THE post match reaction thread....

[Johnny]

Yep.

Kuyt and Voronin were both atrocious yesterday.



This is the key thing now for me. With the difficulties Chelsea have had and Man U looking so uninspiring, while Arsenal are still a young team, we have a great chance this year. Having said that it will be close and every point will count - Rafa has to make the league the priority and play the best team. He seemed to be singing from a different hymn sheet this season and saying how European success was fine but it was the Premiership he wanted to conquer. But then we have the Portsmouth fiasco last week and seeing the team he put out in Porto on Tuesday makes me wonder just how much of a priority the Premiership really is to him.

The teams Rafa put out against Portsmouth and Birmingham should easily win those games.
The players must shoulder the blame.Too much sloppy passing in the last two games.
SG needs to step up his game along with Mascher,Kuyt and Voronin.
Blaming Rafa is the easy way out.

[CAD]

Could be that our squad isn't good enough ?

There are more important things in life than football anyway.

Says the man with 1278936 posts.

We will never win the league with Rotation Rafa.

[cobain]

Why do some people still think that Crouch is good in the air?

He is very average in the air. He miss sitter after sitter in the six yard box. We sold off our best attacking threat in the air, Garcia.

Oh the irony

Crouch the biggest guy on the pitch, lil' Luis the smallest - yet lil' Luis was the one who scored all the headers

[CAD]

The teams Rafa put out against Portsmouth and Birmingham should easily win those games.
The players must shoulder the blame.Too much sloppy passing in the last two games.
SG needs to step up his game along with Mascher,Kuyt and Voronin.
Blaming Rafa is the easy way out.

RCDNW brigade as usual.

Fantastic effort the last three games from Rotation Rafa. Completely failed to build anykind of momentum on the 6-0 win. Instead he rotated the squad out of phase. 6 new players against Porto didn't help but it was obviously the Pompey rotation that started the debacle. For some odd reason Torres couldn't start the last two PL games.

Consistency and flow tends to be strangers when you play 22 players in the first 5 matches.

Blaming Rafa is the easy way out? :whatever:

[cobain]

Good point. That singing section created in the Kop has hardly been a success so far.

Well, I heard they sing very old songs that no one beside them knows. A perfect way to kill off the atmosphere

[Johnny]

Sissoko, Crouch, Riise and maybe Pennant should be sold as soon as possible.

FFS!!!!!!!

[cobain]

Turn your Champ Manager off will ya..

Do you really believe that Rafa has underestimated Pompey and Brum??

Can't wait to see your posts in a couple of months..

Like I said Don't go defending Rafa and Co to the Mancs and then slate him on here. It just ain't right.


Surprised you haven't started a "I can pick a better team" thread yet..
Here you go.


http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/

Yes, yes he did. He picks his team and says "that should do it" or "that should be enough". That to me is an underestimated **** by Rafa

He picks a team that's just (maybe) slightly better than an opponent, instead of picking the best team possible.

You sound like RCDNWB

[Kopite_Colin]

Rafa' decisions on and off the the pitch have cost us:

1) No PROVEN consistent Premiership goalscorer in the squad (Torres looks the real deal, but if Rafas going to leve him out - it leaves us short)

Of the others:

- I'm a Kuyt fan , but his 1st touch worries me and his energy alone against 10 man defences isn't enough to open them up. Drops too deep or wide too often so we have little / no threat in the box.

- Crouch: Isn't clinical enough and again isn't someone who can create for himself out of nothing - doesn't score enough Premiership goals. We go to"long ball syndrome" when he comes on when we're struggling to break stubborn defences down. Can't score if he doesn't start.

- Voronin: Good start, but can't play up on his own, so when Kuyt drops deep we're left with no-one up top with enough threat in and around the box.


2) No settled quality genuine wingers of sufficient quality (and creativity) to play in LFC's 1st 11

- Benayoun is not a winger
- Pennant is not good enough for the 1st 11 (despite improvement - his final ball is isn't good enough)
- Kewell is Kewell (injured)
- Babel looks quality but hasn't fully settled yet
- Leto - needs time to settle

Of that list only Babel looks good enough for our 1st 11 right now, and he hasn't fully settled yet.

Thus we don't have sufficient quality in wide areas right now. So why are we surprised when we can't break the likes of Birmingham down?

3) The Heinze farce has left us short of cover (and pace) at the back. With Agger out, we'll struggle with any real pace against us up front.

4) Continual unnecessary rotation - leaving out our best striker in September is annoying and needless, especially when he seems to have settled well and is scoring goals

All in all Rafa has to take responsibility for our squad quality / depth in key areas and for our "dip in form" over the last 3 games with his team selection. The reality is that the international break hasn't helped us either.

I said before the start of the season we were 1 wide man of sufficient quality to slot into the 1st 11 now, and 1 defender short and I see no reason to change that opinion.
If Babel doesn't turn out to be able to play at least one of the wide positions (i.e. he wants to be a forward not a winger), then we need 2 widemen. With Kewell constantly injured, Pennant and Benayoun aren't good enough to play as our 1st 11 widemen, and I haven't seen enough of Leto yet, but he will need time to settle.


