Let's look on the positive side of things

[Nicey]

but apparently thats wht he wants to do next according to the special one

Wanting to do something and been able to do it are two completely different things. I think we should have got Liam Brady on Board 5 years ago.

Still we have quite the stable of young talent potentially coming through and i think Rafa controlling this area as well will make a huge difference

[Nicey]

On another note i think the future partnership in mid Field will be Lucas Aquilani .. i am one of the few people other than the actual Manager who actually like and rate Lucas a lot. For me it seems Masher is definitely off next year and good luck to him once he puts in a shift whilst hes wearing the shirt.

[Darkon]

On another note i think the future partnership in mid Field will be Lucas Aquilani .. i am one of the few people other than the actual Manager who actually like and rate Lucas a lot. For me it seems Masher is definitely off next year and good luck to him once he puts in a shift whilst hes wearing the shirt.

Lucas is not a bad player - he is just dreadfull in the role given at the moment.

I'm pretty sure he could do a decent job as a holding midfielder, but he is far from good enough for the position he has taken over.

Mascher is likely to find a not club, and if we can get a good price for him, then there are plenty of good holding midfielders out there!

[Darkon]

On the Houllier and Rafa discussion I think it's an unfair comparison because they are playing in to different "eras" of the premiership.

The strenght of the league overall has risen a lot during the last 5 years because of the money influx and that makes Rafa's job that much harder than Houliiers (especially considering we have just about none of them,).

Whilst it slowly kills the game, the money are just a deciding factor and it's becoming increasingly difficult to be a top-4 team without a a lot of cash to spend. And the catch up will get harder and harder. It also means that we need to get investment sooner rather than later.

On the positive note we have an increased revenue from sponsors and commercial sides of business which will help take us forward. But our stadium plans are just about ****ed aren't they??

I'm finding it hard to remain positive at the momentNot so much because we have hit a bad spell - it happens every season - but because we our game just doesn't work, our mentality seems to be well off this season and I would almost say that we have lacked leadership for the first time in ages.

I still think however that Rafa can turn it around, and I see little point in changing manager currently, as it is hard to think of someone gaining more out of what the Liverpoool setup can provide currently. Perhaps I will revise at the end of the season, but that quick manager fix so rarely works that I see no point in trying it!

Just look at the real, bayern, juve etc. of the day...

[Guest]

It's Rafa's first difficult period. He should live through it and he'll turn it around.

[Nicey]

Darkon that truly is one massive positive to take from our New Owners ... commercially they are very very astute, I have no doubt they will make the club profitable.

[Rix007]

Wow, there are positives from this season...

[dww]

What concerns me, despite (imo) Rafa's superiority over Houllier as LFC manager, is that this season, for the first time, the players have started to display a lack of something almost intangible on the pitch.... belief in what they're trying to do perhaps, that we haven't really seen since the last 18 months under Houllier. I don't think its too late for that to change though, the combination of Torres, Aquilani and Gerrard hopefully getting and staying fit could perhaps kick us back into motion and give Rafa the chance to install some renewed mettle in the team.

I can see where it comes from but I really think that the differences between the current situation and the end of the Houllier reign are massive. Then there was no blueprint of a better time, there were no players who hadn't made their mark on the season, there was no progress of any individuals. Now we have last seasons way of playing and setup to aspire to, the players to do it and a number of young players who have proved themselves at the very least useful.

The one genuine worry I have is that we seem to have no calm headed leaders on the pitch now. I feel that one of the key problems this season has been an excess of ego, too many of our players seem to have the instinct that individual great acts are what we need rather than people submitting to the system and working for one another. I've long wished we could buy in more experienced heads, it's difficult in the PL as few older players adapt to the league, we can't offer anything to the older players of the top two and Arsenal have a shortage of experience too. We lost Sami and Alonso and I think that we miss them hugely psychologically more even than we miss Xabis passing.

[AFII]

The big difference between Rafa and Houllier is that we actually have a good youth set up now.

