villa, Burnley and Hull at home. Should be 12 points. If we're to go one further this year, then these games we have to win. Villa are very much like Spurs right now, very threadbare at the back.

Bolton and Hammers away. I wouldn't be surprised if we get two draws here. I'm never confident playing Bolton at the Reebok, even if we battered them last year down there. Great header by Kuyt to open the scoring. I'm just never confident because of their physicality, I don't think many of our players like that. As for the trip to Upton Park, gotta be honest and say West Ham are my surprise tip this year. Everybody is banging on about City, well Zola is building a very good footballing side down there with good youngsters coming through the ranks and I think they'll be the one people should be wary of this year. So a point this early on wouldn't be a bad result down there.

Overall, 17 points from our opening 21 shouldn't be out of reach.

The other top sides, well firstly I'm discounting City because they've signed average players which is why again they'll be an average side. Adebyeor, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Bellamy didn't get 20 league goals between them did they? Barry and Toure for a combined 27 million, wouldn't give 27p for either. So it's between the other three in the top four.

Arsenal will struggle again unless they bring somebody in to command the back four. They don't need a centre forward, Van Persie and Eduardo can do that job with Arshavin one side and Nasri the other, Fabrgras through the middle. From their opening seven fixtures, I'd have a guess at 8 points which won't be enough and it'll be because they don't have quality at the back.

Chelsea haven't really brought quality in. Nobody wants to go there anymore, players realised very early on Chelsea were not as big a club Kenyon made them out to be. Some Russian bloke, a third rate Middlesborough keeper and a good little player in Danny Sturridge although he'll be lucky if he starts. With Ancelotti they also have a new manager who may not adapt to the English league quickly, especially as all Chelsea fans will still be remembering Hiddink and what he done for them adding pressure on the Italian. This may make their opening few fixtures a little trickier although I can still see them taking nearly maximum points, my only hope is Sunderland who've spent this summer and have a good manager in Bruce along with an away trip to near rivals Fulham who will hopefully do what they did last year to them at the Cottage.

Now for United. Yes they've lost Ronaldo and Tevez but they've replaced Tevez with a better goalscorer in Owen. And if the turncoat b*****d gets the games with Valencia, Carrick, Rooney and Berbatov supplying him, he will score. Unfortunately. Ronaldo they haven't replaced him with anybody better, wouldn't be easy mind you. But they have got a good player in Valencia and in Ronaldo's absence the likes of Carrick, Anderson and Nani will be forced to uping their game as the diver won't be there to drag them out of trouble. But with Ferguson as manager they'll still be strong, he won't allow them not to be although with him already talking about us it proves he's s******g his kecks already. On paper I can't see them dropping a point, I think they should win every home game they play in the same way I think we should and their away fixtures are about as easy as taking a p**s.

Still, if we get out the blocks and hit the ground running there's no reason we why we can't storm away with this league. Last year we proved ourselves to be more than good enough and had the odd decision gone in our favour i.e. Rob Styles not giving a penalty for United when Jloyd Samuel won the ball, we may be sitting here looking ahead to our title defence. As it is we're looking forward to yet another exciting season with the Reds and we'll be with them the whole way. Cheering, singing and letting our players and manager know we're with them. We'll cheer them to that elusive Premier League title, wherever we are in the world we'll be cheering.

There's more belief than blinded hope this year, so even if we get off to a bad start lets not get down in the dumps. Lets just pick our boys up with 100% undefying love for the club and carry them through the next game with our voices.

Come on you Reds!

by **Penguins** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:37 am

Well, we got a really tough one right away. We have had real trouble beating Spurs away in the past so it will be hard getting all 3 pts in that fixture.

by **Owzat** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 7:05 am

I think difficulty of fixtures in terms of starts and run-ins is a bit of a smokescreen. So we have a tricky opening game, everyone except spudz have to play them away and it's a question of who wins the most games over the course of a season - not always, but normally the team that wins most games wins the league.

But to go with the "out of the blocks" theme, I'd say what is important and could easily tell us early on whether we can win the league is not whether we win all our opening fixtures and go 3-6 points clear at the top, but how we handle the games we should win.

Stoke (h) - D0-0
villa (h) - W5-0
Burnley (h) - n/a
Hull (h) - D2-2

So that's how we did against those sides at home last season, four games that we should be looking to AND winning pretty much every time. Last season we picked up just five points out of nine in three games we should have picked up seven minimum. In fact had we beaten Stoke and Hull at home then we'd have the holy grail in our trophy cabinet and be 19-17 ahead.

So frankly I'd say games like spudz are tricky, but they are tricky for everyone. What we need to make sure of is the bread and butter games, beating the promoted sides, the sides that are so poor they end up in the Championship next season. That is our weakness and has been for some time, not whether we win, lose or draw the opening fixture. And if we did pick up just 10 points out of the first 21 then that isn't good, but you can't really afford to drop many points full stop let alone in just seven games.

