Liverpool FC Forum

crazyhorse wrote:The purpose of this thread is to prevoke a little thought. We have on paper a team that should be capable of challenging for the title. The ratings were a little tongue in cheek but i think the point is proved that on a best available players scenario we are again on paper good enough. Why is it therefore that we fall behind when it comes to cohesion and tactical nouse when compared to the other two. And yes the "squads" differ in size and talent available ect ect ect... this is just meant to begin a debate. Look at the number of youth players again showing for Manure, Fergie makes a ponit of surrounding his youth with the first team as early as possible. Rafa either refuses, or does not have the confidence to do this.

To simply reject a members idea out of hand or just call something someone has written nonsense or pointless is a bit nonsensical when you offer no reason as to why, and show no evidence at all that you have even read it properly or even got the point.

ConnO'var wrote:I actually think that this is a good thread. We've had multiple discussions and pronouncements that we're not good enough and I for one always found that arguement a little thin..... even with the lost of Alonso and to a lesser degree, Arbeloa.

This squad came close to winning it last year. With Alonso's loss, we were always going to struggle a little if his replacement didn't come good..... but if you had asked me at the start of the season, I would never have guessed that we'd struggle as much as we have.

Putting all else aside, and just looking at the ability, heart and experiece of the INDIVIDUAL players based on their past track records and taking into account year-on-year decline due to aging, our squad is not too far behind Chelsea and Man Utd.

The trick here is melding the individual pieces into a cohesive, focused, inspired and determined unit...... not sacrifice individual styles to fit into a system which does not play to the strengths of the players we have...... and that is the manager's job.

We know that we don't have the funds to buy specific players that can suit into the system the manager wants. However, if plan A fails theres always plan B...... failure to adapt can be disasterous.

So, I do agree with crazyhorse..... Our players are good enough to compete and make a fist of it. My glasess may not be as rose-tinted as his and I would say that we're probably 5-7% behind Chelsea and no more than 3-5% behind Man Utd. Almost exclusively, I would say the deficiency is in midfield.

I stand by what I had suggested at the start of the season.

We should have pulled Stevie back into midfield with Masch and gotten Benny to play upfront with Torres. Either that or we should have switched the system to a 5-3-2 with Aurelio and Johnson in the wingbacks, and given Nemeth/Ngog a chance to forge a partnership with Torres. To this day, I still could not believe that Nemeth was not given at least an opportunity.

But once again..... yes..... our players are close enough to the those of Chelsea and Man Utd and we SHOULD have been able to make the race much, MUCH closer. Dissapointed that we have not and the root cause is the manager IMO.

Penguins wrote:Well, it was also imo the last push of Carra, Kuyt and Gerrard.

They had all a very good season 08/09 but they will never have that again. They are all around 30 and especially Carra and Kuyt are showing signs of decline and instead of being the strenght of the team like last season they are becoming liabilities. I do not think those 3 will ever get back to that form.

Combing that with the loss of Alonso, Masch having his head turned and playing poorly the 1st half of the season and the awful treatment of offensivly gifted players like Reira, Aquilani and Babel has all contributed.
Sure, Rafa's negativity and doctrine of hard work is not helping but I don't think this squad can push Chelski and Manure close anymore.

ConnO'var wrote:I actually think that this is a good thread. We've had multiple discussions and pronouncements that we're not good enough and I for one always found that arguement a little thin..... even with the lost of Alonso and to a lesser degree, Arbeloa.

This squad came close to winning it last year. With Alonso's loss, we were always going to struggle a little if his replacement didn't come good..... but if you had asked me at the start of the season, I would never have guessed that we'd struggle as much as we have.

Putting all else aside, and just looking at the ability, heart and experiece of the INDIVIDUAL players based on their past track records and taking into account year-on-year decline due to aging, our squad is not too far behind Chelsea and Man Utd.

The trick here is melding the individual pieces into a cohesive, focused, inspired and determined unit...... not sacrifice individual styles to fit into a system which does not play to the strengths of the players we have...... and that is the manager's job.

We know that we don't have the funds to buy specific players that can suit into the system the manager wants. However, if plan A fails theres always plan B...... failure to adapt can be disasterous.

So, I do agree with crazyhorse..... Our players are good enough to compete and make a fist of it. My glasess may not be as rose-tinted as his and I would say that we're probably 5-7% behind Chelsea and no more than 3-5% behind Man Utd. Almost exclusively, I would say the deficiency is in midfield.

I stand by what I had suggested at the start of the season.

We should have pulled Stevie back into midfield with Masch and gotten Benny to play upfront with Torres. Either that or we should have switched the system to a 5-3-2 with Aurelio and Johnson in the wingbacks, and given Nemeth/Ngog a chance to forge a partnership with Torres. To this day, I still could not believe that Nemeth was not given at least an opportunity.

But once again..... yes..... our players are close enough to the those of Chelsea and Man Utd and we SHOULD have been able to make the race much, MUCH closer. Dissapointed that we have not and the root cause is the manager IMO.

Sir Roger wrote:Bit of a nonsense thread this

Perhaps not in the concept, but the application could be. Rating your own players is never likely to be possible to do objectively, and doesn't prove much anyway. We spend all the time saying we've not played well then give the said same players 7, 8 and 9 out of 10 !

I think Chelsea and the mancs have much more depth, their players often perform to somewhere near their best and they have a lot more creative players than we do - they also don't play two DMs and awful football. Without Rooney the mancs do struggle, like we do without Torres. But then they still get results, and the other players don't just leave it to their star players to win games for them. They can get goals from all over the field, so too can Chelsea. We struggle beyond Benayoun, Torres, Gerrard and Kuyt so when one or more are missing we've little in the way of goalscoring options - not helped by Mascherano and Lucas playing so much (together)

And maybe their managers have a bit of a clue and know how to turn things around. I think there is something of an over-reaction to last night's result, more a cumulative effect of the season than a worse than usual performance in a result which is "acceptable" if not ideal.