Rafa Benitez tells Xabi Alonso: Step things up

[Craig_H]

DJS, you do know that Kuyt hasn't played that much the last two months compared to the start of the season? He was even benched three games in a row if I remember things right.

So Rafa isn't favourising him.

He's played FAR more than he should've done.

Why did he play at WHU? More to the point, having made that insane decision, why wasnt crouch brought on to replace him on 60-70 mins?

Maybe favouritism isnt the right word, at least not in that context. Everyone has 'favourites', but that's normal, it's generally subconscious and based on who we actually rate.

The problem is that Rafa actually RATES kuyt...

[Dhav]

No arguments with that mate, but the key point is 'on form'. Kuyt hasnt been for about 3 months now, yet he still plays. It's clear you too wouldnt pick kuyt now...which is fair enough. Maybe rafa's waning on it too.

He should've done so ages ago though, and we might still have some kind of title challenge if he had. Cant say for sure.

I AM certain that we'd have no doubt about a top four finish right now, if Crouch had been playing for the last few months...

Yes, it is quite possible we'd be in a better position had Crouch played more. I think also I'd be right in saying that since that atrocious performance at Blackburn that Kuyt has played less than he did before then, so I think Rafa is taking heed.

certainly it's time for Crouch to get an extended run, which i think he will. Hopefully that will start on Sunday

[Craig_H]

The size of the squad won't matter when you have very few key players that must be fit or you will struggle.

Dont give me that, if Rafa didnt think the 'squad fillers' could do a decent job on a given day, he wouldnt have signed them.

[AFII]

Two of those games were Against H+W,No????I could be wrong.

I think it was earlier than that. In December or November.

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

Do you think that working under current circumstances and pressures, a better manager would have gotten 10 points more? Because I'd like to point out how Mourinho and Jol struggled when they had their boards conspiring against them

I think a more sensible manager wouldn’t have left Torres out at home to Birmingham in favour of Kuyt or Voronin for tactical reasons, only for him to play in a meaningless league cup game days later.

I think a manger with more conviction would've started both Torres and Gerard away to Portsmouth after that International break, and whenever possible in the league.

I think a better manager wouldn't have played a bunch of reserves at home to Marseille in the CL, underestimating them and losing to them in the process and apparently needing to fallaciously sacrifice the chance of getting something at Reading, to have to win days later against Marseille to progress.

You'll notice that all of the above happened before the owners allegedly sabotaged the season.

[Craig_H]

The size of the squad won't matter when you have very few key players that must be fit or you will struggle.

I dont agree that we'd struggle to beat Marseille away if we'd lost a key player at reading...

[Craig_H]

Yes, it is quite possible we'd be in a better position had Crouch played more. I think also I'd be right in saying that since that atrocious performance at Blackburn that Kuyt has played less than he did before then, so I think Rafa is taking heed.

certainly it's time for Crouch to get an extended run, which i think he will. Hopefully that will start on Sunday

Here's hoping. I dont see it though.

I expect either Kuyt to partner Torres on Sunday...or Torres on his own up front. Either of which will see us lose...

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

Fair enough,It might be a little far fetched but it did prove that we didn`t have the team to compete in all three games.A week later Rafa got embroiled in a row with G+H about transfers knowing they were on their way to Anfield to watch us against ManU.

But we do have a team good enough to play in and compete in all three of those games.

But our manager chose not to.

[Dhav]

I think a more sensible manager wouldn’t have left Torres out at home to Birmingham in favour of Kuyt or Voronin for tactical reasons, only for him to play in a meaningless league cup game days later.

I think a manger with more conviction would've started both Torres and Gerard away to Portsmouth after that International break, and whenever possible in the league.

I think a better manager wouldn't have played a bunch of reserves at home to Marseille in the CL, underestimating them and losing to them in the process and apparently needing to fallaciously sacrifice the chance of getting something at Reading, to have to win days later against Marseille to progress.

You'll notice that all of the above happened before the owners allegedly sabotaged the season.

Yes, and you'll also notice that before the owners allegedly sabotaged our season we were in a much more healthy league position than we are now.

[Skillz]

As I suspected, your conclusion was based on pure speculation after watching a couple of pre-season games.

Crouch hasn't played much this season for on simple reason, Rafa prefers Kuyt up front.

I don't agree with that, IMO he prefers Torres. I think it is clear that his plan this year was for Torres or Crouch to lead the line and Kuyt or Voronin to play the second striker.

