Question 2

[Revo]

Revo mate, do you feel his philosophies and methods are ones which can win the league title?

If not...(big if, i know) and if he still insists on sticking to them, then surely he isnt the man?

i think the league is up for grabs and playing conservative right now as ugly as it is keeps you in the thing. im not happy with the style and i know your not mate but im hoping rafa will become more flexible in the coming months and when i say flexible i mean with his thinking because at times it sure seems he backs himself into a corner. he is a cagey **** is the boss though and i do believe he will have us right in it until the end even if i do question a decision or two that he makes

[Craig_H]

That's a fair assessment mate.

I'm not even THAT bothered about the style of play, if we just win games. A cautious style didnt stop Chelsea winning game after game, and back to back titles.

I'd be made up if we did the same.

In fact, i'm not fussed about ANY of it...not rotation, not defensive styles of play, not anything....if we're winning games.

[Frank Leroux]

It doesn’t look good so far does it?

He still hasn't figured out the right formula to win this league. That's just my opinion of course but to me – and this is just an impression I get - there's light years in difference between ourselves and the mancs in attacking intent, and even the burning desire “us against them attitude” of Chelsea under Mourinho. I don't know, but I just get the feeling that we just don't have either of those things to the extent they have. Maybe it's deeper rooted in the club psyche, 18 years and all that.

Tactically I do still think Rafa is too negative in general. He seems to worry too much about what other teams are doing instead of saying; "right, these are ****e, play well, pass and move, high tempo, get stuck in, beat them". We very rarely seem to play free flowing football, and I don't for one minute believe Rafa wouldn't want to, his Valencia sides were very easy on the eye when they could be. So why is it different with us? Why do we get one dimensional, limited players like Pennant, Kuyt and Riise? None of them Liverpool standard.

That comes down to the manager. He picks the team and gives out the tactical instructions. At times we do play some good stuff, of course we do, we have some good players, but other times we look clueless, agricultural and devoid of attacking ingenuity.

This season he has to at least to mount a strong challenge for the league, no more excuses, he's had time and money, as he should considering he inherited a train wreck, but this is his team now.

If he doesn’t win the league within the next 3 years it’ll be time to move onto the next one.

Good post (because I agree with it.....)

We may get to the point where we have to acknowledge that the methods to win in continental Europe (including CL) may not be those that will bring home the number 19. I really don't believe that 'tactics' are that important in the Premier League. Attitude, application and yes, ability seem to me to be more crucial in the English game.

Benitez is undoubtedly a tactical genius (ref. Europe & Valencia) - I just don't think he is so good when dealing with the vagaries and impulses of players. He'd rather they were chess pieces - to do his bidding.

I don't want to colour him as some cold fish - I like the guy - but I don't think he has the spirit of the PL in him.

Ah well,

Frank.

[Pacman]

Am i right in assuming then, that you're basically saying we WILL win the title?

My point about Rafa is purely based on 'if' we dont win it.

The saddest thing is that, from what i've seen thus far, the biggest threat to our title challenge doesnt come from Arsenal, Man Utd or even Chelsea.

It comes from Rafa's stubborness and apparent refusal to accept that he might not be right with some of his methods.

As we are talking about the PL and not the CL you could argue that Rafa's stubbornness has resulted in us drawing away to Portsmouth and home to Brum.

Against Spurs he put out a team that I think most of us would have been chuffed with when we saw the team sheet and was definitely good enough to beat them. Again our team against Brum in hindsight was a bad choice. Leaving Torres out was a mistake but you can't tell me that the players on that pitch weren't good enough to beat a newly promoted team at home 8 times out of 10? Against Portsmouth people seem to think that we have a divine right to go their and turn them over. They are a good team and will be top 8 maybe top 6 this season so a point away isn't a bad result. Again you could argue that if he had played Gerrard and Torres from the start we might of won the game but they both started against Spurs and we didn't win.

I would like to see us rotate a little less but by the same token I just think we are going through a bad patch at the minute. It needs to end soon otherwise we will be out of the race but I am 100% confident that Rafa will get them playing again very soon.

