It's not the draw yesterday...

[Imy]

This is our usual 'blip' For the last few seasons we've had the poor form early in the season, this season we've had a good start helped by the other teams realtively poor form which has got our expectations up, we're now going through the blip not losing but picking up a shed load of draws.

I suppose why most people are frustrated is because Man Utd are now top, even with injuries picking up win after win, historically they are stronger in the 2nd part of the season and if they win the laegue this year they finally draw level with our title record.

WE are Liverpool the bridemaids of the Premiership unfortunatley.

[Elvoz]

once he gets what he wants the results will start to pick up

jesus mate you want to hear yourself
he is stubborn as **** aye and has many faults but they way he is going now he will be out not getting his own way

[Rix007]

**** team......won't win the league.

[el matador]

jesus mate you want to hear yourself
he is stubborn as **** aye and has many faults but they way he is going now he will be out not getting his own way

they will get rid of him at the end of the season by which time we'll be fighting for the uefa cup with everton.

[Imy]

**** team......won't win the league.

Well duh course Wigan won't win the league.

[Elvoz]

they will get rid of him at the end of the season by which time we'll be fighting for the uefa cup with everton.

yeah right

[Cormack74]

I know Rafa's made some strange decisions, but surely the players were good enough to win regardless.

[The Birdman]

The truth is the players aren't good enough.
Yes Rafa has done some strange things but we all know Keane cannot play the lone striker role, everyone on here has been slating him so if Torres was struggling and he didn't want to risk another hamstring injury then putting babel up front is something loads of posters on here have been crying out for.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the facts say that in the last 4 or 5 games or so we have had approx 60% of the possession in each game and failed to win them. That is the players not the manager, everyone was wanking over Alonso but he was **** in the recent games, Babel has started the last few and done absolutely nothing, Keane done nothing virtually all season, I know someone will point out that Rafa bought them but did he?? the farce with Keane shows that maybe he didn't.
If you have the amount of possession we do against Stoke, Fulham, Everton, Wigan etc.. etc.. we should win.
442, 4231 means **** all, we played 442 against Everton and were rubbish so don't spout ****e about holding midfielders.
A team containing Torres, Gerrard, Kuyt, Babel, Riera, Alonso, Mascher, Keane whoever should be able to win games with the amount of time we spend in possession.
Rafa sends us out to draw and lose deliberately - do me a ****ing favour why don't we start looking at some of our 'favourite' players contributions not just at the manager.
They are letting themselves down and letting us down.

[Baldemort]

Its not the team, its the manager. Last night convinced me that he has not learnt from his mistakes and bloody obvious failings. He did not do yesterday on purpose, of course not. Thats the sad thing. He actually thinks the squad he put out last night and the decisions he made last night were the right ones. Newsflash-they werent.

[el matador]

The truth is the players aren't good enough.
Yes Rafa has done some strange things but we all know Keane cannot play the lone striker role, everyone on here has been slating him so if Torres was struggling and he didn't want to risk another hamstring injury then putting babel up front is something loads of posters on here have been crying out for.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the facts say that in the last 4 or 5 games or so we have had approx 60% of the possession in each game and failed to win them. That is the players not the manager, everyone was wanking over Alonso but he was **** in the recent games, Babel has started the last few and done absolutely nothing, Keane done nothing virtually all season, I know someone will point out that Rafa bought them but did he?? the farce with Keane shows that maybe he didn't.
If you have the amount of possession we do against Stoke, Fulham, Everton, Wigan etc.. etc.. we should win.
442, 4231 means **** all, we played 442 against Everton and were rubbish so don't spout ****e about holding midfielders.
A team containing Torres, Gerrard, Kuyt, Babel, Riera, Alonso, Mascher, Keane whoever should be able to win games with the amount of time we spend in possession.
Rafa sends us out to draw and lose deliberately - do me a ****ing favour why don't we start looking at some of our 'favourite' players contributions not just at the manager.
They are letting themselves down and letting us down.

you are having a laugh arent you. Are you telling me that any squad with gerrard, alonso, mascherano, carragher, skrtel, Reina, agger, keane and torres shouldnt be expected to beat wigan ?

