Explaining away one or two questionable results is one thing but it's hard to explain away things when a clear pattern emerges. As much as I'd prefer to remain optimistic about our title chances, recent results are making that increasingly difficult.
There's a variety of potential explanations, such as a lack of attacking creativity, tactical blunders, poor team selections, woeful choice of substitutions (especially against Wigan last night), Rafa losing the plot [link], and at times there has been some poor player performances.
We're only 2 points from the top (although ManUre have a game in hand) but our next game against Chelski [link] could very well decide whether we drop out of the title race or not. A loss will probably kill team confidence, but a win could propel us on a much needed run of good form.
18 comments:
I cant believe just how f**king stupid Benitez has become. His choice of subs at vital points in a game leave me speechless. His constant stream of excuses annoys the hell out of me. Theres no acceptable excuse for drawing 7 out of 10 games. None whatsoever. Im not going to even wait until Sunday to write off our title chances cos Benitez did that last night. Taking off Gerrard in the last several mins when we are a goal down, WTF ?
Parry out, Hicks out, Gillet out, Benitez out.
Bring in the Sheikhs and Mourinho and watch the title come to Anfield.
Imagine a scenario. You are a football team competing for the greatest prize in domestic football and yet, you are struggling to score goals.
Would you:
Leave a proven £20m striker on the bench ?
Leave your creative midfield inspiraton Xabi Alonso on the bench and instead play a man who has surely forged his Brazilian passport ?
Take off your best player Steven Gerrard after the opposition equalise ?
Take off your goalscorer Benayoun and replace him with the hard working but ineffective Kuyt (rafa's lovechild) ?
Take off El Nino Torres ?
You wouldnt would you ? You would say NO to all of the above. The problem is that the man in charge did all of the above. He said YES and another two points were lost.
Leave a proven £20m striker on the bench ? Yes if his performances have been as woeful as his last one
Leave your creative midfield inspiraton Xabi Alonso on the bench and instead play a man who has surely forged his Brazilian passport ? He can't play every game,especially with chelsea round the corner.
Take off your best player Steven Gerrard after the opposition equalise? No retort for this one other than Gerrard being tired, Benitez not wanting to risk an injury for Sunday and that Robbie Keane had a point to prove.
Take off your goalscorer Benayoun and replace him with the hard working but ineffective Kuyt (rafa's lovechild) ? Would have rather seen El Zhar.
Take off El Nino Torres ? Torres looked shattered!
@robbie - ah come on, wait till Sunday, it's only a few more days ;-)
@mourinho - hmmmm, it's not an entirely unlikely outcome...
@ronnie sarkisian - only Rafa knows why..
It is not just Rafael Benitez who has lost the plot. The players have also failed to cope with the pressure of being league leaders. The game against Chelsea will prove if they have the stomach for a fight.
I just can't believe that anyone thinks we don't need players in this transfer window!! I would love to see Lennon from Spurs brought in (including a swap with Keane and some cash) as he provides a lot of quick clever play that we were surely lacking last night! I can only presume that we have no money due to the imminent sale of the club (please be true) or that the owners don't trust Rafa spending their money (Parry issue) or they won't give him any money until he signs a new contract, instead saving the cash for any new manager!
I have to agree that substitutions have cost us regularly! Team selection & resting players I can cope with, but when we are in need of a goal he often brings on the prolific Lucas! The only thing he is prolific at is cocking things up!! We need to put in a convincing performance and win against Chelsea or that’s that! And lose and we will have to be looking over our shoulders at Villa and could be in real trouble if Arsenal put on a late surge!!
If there's one thing that might turn me off football for life it's the thought of Moaninho managing our club.
Keep things in perspective, it's a bad run yes, but look at our squad compared to United and Chelsea, we're doing well to be in touching distance.
Go back in time - in August you're told that next February you'll be 3 points off the top with a huge six-pointer against Chelsea at Anfield as your next game. That would have put a smile on your face.
Sit back, enjoy the fight and support the lads.
I think results at the start of the season were very flattering for us and helped to build up unrealistic expectations. We played shite yet won. Now we're pretty much getting what we deserve.
@ben - I'm sure Rafa knows only too well that we need more players but I suspect there was no real transfer funds available to him.
@dr who - you're absolutely right, at the start of the season we would all have taken our current position in the league. But the fact that we let the lead slip away so badly over the last couple of months has become a bitter pill to swallow.
@dummy - karma, eh ? I still think we got a shot at winning the league this season, but it's an increasingly long one.
Real intelligent of Rafa to take off our best player in the last few minutes and then put on a player who is rock bottom on confidence !!!
Its not just Rafa who screwed up. Lets not forget Lucas giving away a really stupid and needless penalty. That boy is a liability and will never make it at Liverpool FC.
Fear not Pool supporters, hope is on the horizon, I have it on good authority (ie note pinned to back of toilet door) that my very dear friend Rafa is on the point of signing seven wingers from Tibet and twenty seven strikers from a lost tribe in the Amazon jungle, all of this for only two hundred million pounds, I also believe they can play in any position and don't mind being substituted.....it can't be worse...PS no disrespect to your Tibetan and Amazonian bloggers intended, in fact they will probably be a lot better than some of the players we already have. .....sigh!!!
check out rafa's 'craziness' quotes after last night's match. He really HAS lost it :-/ :(
I agree with Dummy... A really good start of the season didn't do any good. Liverpool is known to be the underdogs and that's what they are use to. I think now that Man U is on top, the pressure will go slightly down, and Liverpool will start doing better again.
Rafa have had a bad period, but i don't think he have lost it completly. But you can't expect everyone to be on top of their game at all time. That's unhuman. Then you will have a lot of dissapointment in you life.
And as Dr. Who sais:
Sit back, enjoy the fight and support the lads!
All of the fans can see it, why can't the fat Spanish waiter see it. The man has gone mentally insane since he had his kidney illness. We have not won a game (other than Preston)since he opened his fat mouth before the Stoke game. I read his after match comments and they made no sense what so ever. He sounded like he had just drunk a bottle of vodka between the game finishing and the press conference starting. The only thing "CRAZY" about the game was taking off our 3 best attacking players on the night. Benayoun played well for a change, why not take off "Lucas the Brazilian imposter". Torres and Gerrard simply had to play the 90 minutes, tired or not. Benitez has to stop making excuses and realise it is himself that is the reason for a month of rubbish football. The infighting with the board and Gerrard's needless court case would not be helping either. Its 4th or 5th at best for us this year.
@bruce the frustrated - 7 Tibetan wingers, sounds pretty cool ;-)
@thedropper & scott d - he appears to be a man crumbling under the pressure... but i hope he can pull it together asap...
@torunn - yeah i really hope the lads will start doing better now that they have to chase the title, there's less pressure that way. We'll find out on sunday if the team is up to the challenge...
Winners against Chelsea!!! I guess all the idiotic comments will stop now. See!!
The same set of f**kin players did the job. The players were not playing well enough. They did this game and we won.
Moan all you want about the results but don't talk of sacking manager or say this or that player is shite. We as the supporters of LFC must do better than that. YNWA
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