Emerald Red wrote:s@int wrote:I think over the years that has been one of my main frustrations and criticisms of Rafa, he is too stubborn and slow to change things that aren't working. Rotation was perhaps the first example of this. First season he was here, it was both understandable and necessary with a small squad and the CL as our main priority. To continue with it for as long as he did certainly cost us both points and runs in cups in other years. This was just the first of many examples where he has been too slow to adapt to circumstances, with the latest being the problem of two defensive mid's not creating enough. FINALLY HE SEEMS TO HAVE ACCEPTED THAT IT DOESN'T WORK (at least not with Masch and Lucas) and has moved Gerrard back .......
He makes too many mistakes and compounds them by not realising/admitting/changing his errors until its too late.
I agree with you on this one, S@int. Took him far too long to shift Gerrard back into the midfield. Was talking to a mate last night and he brought up the point of Gerrard not being very good when he has to play with his back facing the goal. He has to be deep with his eyes up towards the play so he can pull the strings and get involved more. I think he's persisted too long with the Torres/Gerrard partnership, and it's understandable why and I can see why he has, as those two on song are the best pairing around, but still playing him there with Torres injured, in hindsight, was just cutting his own nose off to spite the rest of his face so to speak. We won't know for sure, but Rafa's admittance will come if he persists with the 4-4-2 set up and not the one he's went with for half of last season and most of this one. Rafa's admittance to errors of his ways is not in spoken words, but when he changes something, which is not often.
I think Rafa had a vision of us having a similar formation and setup to Milan. A defensive midfielder playing alongside a more creative deep-lying playmaker (Xabi and Masch : Pirlo and Gattuso) with Gerrard filling the Kaka role, and with attacking fullbacks in the Cafu mould.
That obviously fell to pieces with the sale of Alonso and the failure of Aquilani to be fit or to establish himself up to present. Lucas and Masch last season seemed a reasonable short term alternative imo, sadly over the longer term and especially with the absence of both Gerrard and Torres this has been seen to be totally lacking in the distributional and creative areas, especially as Kuyt while a willing worker etc is also lacking on the creative side, and Babel loses the ball more often than not.
I have long argued the case for a specialised creative second striker who while maybe not as dynamic as Gerrard at his best, can link the midfield better with the attack .......without sacrificing the width that is required to break down stubborn teams. Someone who can play with his back to goal, hold up play and have the vision to see the right pass.
We seem at the moment to be a team with few players who are comfortable on the ball and even fewer that can actually beat a player. We need a few more footballers even at the expense of some of our marathon runners.
by Benny The Noon » Sun May 02, 2010 12:41 pm