Past weekends football - Liverpool - City / Utd - Blackburn

[Tee]

And with a bit more luck and better finishing we could easily have won yesterday.

[Dantheman]

Fat Lady is definately warming up - not good...

Perhaps she could come on for Lucas

[DannyMan2006]

So we're not good enough to beat City at home?

How about Hull or Stoke? Fulham or West Ham?

If, after 5 years, his squad isnt good enough to beat those sides at home, then he's in more trouble than i thought.

Oh come on. Wenger has been at Arsenal a lot longer and he turned a team of "Invincibles" to a team struggling for top 4. Different scenarios but that's football.

The problem with Benitez is that he is up against arguably the greatest Man Utd squad that Fergie has ever had, and that is not easy. Our points and results compare very favourably when glancing at the other teams, but it's a 20 team league, not a 19 team one.

This years premier league has been the most competitive ever and look at how close it is at the bottom and the battles for top four and fifth place show this. Only United have been concistant and that's why in all likely hood they will walk away with the title. Just try to remember that this is Fergies greatest ever squad, not the failings of Rafa Benitez.

Had we won at City I think we could have gotten away with drawing at Old Trafford and still been in the race. It now looks like it's win or bust, barring a bit of luck.

[bipjohn]

Its me again, the positive one.

Well, firstly I am gutted with yesterday.

For me though you could write the same match report for all of our draws at home this season, Liverpool created chances, missed them, the keeper made some very good saves and perahps should have had a penalty.

Its the same paragraph for all of the 0-0 or 1-1's that I have been and Ive been them all.

So, on a weekend when UTD win 2-1 in a game that lets face it, we would have drawn what is the difference?

For me there are 2 differences, 1; Luck, this is a major factor in my opinion, we get some yes, but not as much as the Mancs (and Chelsea in past years) how many times do they get decisions go there way? Why Blackburn didnt get the penalty on Webb (and Ferguson) know.

2; Better players in forward positions. Pretty simple really, they have 4 potential match winners who cost £14m, £23m, £33m and likely £25m, we have 2, 1 homegrown and Torres.

Now, we do have world class players, but they are in other areas, goalkeeper, Centre half (x2/3), centre mid x 2 where they cant be considered as match winners. We need to address that sharpish, Villa would have been an addition of a matchwinner, but does he want to go to England? Simao might have been that players and Dani Alves would have been deployed further forward on the right.

[rezaeos]

So we're not good enough to beat City at home?

How about Hull or Stoke? Fulham or West Ham?

If, after 5 years, his squad isnt good enough to beat those sides at home, then he's in more trouble than i thought.

Yet his squad is good enough to beat Man Utd and Chelsea?

I don't have an explanation, or a cure, for the results; I wish I did. The team and the manager do not raise to the challenge when facing teams we should be steam rolling. Rafa has to take 50% of the blame. But without S.G. and Xabi we seem kindda clueless. Maybe he should have tried putting Carragher in the midfield and put Babel in defence. Better yet don't bother with Babel.

[Craig_H]

Yet his squad is good enough to beat Man Utd and Chelsea?

Even more of an indictment to the fact that we've failed to win half our home games.

At what point DOES it become the manager's fault, in your opinion?

[Craig_H]

Oh come on. Wenger has been at Arsenal a lot longer and he turned a team of "Invincibles" to a team struggling for top 4. Different scenarios but that's football.

The problem with Benitez is that he is up against arguably the greatest Man Utd squad that Fergie has ever had, and that is not easy. Our points and results compare very favourably when glancing at the other teams, but it's a 20 team league, not a 19 team one.

This years premier league has been the most competitive ever and look at how close it is at the bottom and the battles for top four and fifth place show this. Only United have been concistant and that's why in all likely hood they will walk away with the title. Just try to remember that this is Fergies greatest ever squad, not the failings of Rafa Benitez.

Had we won at City I think we could have gotten away with drawing at Old Trafford and still been in the race. It now looks like it's win or bust, barring a bit of luck.

It's quite simple mate - i dont care about other teams, be they Arsenal or United or whoever. I just want LFC to do as well as they can, given the tools at our disposal.

We are out of the title race not because United have done anything unprecedented, but because for whatever reason, Rafa hasnt been able to get the team performing at a sufficient level on a consistent enough basis.

United are gonna end up with about 87-90 points, same as nearly every other title winner. If they were gonna amass 100 points, then fair enough, they'd have been out of this world. But they're not, they're just doing what every title winning side generally does. They havent set the bar to some unreachable level, we've just been woefully inadequate in our home games.

At some point, the buck has to stop with the manager. You can point out off field stuff, but none of that makes our team 'not good enough' to be winning most of our home games against average opposition.

The owners arent the ones who send the team out to play slow, pedestrian and ineffective football at Anfield.

[Mattshark]

And with a bit more luck and better finishing we could easily have won yesterday.

Very true. Sadly Torres was off form yesterday which didn't help. It does help that Kuyt is finding form again though. We played very well considering we lacked our 2 best midfielders though.

[Craig_H]

We fail to win HALF the time at home. Do people put it all down to just bad luck?

[Tee]

Even more of an indictment to the fact that we've failed to win half our home games.

At what point DOES it become the manager's fault, in your opinion?

Mate, I share your frustration I really do. But IMO this situation is probably most frustrating for Rafa - when the players go out on the pitch there is not much Rafa can do.

It is not just down to bad luck I agree. It could be the coaching methods and other elements on the training ground IMO. Maybe there are too many people around Rafa and it should be just him and his assistant, I don't know...

All I know is that we have seen what this team is capable of and it is that which gives me the hope that they can reproduce that form and get the right results between now and the end of the season.