[bobbyfallon]

As we are talking about the PL and not the CL you could argue that Rafa's stubbornness has resulted in us drawing away to Portsmouth and home to Brum.

Against Spurs he put out a team that I think most of us would have been chuffed with when we saw the team sheet and was definitely good enough to beat them. Again our team against Brum in hindsight was a bad choice. Leaving Torres out was a mistake but you can't tell me that the players on that pitch weren't good enough to beat a newly promoted team at home 8 times out of 10? Against Portsmouth people seem to think that we have a divine right to go their and turn them over. They are a good team and will be top 8 maybe top 6 this season so a point away isn't a bad result. Again you could argue that if he had played Gerrard and Torres from the start we might of won the game but they both started against Spurs and we didn't win.

I would like to see us rotate a little less but by the same token I just think we are going through a bad patch at the minute. It needs to end soon otherwise we will be out of the race but I am 100% confident that Rafa will get them playing again very soon.

a few changes here and there are fine but keep the core players. eg, reina agger carra arbeloa (great season) macherano steve torres. the rest of the positions are up for grabs, but if a player has a decent game leave him in FFS. this in turn will help build confidence.

fair enough change for carling cup and lesser fa cup games.. that one week or 4-5 days rest should surely be enough for 21-28 year olds. wouldnt even be agianst making 8-11 changes for these games.

"rafa will get them playing again" - - - - - - steve needs to get his ****in finger out and start acting like our captain and get the lads playing. he is sulking round the pitch and may even be a disruptive force.

if he cant do job as captain, give it to carra, he is our true captain anyways and if you do something wrong you can be guarenteed an earful from him.

get steve back out on the right too, it would benefit the team better

[Craig_H]

As we are talking about the PL and not the CL you could argue that Rafa's stubbornness has resulted in us drawing away to Portsmouth and home to Brum.

Against Spurs he put out a team that I think most of us would have been chuffed with when we saw the team sheet and was definitely good enough to beat them. Again our team against Brum in hindsight was a bad choice. Leaving Torres out was a mistake but you can't tell me that the players on that pitch weren't good enough to beat a newly promoted team at home 8 times out of 10? Against Portsmouth people seem to think that we have a divine right to go their and turn them over. They are a good team and will be top 8 maybe top 6 this season so a point away isn't a bad result. Again you could argue that if he had played Gerrard and Torres from the start we might of won the game but they both started against Spurs and we didn't win.

I would like to see us rotate a little less but by the same token I just think we are going through a bad patch at the minute. It needs to end soon otherwise we will be out of the race but I am 100% confident that Rafa will get them playing again very soon.

We failed to beat Spurs due to a lack of motivation and confidence. Two things which are still down to the manager to instill.

Furthermore, i'd argue that the lack of confidence was down to the recent poor results, which i blame on rotation/poor team selection.

It all has a knock on effect.

[Craig_H]

[/B]


a few changes here and there are fine but keep the core players. eg, reina agger carra arbeloa (great season) macherano steve torres. the rest of the positions are up for grabs, but if a player has a decent game leave him in FFS. this in turn will help build confidence.

fair enough change for carling cup and lesser fa cup games.. that one week or 4-5 days rest should surely be enough for 21-28 year olds. wouldnt even be agianst making 8-11 changes for these games.

"rafa will get them playing again" - - - - - - steve needs to get his ****in finger out and start acting like our captain and get the lads playing. he is sulking round the pitch and may even be a disruptive force.

if he cant do job as captain, give it to carra, he is our true captain anyways and if you do something wrong you can be guarenteed an earful from him.

get steve back out on the right too, it would benefit the team better

Good post.

[Pacman]

We failed to beat Spurs due to a lack of motivation and confidence. Two things which are still down to the manager to instill.

Furthermore, i'd argue that the lack of confidence was down to the recent poor results, which i blame on rotation/poor team selection.

It all has a knock on effect.

We failed to beat spurs because of 2 defensive errors and the fact the crow never put us 2 nil up when we had a 3 on 1 situation.

The 2 defensive errors came from our 2 most experience players Carra and Hypia so I very much doubt they lacked confidence.

Every team have bad patches lets just hope this is ours for the season and we win our next game against the bitters.