Champions vs Liverpool (Premiership 95/96-08-09)

Champions vs Tottenham (a) : P14 W5 D6 L3 F22 A18 (Won 35.71%)
Liverpool vs Tottenham (a) : P14 W5 D3 L6 F19 A7 (Won 35.71%)

Champions vs relegated sides : P84 W69 D14 L1 F210 A48 (Won 82.14%)
Liverpool vs relegated sides : P84 W58 D18 L8 F188 A69 (Won 69.05%)

Champions vs Newly promoted sides : P82 W64 D14 L4 F203 A60 (Won 78.05%)
Liverpool vs Newly promoted sides : P82 W51 D20 L11 F162 A62 (Won 62.20%)

spudz it is good to win at away, but even the eventual Premiership champions don't always win there. BUT the eventual Premiership champions beat the sides who've just come up and also those that go down more often than we do. Last season we only beat the newly promoted sides half the time, and one of our two defeats was to a side that got relegated. As I recall the mancs won something like 19 out of 20 games against the sides that finished in the bottom half. So we can't afford to be drawing home games or drawing with sides we should be beating. We have only one 100% record in the Premiership and that's against WBA, it is a disappointing little stat because we don't have 100% records against teams like Wolves, Swindon, Watford, Barnsley, Stoke, Reading, Hull and Bradford of whom none have spent more than two seasons in the Premiership.

We make life difficult for ourselves by not beating the sides we should, by not breaking them down which is why I hope we continue the style that we finished the season in. 27+ wins is the aim, you get no prizes for least defeats just a place in a records table for least defeats in a season. That's two seasons in a row we've lost less games than the Champions and finished trophyless both seasons.

by **bigmick** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:29 am

You see I made the point about a week ago in another thread that it amazed me last season that Rafa was still talking about when he won the title with Valencia despite drawing plenty of matches. He was saying it in a "don't worry, everything will be OK no" kind of way, and although the "I don't fecking believe this place" brigade bought it on here, some of us didn't. Not I hasten to add out of any original theory, but my own conviction that the draws would cost us was built entirely on reading Owzat's 27 wins theories.

Whether or not people always appreciate Owzats posting style, on this issue his argument is absolutely compelling. Now given we've got a back up team which would probably fill two coaches, it absolutely amazes me that we don't have an "Owzat style" stats man who can tell us this stuff.

Amongst many other things last season, we learnt that bad results even in October DO count when push comes to shove. If you get behind the Mancs and Chelsea on the home stretch, they are fecking hard to pull back because they are quite capable of winning ten on the bounce no problem at all. As we proved last season, you can absolutely shoot the lights out but you still don't gain on them, because they always find a way to win.

Absolutely pointless in my view harking back to a season at Valencia where you drew 10 or somethign and still won it. Over the last decade in the Prem, it's obviously as our stat man has proven (at least I think he's proven it anyway) it's wins that count, not draws. As such, when "w@nkers" such as me were moaning like drains when we settled for a point at both Arsenal and Wigan when the games were there to be won, we did actually have something of a point.

Hopefully this season there will be less chance for us to be debating a draw at Home with the likes of Hull, but make no mistake on the odd occasion that we are, it IS a bad result and it WILL cost us in the end. The challenge is to make sure we get enough points so it doesn't matter.

One for Owzat, how far can you afford to fall behind the leadersd and still win it?

by **Rafa D** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:30 am

Don't touch the 4-5-1 partnership of Gerrard or Torres.

We play our best football with that over the seasons and always are difficult to beat, it hasn't mattered whether Xabi or Lucas played, 4-5-1 has always served us well and when we have changed the formation early on in the season, we have come unstuck.

Leave 4-5-1.

by **Judge** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:36 am

1. lfc played 7 won 7 21pts
2. chavski played 7 won 6 drawn 1 19pts
3. mancs played 7 won 5 drawn 2 17pts
4. arsenal played 7 won 4 drawn 2 lost 1 14pts
5. man city played 7 won 2 drawn 4 lost 1 10pts

thats what i think

by **bigmick** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:40 am

Judge wrote:1. lfc played 7 won 7 21pts
2. chavski played 7 won 6 drawn 1 19pts
3. mancs played 7 won 5 drawn 2 17pts
4. arsenal played 7 won 4 drawn 2 lost 1 14pts
5. man city played 7 won 2 drawn 4 lost 1 10pts

thats what i think

That'd do me Judgie mate. Feck all this being up there but not in front, get in front and keep racking up the wins is the way to go. You want the others in the situation where they HAVE to win every week, the pressure tells in the end.

by **tubby** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:53 am

In theory, but look how often the Mancs had to do that last season and they showed in the end they had the staying power. We all thought the pressure of us playing first so often would get to them in some form but it never happened. We just need to win all our home games and not :censored:

up in the big away games and we will be fine.

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