FFS - what's up with you ? We do have a lot of quality players. If the manager cant get the best out of the players then we cant blame the players. you have to look at the management - its not just rafa, its all of his 'yes men' buddies and sammy. Why the **** cant they say something to him.

[Reece]

Its not the team, its the manager. Last night convinced me that he has not learnt from his mistakes and bloody obvious failings. He did not do yesterday on purpose, of course not. Thats the sad thing. He actually thinks the squad he put out last night and the decisions he made last night were the right ones. Newsflash-they werent.

Do you not think though that the starting line up was good enough to beat Wigan? If so then a large portion of the blame has to go to the players for not performing.
Out of his subsitutions well I only listened on the radio, but the commentator, and Gary Speed were saying all night that Torres didn't look right - off the pace, mentally not there etc so taking him off wasn't really a bad decision. Perhaps Keane should have come on in his place - but then we know he can't play up front on his own so moving Babel there seemed fairly logical. Benayoun for Kuyt isn't a massive call either in my opinion. The only one where I think you can genuinely criticise Rafa is the Gerrard one.

I think generally both Rafa and the players are underperforming at the moment, and we need to get out of this slump very very soon to keep in the hunt.

[DeeTheDog]

Yes, we have had a series of disappointing results but to say Rafa has conspired to do this for his own gain is ludicrous. In the last two games we have been undone by needless set-pieces given away in the last 5 minutes. Indeed, set-pieces have been am Achilles heel for a while. Offensively we rarely make the most of set-pieces, free-kicks and corners aplenty rarely amount to a goalscoring opportunity. More concerning, we have conceded a number of set-pieces recently which has hemorrhaged league points.

Overall we are still in the title chase, a good result against Chelsea can act as a catalyst, similar to the effect it had on United when beat Chelsea. We are hard to beat; since reverting to a 4-2-2-1-1 we have only be beaten twice in the league in nearly a year and are unbeaten at home for over a year. This formation gets the best out of our two best players, so it would be foolish to change it.

My major gripe with Rafa was that one position we needed to strengthen during the summer and by his own admission was fullback and in that we have failed. With the amount of possession and control we exert in some games we need a lot more from the full back position, look at the contribution of full backs of Chelsea, United and Arsenal, taking away the direct influence of assists and goals, it's their movement in the opposition’s half which creates space for others.

Probably it could be argued that we actually weakened in the summer, with the loss of Crouch who offered not only goals but a plan B, especially with teams that sat deep. 15 games to go, if we do fail, I think it's more to do with poor set-pieces, lack of support from full back and failure to replace Crouch.

I still believe we can do it?

[The Birdman]

you are having a laugh arent you. Are you telling me that any squad with gerrard, alonso, mascherano, carragher, skrtel, Reina, agger, keane and torres shouldnt be expected to beat wigan ?

FFS - what's up with you ? We do have a lot of quality players. If the manager cant get the best out of the players then we cant blame the players. you have to look at the management - its not just rafa, its all of his 'yes men' buddies and sammy. Why the **** cant they say something to him.

Expected to mate yes but they didn't so that makes them not good enough, now they may play well when the fancy it they may play well in the big games but don't try convincing anyone that Rafa just wants to win 1 nil because that is **** so it isn't his fault we don't kill teams off and get punished by 1 mistake every bloody game which is 100% the players fault, they cross the line they play the game.
When we beat Man U and Chelsea it was down to the players now we're not winning games it is down to the players.



And Parry obviously!

[Carras_Shin_Pads]

we wont finish above villa this year

I'll take your money on that!

[meffin]

villa are 1 point behind and look better than us, also the **** teams play against us to get a draw so park up infront of goal, against villa they dont do that so villa beat the **** teams we draw against