Looks like we will fall short but at least we are genuinely in the mix and I would say that if we do not push on from here next season and make an even bigger challenge, or even win it, then maybe we can question Rafa's position.

Personally I want him to stick it out and see this project through. Ultimately he will take us to the summit IMO, but we are just starting to get a little impatient with his methods it seems.

[Rigadon]

We fail to win HALF the time at home. Do people put it all down to just bad luck?

Poor management. Rafa hasn't got a clue how to coach attacking players. Over the past 5 years our biggest problem has been creating goal scoring chances in the final third. Attacking players should be given the confidence and the freedom to express themselves. Rafa treats our attacking players like ****ing robots. For those who think Rafa hasn’t had enough money - he spent over £40m on Keane, Babel and Pennant. Ffs

[vonk]

Its me again, the positive one.

Well, firstly I am gutted with yesterday.

For me though you could write the same match report for all of our draws at home this season, Liverpool created chances, missed them, the keeper made some very good saves and perahps should have had a penalty.

Its the same paragraph for all of the 0-0 or 1-1's that I have been and Ive been them all.

So, on a weekend when UTD win 2-1 in a game that lets face it, we would have drawn what is the difference?

For me there are 2 differences, 1; Luck, this is a major factor in my opinion, we get some yes, but not as much as the Mancs (and Chelsea in past years) how many times do they get decisions go there way? Why Blackburn didnt get the penalty on Webb (and Ferguson) know.

2; Better players in forward positions. Pretty simple really, they have 4 potential match winners who cost £14m, £23m, £33m and likely £25m, we have 2, 1 homegrown and Torres.

Now, we do have world class players, but they are in other areas, goalkeeper, Centre half (x2/3), centre mid x 2 where they cant be considered as match winners. We need to address that sharpish, Villa would have been an addition of a matchwinner, but does he want to go to England? Simao might have been that players and Dani Alves would have been deployed further forward on the right.

So the reason we won't win the title is luck? Come off it. When is the title decided by luck. The best team wins it, end of.

They have better players in forward positions. And Rafa has had five years and has added ONE world class forward player. ONE. All those players he bought and sold. All those wide men he has bought and shipped back out again. Whatever about Parry buying Keane, are you telling me Bellamy, Crouch, Pennant, Riera, Lucas, Benyoun, Ngog, Babel etc were nothing to do with Rafa. They are his signings and I'm sorry but all of these at this point have to go down as failures. Rafa's done a great job defensively and in defensive mid but his record on attacking buys is very poor. Add up the cost of that lot and tell me that he hasn't had money. Maybe he should let Parry buy the forwards!! Defensively we are excellent but our attacking game under Rafa is the poorest I have ever seen from a Liverpool team.

[Joe King]

We fail to win HALF the time at home. Do people put it all down to just bad luck?

Lack of balls on behalf of the management and lack of bottle from the players. They can only play once we are behind. We have no purpose to attack when the game is even.

[Craig_H]

Mate, I share your frustration I really do. But IMO this situation is probably most frustrating for Rafa - when the players go out on the pitch there is not much Rafa can do.

It is not just down to bad luck I agree. It could be the coaching methods and other elements on the training ground IMO. Maybe there are too many people around Rafa and it should be just him and his assistant, I don't know...

All I know is that we have seen what this team is capable of and it is that which gives me the hope that they can reproduce that form and get the right results between now and the end of the season.

Looks like we will fall short but at least we are genuinely in the mix and I would say that if we do not push on from here next season and make an even bigger challenge, or even win it, then maybe we can question Rafa's position.

Personally I want him to stick it out and see this project through. Ultimately he will take us to the summit IMO, but we are just starting to get a little impatient with his methods it seems.

Let me just make it clear mate - i dont put the entire blame on rafa. There's a lot of **** that's going on and that makes things harder. Likewise, i also appreciate that our frustrations are coming from the fact that we feel we should be making a proper sustained title challenge and recognise that Rafa is the man who has raised our expectations to that level and he deserves credit for that.

The biggest thing for me though, is two-fold and it is this.

Whatever problems there are with the team, be it coaching methods, backroom staff, tactics, team selection, substitutions etc - they ALL ultimately go back to the manager. With all of those things, the buck stops with the manager.

Secondly, and crucially - i dont think we're far off it with rafa. In fact, i think there's genuinely only one or two things which need tweaking, in order for us to win the title. They're small things, but at the very top, the most tiny factors make a huge difference and in our case, they're costing us the title IMO. The biggest problem is that Rafa simply wont tweak these things. He has 150% faith in everything he does which is generally a good thing. But when you have a couple of tweaks that stop you achieving the ultimate goal, as i think is the case, then you need to make the changes. And i have seen no real evidence that Rafa can/will make those changes.

For those reasons, i dont think he'll ever win us the PL title and considering that is our aim, i dont see the point in sticking with someone who (IMO) will never take us there. If there was evidence to show that Rafa WILL tweak things, i'd be delighted with him staying in the job long term. But last year, home draws killed our title challenge and this year, we've dropped even MORE home points in the same way. The one thing we needed to improve upon from last season, we've gone backwards with. I dont see it changing, sadly.

To be honest, it's not even about winning the title. It's about producing the best possible results and outcome from what you have to work with - and Rafa isnt doing that, IMO.

I think our squad, if managed properly and indeed with a touch of luck, would win the title. But not under Rafa. He's done a brilliant job in making us contenders, but i dont think he has what it takes to go that one extra step.

[lucas]

I realised on Saturday evening when Rafael pulled Pedersen back and no penalty was given or red card that there wasn't a chance we would win the league this season. Seriously what do teams have to do to get a result at OT. Webb should face some sort of disciplinary action over his performance.