Knee jerk central

[fred_plasticine]

Its been interesting on here recently, Craig patently is negative and thinks we are not going to win the league, he has his supporters and some others think we are, and some, who are more realistic think we have dropped silly points but clearly are still in it and have played for 21 games pretty much without our most potent and best goalscoring weapon, UTD were without theirs early in the season and struggled a lot worse than us.

Anyhow, I fully think Rafa gets it wrong from time to time, but generally he has done well to get a team at Anfield that is light years ahead of the 05 team, we now have maybe 6/7 genuine world class players, I mean players who would walk in to any of our competitors home or abroad, Pepe, Masch, Alonso, Gerrard, Torres and arguably a fully match fit Agger and Skrtel.

Compare this to the team in 2004/5 that Rafa inherited and you may (even Craig) see a difference in quality.

In the mid-late 90's I watched us be embarrased by Euro heavyweights, Auxerre, PSG, Spartak Moscow, Genoa, etc, the list goes on.

Now in 2009 I would back Liverpool against any team in Europe.

Below is the league table and results against all other teams the last time we won the league, I think its interesting, especially the dropped points.
2 points from 6 v Villa
3/6 v Soton (inc 1-4 at the Dell)
2/6 v Forest
2/6 v Norwich (inc 2 0-0 draws)
0-0 draw v 13th placed Man u at Anfield
2/6 v 17th Luton
0-2 away at relegated Sheff Wed

Home Away
P GD Pt Res Res
1 Liverpool 38 +41 79
2 Aston Villa 38 +19 70 D1-1 D1-1
3 Tottenham Hotspur 38 +12 63 W1-0 L0-1
4 Arsenal 38 +16 62 W2-1 D1-1
5 Chelsea 38 +8 60 W4-1 W5-2
6 Everton 38 +11 59 W2-1 W3-1
7 Southampton 38 +8 55 W3-2 L1-4
8 Wimbledon 38 +7 55 W2-1 W2-1
9 Nottingham Forest 38 +8 54 D2-2 D2-2
10 Norwich City 38 +2 53 D0-0 D0-0
11 Queens Park Rangers 38 +1 50 W2-1 L2-3
12 Coventry City 38 -20 49 L0-1 W6-1
13 Manchester United 38 -1 48 D0-0 W2-1
14 Manchester City 38 -9 48 W3-1 W4-1
15 Crystal Palace 38 -24 48 W9-0 W2-0
16 Derby County 38 +3 46 W1-0 W3-0
17 Luton Town 38 -14 43 D2-2 D0-0
18 Sheffield Wednesday 38 -16 43 W2-1 L0-2
19 Charlton Athletic 38 -26 30 W1-0 W4-0
20 Millwall 38 -26 26 W1-0 W2-1

When is everyone going to understand, we have no divine right now or in teh 70/80's to win every game, things will ebb and flow, they did then and they will now. Manu will drop points betwen now and May and so will we, so will Chelsea. 100% Fact.

good post, mate. some sense at last.

[Charly]

I think the competition is a hell of a lot stronger now. We cant afford to drop the points we have, at a time when the other teams have faltered in the early part of the season.

I have serious doubts we can win the league, considering how poorly we have played... really all season. The excellent form we had from the end of last season dissapated with the new 4-4-2 formation. I personally think the signing of Robbie Keane was awful, and may have killed any chance we had to open up a lead, as we adjusted our formation to fit an extra attacker, who has had his form tumble.

Benitez must learn to take a risk and drop Kuyt when playing weaker opposition to give us an extra outlet wide, as we never seem to stretch the opposition defence. And more diagnal long balls.

[Baldemort]

Drop Kuyt and play who? We have no decent RM. Please don't say Gerrard! We should have bought a top RM instead of Keane who we didn't need.