a few inescapable conclusions...

[badpiggy]

i get what you are saying mate, but i can't agree with you. if we would have tried to out flair them, played them on high tempo possession game, they would have torn us apart. they are amongst the greatest attacking teams in the world and have some of the best players in the world who were giving it all they could throwing everything at us, if we had given them an inch of space they would have punished us, but still we created chances in the second half...

i agree with you though the second have was supposed to be different we were supposed to be 2-3 goals up. however it wasn't to be, and when you don't score against barcelona theres little you can do.

i don't agree with you that Benitez is an extremely defensive minded coach, cause he likes to control games and keep possession. he is a tactician and likes to to play onto other teams weaknesses rather than onto our strengths. and thats what he did in the first half, he let barcelona come to us, cause he knew if put on the pressure for 90 minutes they couldn't cope with us. our only weakness in last nights game was our inability to score, and thats hardly Benitez' fault as we got the chances...

i can't wait for us to get propper strikers and winger, we'll be on top of the world

which we totally failed to do. going throught the barca team, who are the ball winners? eto'o? ronaldinho? deco? messi? these guys rely on supply to hurt teams - with our incredibly talked up midfield and strong defence is it not beyond the realms of possibility that between xabi, sg, finnan, agger, kuyt, possibly arbeloa that we might pass the ball to each other?

[calvoboy]

if i said these things on koptalk i'd be totally pilloried by muppets saying "you're obviously a scum fan" etc... so i hope anyone who responds to this takes the fact that i'm a die-hard liverpool fan for 27 years into account...

1. how the **** were we holding on against this team? we shold have trounced them.

Because we didn't take our chances. We should have been two or three up before they scored their one.

2. the two mascots of rafa's liverpool - momo and kuyt. 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. i love both of them for what the do but if these are the lynchpins of rafa's "mentality", then we face a lot of performances like last night.

I'll take performances like that every day of the week. Hit the bar twice, had one cleared off the line, crouch missed a sitter, their keeper made some good saves, and Reina had practically nothing to do.

3. why did we constanly give tha ball away last night? we broke our collective bollixes winning the ball of these ****in jokers only to constantly put it out of play or give it back to them really cheaply. when we held onto it we looked like we could score at will. but still didn't...

Your one valid point. We gave the ball away too much, particularly in the second half.

4. ronaldinho was **** last night but was still their biggest threat but he needn't have been. if we had held onto the ball he wouldn't have had any profile whatsoever.

This is the same point as 3 above - he, along with others, gave the ball away too much second half.

5. xabi was totally anonymous last night in terms of his real abilities. he should have ****in crucified thram in particular with passes that stretch the whole defense. he really wallops his passes so a slow defender should be right down his alley.

Pure, unadulterated, Bollocks.

6. rafa is an extremely defensively minded coach. last night liverpool respected barcelona's reputation and totally ignored the actual team that faced us on the pitch.

Pure, unadulterated, Bollocks. Look at the chances we created, and the fact that we played two up front home and away. Extremely defensive minded my arse.

7. there's a strong possibility that we will win another champion's league and the premiership under rafa if we get new players, particularly strikers. when we do none of this post will matter. but we shouldn't delude ourselves that it's going to be done with flair and creativity. we will grind, harass and slog our way to everything we win under rafa.

As every team has always had to win trophies. Some you win in style, some you grind out. Against your biggest rivals it is more often about grinding a result than hammering them in style. Think of the Manc games over the last twenty years - there are very few classics in terms of flowing creative football from either side.

8. we're in the champion's league quarter finals and all teams will fear us - and rightly so because there are no teams left that have the attacking power to really trouble us - but not in the way teams feared barcelona last year and for that part of me is disappointed - not the part that is a liverpool fan but the part that enjoys football played at it's highest level.

You are rambling now...teams fear us in the same way as they fear Barca, Inter, the scum, the chavs etc. - because we can knock them out. Pure and simple.

9. i'm totally open to being contradicted/corrected but i'm not interested in replies that go along the lines of "stop pissing on the parade" etc... liverpool fans have always been football fans who respected and expected great football above all else. THAT SHOULD NOT CHANGE.

We ARE watching great football. We have just outplayed the champions elect and the reigning champions of Europe in the same week. We desperately need a striker who can actually score goals and not just run fast, run hard, stand tall, or trade on past glories. We are creating chance after chance with some great football, we just lack that killer touch.

[carrsim]

I know, I know its Barca you say but feck it I remember a time when we would have passed the likes of them of the pitch at Anfield, I was just shocked at our level of play in the second half.

actually when LFC were arguably at our strongest ever in the late 70s we played a cautious 1-0 in Barca and drew 1-1 at anfield in close game

[Laddsy]

Because we didn't take our chances. We should have been two or three up before they scored their one.



I'll take performances like that every day of the week. Hit the bar twice, had one cleared off the line, crouch missed a sitter, their keeper made some good saves, and Reina had practically nothing to do.



Your one valid point. We gave the ball away too much, particularly in the second half.



This is the same point as 3 above - he, along with others, gave the ball away too much second half.



Pure, unadulterated, Bollocks.



Pure, unadulterated, Bollocks. Look at the chances we created, and the fact that we played two up front home and away. Extremely defensive minded my arse.



As every team has always had to win trophies. Some you win in style, some you grind out. Against your biggest rivals it is more often about grinding a result than hammering them in style. Think of the Manc games over the last twenty years - there are very few classics in terms of flowing creative football from either side.



