Americans don't help, but not the sole blame for recent results!

[FatTony]

Yep, he ****s up, name me a manager who hasn't ****ed up?

I haven't got "blind faith", as you put it, I just see Rafa as being the ideal man for the job. Give him the money to do his job properly, and see where we go.

If he doesn't get us the wholy grail in another season or so, then, yep, fire the bloke, but until he's had ago at getting the "best" players he wants, let's not be too hasty to judge.

I'm not saying that you in particular have blind faith.

On the money side, he's had more to spend than Everton and Citeh, spent over £40M last season and we're worse off. Sure there are many factors as I've stated elsewhere, but Rafa needs to sort things out as well as everyone else.

[Manofthebog]

I'm not saying that you in particular have blind faith.

On the money side, he's had more to spend than Everton and Citeh, spent over £40M last season and we're worse off. Sure there are many factors as I've stated elsewhere, but Rafa needs to sort things out as well as everyone else.

[ufc43]

Yep, he ****s up, name me a manager who hasn't ****ed up?

I haven't got "blind faith", as you put it, I just see Rafa as being the ideal man for the job. Give him the money to do his job properly, and see where we go.

If he doesn't get us the wholy grail in another season or so, then, yep, fire the bloke, but until he's had ago at getting the "best" players he wants, let's not be too hasty to judge.

I too believe Rafa can do a good job with Liverpool, but the fact is, he aint doing it at the minute. He has had plenty of money to spend and has not spent it as well as he should. I still think his biggest problem is the crazy squad selection!

[ufc43]

tomasjj
You say one one line 'Aurelio was good last nite' and in your next line 'Aurelio had a shocker'. Which is it? I think (and I am sure most people think) Aurelio was terrible last night. The highest rating he got in any paper toady was 5/10. We cant all be wrong!

You say that he is 'an excellent dead ball taker'. I have only seen Aurelio play for Liverpool and I have NEVER seen him hit a good free kick or even a corner for that matter!! If you have, I'd like to hear/see an example.

You also say 'Kuyt had a good first half'. Every time he picked the ball up he was on the half way line with his back to goal!! That is the way he has been playing all season. He gave one good pass in the whole game, and that was to Beni for the goal. Don't get me wrong, I'd love Kuyt to prove me wrong and start banging in the goals, but I just cant see it from the positions he takes up.

You also said 'Crouch scores more goals'. I'm glad you said that, because at the end of the day, that's what strikers are picked for!!

You also reckon our attacking play has got better? That's a harder one to prove but I personally think it has gradually gotten worse.

[Mattshark]

tomasjj
You say one one line 'Aurelio was good last nite' and in your next line 'Aurelio had a shocker'. Which is it? I think (and I am sure most people think) Aurelio was terrible last night. The highest rating he got in any paper toady was 5/10. We cant all be wrong!

You say that he is 'an excellent dead ball taker'. I have only seen Aurelio play for Liverpool and I have NEVER seen him hit a good free kick or even a corner for that matter!! If you have, I'd like to hear/see an example.

Arsenal last season straight on to Aggers head to make it 3-0

You also say 'Kuyt had a good first half'. Every time he picked the ball up he was on the half way line with his back to goal!! That is the way he has been playing all season. He gave one good pass in the whole game, and that was to Beni for the goal. Don't get me wrong, I'd love Kuyt to prove me wrong and start banging in the goals, but I just cant see it from the positions he takes up.

You also said 'Crouch scores more goals'. I'm glad you said that, because at the end of the day, that's what strikers are picked for!!

You also reckon our attacking play has got better? That's a harder one to prove but I personally think it has gradually gotten worse.

Kuyt can clearly score more than he is doing, its obvious because he did last season. Often this season as well Crouch has not done well at all when he has started. He has had a few chances and he has hardly grabbed them.

Anyone who things Babel is better starting than he is coming off the bench imo is insane. He is an excellent impact player, but he is much less effective when starting.

[tomasjj]

tomasjj
You say one one line 'Aurelio was good last nite' and in your next line 'Aurelio had a shocker'. Which is it? I think (and I am sure most people think) Aurelio was terrible last night. The highest rating he got in any paper toady was 5/10. We cant all be wrong!

You say that he is 'an excellent dead ball taker'. I have only seen Aurelio play for Liverpool and I have NEVER seen him hit a good free kick or even a corner for that matter!! If you have, I'd like to hear/see an example.

You also say 'Kuyt had a good first half'. Every time he picked the ball up he was on the half way line with his back to goal!! That is the way he has been playing all season. He gave one good pass in the whole game, and that was to Beni for the goal. Don't get me wrong, I'd love Kuyt to prove me wrong and start banging in the goals, but I just cant see it from the positions he takes up.

You also said 'Crouch scores more goals'. I'm glad you said that, because at the end of the day, that's what strikers are picked for!!