With Chelsea and the Scum stuttering, we've managed to get ourselves in a position to challenge early on, but maintaining a challenge in early Sept is very different to maintaining a challenge at Christmas and in April. We've all seem our season fall apart too many times by poor form in October and November. I just hope we can stay in te picture until Jan, when I hope Rafa has the where-with-all to recognise these obvious shortcomings and remedy them. But between now and then he needs to recognise his own shortcomings and stop ****ing about with the team for the league games and potentially pissing our title chances away. With so many new players we need continuity and that means only one thing - playing time together. And that means familiarity ..and that means minimal rotation.

If there was one thing I could change about Rafa it would be his attitude on this subject.

[tomasjj]

Rafa' decisions on and off the the pitch have cost us:

1) No PROVEN consistent Premiership goalscorer in the squad (Torres looks the real deal, but if Rafas going to leve him out - it leaves us short)

Of the others:

- I'm a Kuyt fan , but his 1st touch worries me and his energy alone against 10 man defences isn't enough to open them up. Drops too deep or wide too often so we have little / no threat in the box.

- Crouch: Isn't clinical enough and again isn't someone who can create for himself out of nothing - doesn't score enough Premiership goals. We go to"long ball syndrome" when he comes on when we're struggling to break stubborn defences down. Can't score if he doesn't start.

- Voronin: Good start, but can't play up on his own, so when Kuyt drops deep we're left with no-one up top with enough threat in and around the box.


2) No settled quality genuine wingers of sufficient quality (and creativity) to play in LFC's 1st 11

- Benayoun is not a winger
- Pennant is not good enough for the 1st 11 (despite improvement - his final ball is isn't good enough)
- Kewell is Kewell (injured)
- Babel looks quality but hasn't fully settled yet
- Leto - needs time to settle

Of that list only Babel looks good enough for our 1st 11 right now, and he hasn't fully settled yet.

Thus we don't have sufficient quality in wide areas right now. So why are we surprised when we can't break the likes of Birmingham down?

3) The Heinze farce has left us short of cover (and pace) at the back. With Agger out, we'll struggle with any real pace against us up front.

4) Continual unnecessary rotation - leaving out our best striker in September is annoying and needless, especially when he seems to have settled well and is scoring goals

All in all Rafa has to take responsibility for our squad quality / depth in key areas and for our "dip in form" over the last 3 games with his team selection. The reality is that the international break hasn't helped us either.

I said before the start of the season we were 1 wide man of sufficient quality to slot into the 1st 11 now, and 1 defender short and I see no reason to change that opinion.
If Babel doesn't turn out to be able to play at least one of the wide positions (i.e. he wants to be a forward not a winger), then we need 2 widemen. With Kewell constantly injured, Pennant and Benayoun aren't good enough to play as our 1st 11 widemen, and I haven't seen enough of Leto yet, but he will need time to settle.


With Chelsea and the Scum stuttering, we've managed to get ourselves in a position to challenge early on, but maintaining a challenge in early Sept is very different to maintaining a challenge at Christmas and in April. We've all seem our season fall apart too many times by poor form in October and November. I just hope we can stay in te picture until Jan, when I hope Rafa has the where-with-all to recognise these obvious shortcomings and remedy them. But between now and then he needs to recognise his own shortcomings and stop ****ing about with the team for the league games and potentially pissing our title chances away. With so many new players we need continuity and that means only one thing - playing time together. And that means familiarity ..and that means minimal rotation.

If there was one thing I could change about Rafa it would be his attitude on this subject.

Very good post.

I think I agree with almost all of that.

As for Babel, I can see him as a Henry clone - a striker operating wide to receive the ball and then moving infield.

A draw at Pompey and at Porto was fine by me, but we wasted 2 points yesterday.

[FatTony]

Babel also recently said that we do not practice attacking, only defending.

Is this normal or is this one of the reasons we rarely seem to be able to break down opposition that sits back?

[Kopite_Colin]

Babel also recently said that we do not practice attacking, only defending.

If that statement is true in any way, shape or form - then Rafa wants his arse kicking...and then sacking.

I don't believe that statement at all for one minute (not a dig at you Tony, but the journo who reported it).

[poorscousertommy]

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread but I will quickly summarise my thoughts on yesterdays game in one sentence -

"We were ****ing ****e"

There you go.

I would also like to point out that I am severely ****ed off with this rotation policy now.

[reds123]

Babel also recently said that we do not practice attacking, only defending.

Is this normal or is this one of the reasons we rarely seem to be able to break down opposition that sits back?

When did he say so?

Is there a link pls?

Because if it's true no wonder the last 3 games we played so miserable attacking football!!!

[yukpo]

Not happy, was prepared to let the Pompey draw go seeing as its a tough place to go but Rafa has to take the blame for yesterdays debacle.

Pathetic.

[Dhav]

The teams Rafa put out against Portsmouth and Birmingham should easily win those games.
The players must shoulder the blame.Too much sloppy passing in the last two games.
SG needs to step up his game along with Mascher,Kuyt and Voronin.
Blaming Rafa is the easy way out.

I agree that the team put out yesterday should have won comfortably, but I certainly feel that it was an understrength team v Portsmouth given the difficulty of the opposition. What worries is me is the fact that Torres hasn't really featured in the last couple of league games but has played v Porto in the CL - smacks of Rafa prioritising Europe again.