The balanced view (at last!)

[CAD]

In a different life, aye.

She runs through the streets with her eyes painted red... I remember.

Good to see you

[Manofthebog]

She runs through the streets with her eyes painted red... I remember.

Good to see you

Likewise.

Been here a while, but tend to lurk more these days.

[dww]

I can't believe so many here thinks we actually won this game because SG came off and Momo stayed on. Don't believe the hype!!

We had two big chances before SG came off. Riise had one and there was another that I can't remember. What if we had converted those?

Everton were broken down over a 40 min period and they were hurt with every tick of the clock. They would have come apart either way. With or without Gerrard. Rafa knew this. It only stands to reason, surely? Lucas did fine but I'm most confident that we could have done better if Rafa had taken Momo off instead.

I believe that Rafa wanted to show SG that we could cope without him. This was the perfect opportunity.

Do you believe that we play better possession football with Momo/Mascher/Lucas than we would with SG/Mascher/Lucas in the middle?

I don't know whether SG needs to be manhandled like Rafa did this weekend. Maybe it's just what the doctor ordered. Nobody here knows that

The thing is that we can never know what would have happen - only what did.

I don't think that anyone is claiming it would have been impossible to win with Gerrard on, simply that the change which was made improved our play. We were more measured and created more clear cut chances. Possibly the same result would have happened if things had been done differently but we can't say.

The fact is that Rafa made a change which he has said he did in order to bring a more considered type of game. We certainly played better possesion football with Lucas/Momo/Mascher than we did with Momo/Mascher/Gerrard. We also created space out wide and put passes into it more frequently.The substitution had that effect Rafa wanted and we won. I'm not sure that from the evidence we as fans have there is much room to criticise Rafa on this on anything other than the simplistic idea that more attacking players = better attacks.

[Morph]

Just put Frank in your sig.

and take that last line out of it while you're at it

[CAD]

Likewise.

Been here a while, but tend to lurk more these days.

That's a shame. We would be better off with you posting.

I understand though. We all need to hibernate under The Joshua Tree at some point. I think almost every poster does.

[CAD]

The thing is that we can never know what would have happend

Let's leave it there

Big game tonight. We need to focus

[dww]

Let's leave it there

Big game tonight. We need to focus

It's key we don't loose focus as supporters

[CAD]

It's key we don't loose focus as supporters

Spot on

[carrsim]

and Gerrard will be a bigger goal threat in 100 games out of 100 than Sissoko

not if one of those games is sunderland away though eh?

[Redlife]

He makes a good point about Red teams of old 'winning ugly' at times. All the best teams do. A few blistering games aside, the Scum did it last season, but people seem to remember those games where they ran riot, and forget the ones where they were lucky and just about scraped by.



For some fans, particularly some younger ones possibly, if we're not battering everyone 3-0 every single game, then it's a crisis. Unfortunately this is real football, not Pro Evo.