You also reckon our attacking play has got better? That's a harder one to prove but I personally think it has gradually gotten worse.

Typo on the first one, mate. Arbeloa was good. Aurelio had a shocker, and was also constantly picked out as the weak link by Villa. Last night he was that as well.


I think Aurelio is excellent at deadballs, you obviously differ. I'd like to hear what others think.
I think we have seen some very good freekicks from him, both from the wings as crosses, and at shooting distance. He is good at those curling freekicks imo.

As for Kuyt, he was at the half way with his back to the goal...yes. Just like crouch usually is. I reckon that shows that he is being asked to play like that. Not just cause he chooses to. I reckon he would have scored a lot more if played as an out and out striker yes, but I also think he is not good enough for us. But I thought he was good in the first half, then poor in the 2nd, especially his frist touch...which is crap.

As for attacking play, well, we will just have to differ on that one. As you say, it is hard to prove either way. And indication can be that we have scored more goals this season compared to the last one, even if that doesn't tell the whole story of nice attacking play.

[mersey86]

Someone has already mentioned it but last night there was a shot on the telly during the second-half of Babel, Alonso and Crouch warming up. When you think about their qualities, their price tags and what they've done for the club the mind boggles why all three were on the bench for a must-win game.

You know that people will complain whatever. Babel is still young, he's proven more effective coming on as a substitute, he's being brought along gently - this generally is praised. Alonso has done very little since coming back from injury - man of the match Masher and captain Gerrard are in the centre. Peter Crouch has also not been particularly effective as a starter (no, he's not had many chances). Last night's team was a good one, they outplayed Villa - the result turns against us and you just use it to support a long-running campaign against the manager.
I don't have any problems with you bigfooty, you are not offensive in your posting, but losing Rafa, in my opinion, would be the worst that could happen to our club. He should not be judged at the moment - let hopefully a new owner come in and have things settle down. Of course if the clowns stay then Rafa is gone anyway.

[Jazzmaster]

They have **** all to do with recent results IMO

I mean was it their fault our defense let the useless pile of ****e, Bramble, get a shot in? NO

Was it their fault, we were a calamity att he back for the boro goal? NO

Was it their fault we couldnt score more than 1 away against Luton? NO

Was it their fault we had 5 minutes of rotten luck against villa? **** NO

They are being used an an excuse.

[Rhys]

whats all this aurelio bollocks? hes much better than riise and i cant remember any times last night when he was skinned by agbonlahor at all. another scapegoat have we....

[bigfooty]

You know that people will complain whatever. Babel is still young, he's proven more effective coming on as a substitute, he's being brought along gently - this generally is praised. Alonso has done very little since coming back from injury - man of the match Masher and captain Gerrard are in the centre. Peter Crouch has also not been particularly effective as a starter (no, he's not had many chances). Last night's team was a good one, they outplayed Villa - the result turns against us and you just use it to support a long-running campaign against the manager.

If it was one result I'd say fair enough, but it's been a string of similar matches all season. Even on the unbeaten run at the start of the season we had some poor performances and I tried to make the point that we were playing weak teams and that remaining unbeaten was not enough, we needed to win games rather than draw lots of them. After all, we're unbeaten in 8 matches now in all competitions, but because we're drawing against some fairly average teams it feels so much worse.

As for the team last night, well it wasn't bad but I have a couple of problems with it. Firstly I think Kuyt is almost now in the Momo bracket in that he needs to be saved for tough away games where you need hard work so I would have liked to have seen Crouch, especially when the alternative was Torres getting battered all night contesting high balls. Secondly I think Rafa should have made changes sooner. It was the age old problem with him in that he just will not make changes until certain points in the game or unless it is absolutely necessary due to injury / a drastic change in the game.

I'm struggling to think of a time when, at 1-0 or 2-0 up, Rafa has released the hounds in terms of subs and gone to finish teams off. If we're leading 1-0 Rafa will nearly always wait until around the 65th or 75th minute to make an attacking change, heck even if its 0-0 the same is normally true. It's just so negative and predictable that it drives me potty sometimes.

[Marky]

I put last nights result down to **** defending on two set pieces and sheer bad luck, nothing more, nothing less.
We richly deserved to win that game, nevermind draw.

[Red_hot]

whats all this aurelio bollocks? hes much better than riise and i cant remember any times last night when he was skinned by agbonlahor at all. another scapegoat have we....

Not at all but he didn't play well at all last night.

[mersey86]

I put last nights result down to **** defending on two set pieces and sheer bad luck, nothing more, nothing less.
We richly deserved to win that game, nevermind draw.

Marky, I'm impressed.

[Rhys]

Not at all but he didn't play well at all last night.

neither did torres or gerrard. aurelio didnt play that bad really though.