You are rambling now...teams fear us in the same way as they fear Barca, Inter, the scum, the chavs etc. - because we can knock them out. Pure and simple.



We ARE watching great football. We have just outplayed the champions elect and the reigning champions of Europe in the same week. We desperately need a striker who can actually score goals and not just run fast, run hard, stand tall, or trade on past glories. We are creating chance after chance with some great football, we just lack that killer touch.

A voice of reason

[Guest]

which we totally failed to do. going throught the barca team, who are the ball winners? eto'o? ronaldinho? deco? messi? these guys rely on supply to hurt teams - with our incredibly talked up midfield and strong defence is it not beyond the realms of possibility that between xabi, sg, finnan, agger, kuyt, possibly arbeloa that we might pass the ball to each other?

Barca's game doesn't rely on ball winners per se, but on the fact that they always dictate the game and make the opposition run after the ball. That's their style of play. You need much more than that in the modern game. They were 'blown' away by our power and tempo in the first half yesterday and ought to have been 3-0 down at half time. That would have ensured we could take our foot off the pedal and try to concentrate on keeping the ball, not on pressing them.

[zimbo]

I think you're perhaps being overly critical in the circumstances.

For 60 minutes we all but dominated the game, not by simply sitting back and defending but by pressing their defenders when in possession, pushing forward in a controlled, effective fashion and isolating their main attacking threats (Deco, Ronaldinho, Messi and Eto'o). There was little wrong with our possession game during that first hour and we carved out numerous clear chances that should have seen us home and dry. Barca carved out nothing, not a single shot at goal until Ronaldinho hit the post.

As reigning European champions and, reputedly, the best club side in the world, Barca were never going to lie down without some sort of a fight. They loaded their attack as a last resort and, given that they were facing an exit from the competition they cherish most, were inevitably going to have a period of dominance. That we restricted them to 2 clear chances in what was their most important game of the season is a tribute to our endurance and strength of character.

Yes, in the last half hour some of our distribution was rushed and careless and we perhaps invited pressure unnecessarily. But that was inevitable given the stakes and the tension involved. We adopted a 'what we have, we hold' approach which ultimately paid off.

Ideally, yes, we'd have knocked it round for 10 minutes at a time, but that doesn't take into account the standard of the opposition nor their will to hold onto their trophy.

All told, it was a great achievement and, while there will always be aspects of our performance that we would hope to see improved, I'd be happy to settle for the same aggregate result next time round.

Remember, there's only 5 games to go....

[Laddsy]

Barca's game doesn't rely on ball winners per se, but on the fact that they always dictate the game and make the opposition run after the ball. That's their style of play. You need much more than that in the modern game. They were 'blown' away by our power and tempo in the first half yestreday and ought to have been 3-0 up at half time. That would have ensured we could take our foot off the pedal and try to concentrate on keeping the ball, not on pressing them.

In a non gay way

I love you Fredo

[Diego]

which we totally failed to do. going throught the barca team, who are the ball winners? eto'o? ronaldinho? deco? messi? these guys rely on supply to hurt teams - with our incredibly talked up midfield and strong defence is it not beyond the realms of possibility that between xabi, sg, finnan, agger, kuyt, possibly arbeloa that we might pass the ball to each other?

to be fair every single player of theirs was putting massive pressure on us every time we won the ball, and in the second have barca did a good job at limiting our optins. and we lost confidence in our ability to score, our midfield did extremely well, and to be fair about 60 % of barcas possession was on their own half, and we weren't going at them over there and give the space to play on our own...

[badpiggy]

[QUOTE=calvoboy;328771]Because we didn't take our chances. We should have been two or three up before they scored their one.



I'll take performances like that every day of the week. Hit the bar twice, had one cleared off the line, crouch missed a sitter, their keeper made some good saves, and Reina had practically nothing to do.



Your one valid point. We gave the ball away too much, particularly in the second half.

my one valid point is the point everything else i said hinges on. can there honestly be anyone who watched the game that thinks that constantly giving the ball away is the mark of a great performance in every way?

[badpiggy]

to be fair every single player of theirs was putting massive pressure on us every time we won the ball, and in the second have barca did a good job at limiting our optins. and we lost confidence in our ability to score, our midfield did extremely well, and to be fair about 60 % of barcas possession was on their own half, and we weren't going at them over there and give the space to play on our own...

come on diego - maybe in the first half but definitely not in the second.

[Laddsy]

[QUOTE=bloody and porcine;328802]

my one valid point is the point everything else i said hinges on. can there honestly be anyone who watched the game that thinks that giving the ball away to barcelona is the mark of a great performance in every way?

Have you had a drink yet?

FFS

[Mumsafan]

I can't remember a folk complaining about how we played in the first half in Istanbul, after the game was over.

[badpiggy]

Barca's game doesn't rely on ball winners per se, but on the fact that they always dictate the game and make the opposition run after the ball. That's their style of play. You need much more than that in the modern game. They were 'blown' away by our power and tempo in the first half yesterday and ought to have been 3-0 down at half time. That would have ensured we could take our foot off the pedal and try to concentrate on keeping the ball, not on pressing them.

we did run after the ball and constantly won the ****in thing which i getting sick of saying - it's what we did next the majority of the time that i'm disappointed about

[badpiggy]

[QUOTE=Laddsy;328809]

Have you had a drink yet?

FFS

what? we didn't constantly ghve the ball away pointlessly and cheaply?

[Laddsy]

we did run after the ball and constantly won the ****in thing which i getting sick of saying - it's what we did next the majority of the time that i'm disappointed about

go have a wank

you will feel better