It's pretty obvious actually, that's why Torres and Crouch have played so little together. It appears he has had to revise that plan now due to the poor form of Dirk and Andrey

[Guest]

As per usual, you have no proper reply to the points made...

Your normal response - stick head in the sand...(remembering to remove it from the sand first)...

It's simple for me. I'm sick of all these discussions.

Yes Rafa has flaws blah blah blah blah blah.

Why can't we stick to supporting instead of arguing against pointless things ?

Crouch should play. Kuyt is ****e ... It's a recurring theme in here, after each bad result we have. It's not about putting our heads in the sand FFS, thought you were smarter than that.

If Crouch should play but isn't playing, we can't do anything about that. Stage a protest with banners, 'PLAY CROUCH' - 'STOP ROTATING RAFA' - 'KUYT PLAYS TOO DEEP' if you think you have a case in point.

Even better, phone Rafa's office and ask for an appointment, and I'm sure he'll be listening to your thoughtful and 'simple' explanations about why we haven't been good enough this year.

[Skillz]

But Crouch has NEVER been the 'run around everywhere non-stop' type, he wasnt doing that last season when he played regularly. So i dont see what points to attitude problems. Sometimes Crouch is fairly ineffective, you rightly point to Pompey away as an example. (I have my own issues about that game, with regards to our best two players not starting, but that's another thread).

I was there that day and i wasnt impressed with Crouch's performance, but that's just him, he isnt of the world class quality of player that produce virtually every week, i wouldnt claim he was.

He had an off day, nothing more, nothing less. That doesnt equate to attitude problems though, otherwise 90% of our squad could be accused of having attitude problems at some point this season.

So while i respect your view on this, i have to disagree with the pompey game as an example of an attitude problem. He was just his usual self, and had a poor performance. Nowt to do with attitude IMO.

(BTW, if there's an aggressive tone in my posts, i apologise, i'm not intending to be aggressive or anything, i'm just a huge fan of PC and more than that, i'm emphatically certain that he IS just miles better than DK, so it genuinely baffles me to the point of metaphorical high-pitched disbelief that Kuyt gets picked ahead of him )...

That's wrong, there were statisitics produced early last year that showed he ran more than any other player, even SG.

[Guest]

Part of it yes.

But he's committed far graver errors.

Reading away in the league. A cluster****up of epic proportions that should've acted as a reality check for most reds about our manager.

Deleted

[Guest]

Sacrifice?

Hah.

See, this is the kind of risible, laughable even, justification for those events.

It's totally based on the supposition that a)Marseille was the most important game of the season - it wasn't to me and most other reds, that would've been the points on offer at Reading and then the scum at home the weekend after, and b) as suggested above that Rafa did pick an under strength team and silly formation, with the intention of increasing the possibility of losing in that game as some sort of ridiculous statement that the current squad wasn't good enough.

Are we really supposed to believe that?

Let's be clear here, he picked a side to win that game, as a manager would do. Only when it went wrong, largely because of him, he decided that resting our best players for the next game was more important, because (I think) he's brainwashed people into his fatuous rotation, big squad way of thinking that this needed to be done to beat a poor Marseille team days later.

In retrospect what it did do was destroy any momentum we had in the league, and also belief. What it told me was we had a manger who decided that it wasn't worth fighting for 3 points with everything he had available on the day.

That might be the truth, it may not, but it's my interpretation, and nothing that Rafa has done since has made me change my opinion.

It wasn't good enough then, and it still isn't now.

And I await improvement.

Rafa's way of thinking is clear. He wants 2 teams (starting 11) of the same quality. Would it be possible ? It seemed to work at Valencia.

Whichever team Rafa puts out against lesser opposition, should be sufficient enough to beat most of them.

We failed to beat Arsenal, United and Chelsea, I think that alone killed our confidence in winning the league. It's a mental thing, imo.

Keep picking on Kuyt, or any other player devoid of confidence, you'll see he'll be stuck in a rut, never to come back to his level again. As soon as we scored the first goal against Sunderland last Saturday, the team started playing with confidence again.

We've been fed on poor league showings for all these seasons, I think it's having a toil on us supporters too and invariably on the players. Maybe we should think about it.

At the moment, managing Liverpool FC seems an impossible job.

[Craig_H]

Fredo, are you suggesting we shouldnt discuss things that we cannot change?

In which case, shouldnt the forum be closed?