A few very promising youngsters are coming through. Kelly, Pacheco, Amoo, Ayala and Eccleston to name the best ones.

We didn't had a single good enough youngster coming through because Houllier didn't give them a chance, not even in the reserves.

The youngsters will be the key the next few years if Gillett and Hicks don't sell up.

[the rev leeroy brown]

The big difference between Rafa and Houllier is that we actually have a good youth set up now.

A few very promising youngsters are coming through. Kelly, Pacheco, Amoo, Ayala and Eccleston to name the best ones.

We didn't had a single good enough youngster coming through because Houllier didn't give them a chance, not even in the reserves.

The youngsters will be the key the next few years if Gillett and Hicks don't sell up.

thats a huge worry for us. granted the youth set up is light years ahead of what it was under ged but what it is producing at this moment in time is no where near enough the standard it could be. hopefully in the next 5 years we might see some real talent emerge.

[red g]

thats a huge worry for us. granted the youth set up is light years ahead of what it was under ged but what it is producing at this moment in time is no where near enough the standard it could be. hopefully in the next 5 years we might see some real talent emerge.

I think Rafa has done remarkably well in that dept. He has only been here 5 years, hence if he brought 16 year olds on the day he signed they sill would only be 21 now.......give the bloke a chance and it does look like we will have a good production of youngsters coming through, i really like the look of our youngsters in a non graham rix way.

I would say that pacheco, insua, nemeth, kelly, darby are all good enough for bench duty now and a whole raft of promising youngsters that might make it as well.

[FatTony]

On the Houllier and Rafa discussion I think it's an unfair comparison because they are playing in to different "eras" of the premiership.

The strenght of the league overall has risen a lot during the last 5 years because of the money influx and that makes Rafa's job that much harder than Houliiers (especially considering we have just about none of them,).

Whilst it slowly kills the game, the money are just a deciding factor and it's becoming increasingly difficult to be a top-4 team without a a lot of cash to spend. And the catch up will get harder and harder. It also means that we need to get investment sooner rather than later.

On the positive note we have an increased revenue from sponsors and commercial sides of business which will help take us forward. But our stadium plans are just about ****ed aren't they??

I'm finding it hard to remain positive at the momentNot so much because we have hit a bad spell - it happens every season - but because we our game just doesn't work, our mentality seems to be well off this season and I would almost say that we have lacked leadership for the first time in ages.

I still think however that Rafa can turn it around, and I see little point in changing manager currently, as it is hard to think of someone gaining more out of what the Liverpoool setup can provide currently. Perhaps I will revise at the end of the season, but that quick manager fix so rarely works that I see no point in trying it!

Just look at the real, bayern, juve etc. of the day...

I'm not sure that the argument that its harder now is actually accurate really, though this is something commonly said to defend Rafa's record against Houllier. You only have to look at the total points achieved by the champions to see that there is really very little between the two era's, and if anything, it was actually harder to get a win in Houlliers time.

99-00 91
00-01 80
01-02 87
02-03 83
03-04 90
total = 431

04-05 95
05-06 91
06-07 89
07-08 87
08-09 90
total = 452

Teams may have more quality (again a matter of opinion) but its all relative. Its just as hard to win the leauge as its always been, there have always generally been 2 teams that dominate, then it was Arsenal and Man Utd, now its Chelsea and Man Utd. To break up the top two is a great achievement and Rafa did it this year and Houllier did it in 2002.

[red g]

I'm not sure that the argument that its harder now is actually accurate really, though this is something commonly said to defend Rafa's record against Houllier. You only have to look at the total points achieved by the champions to see that there is really very little between the two era's, and if anything, it was actually harder to get a win in Houlliers time.

99-00 91
00-01 80
01-02 87
02-03 83
03-04 90
total = 431

04-05 95
05-06 91
06-07 89
07-08 87
08-09 90
total = 452

Teams may have more quality (again a matter of opinion) but its all relative. Its just as hard to win the leauge as its always been, there have always generally been 2 teams that dominate, then it was Arsenal and Man Utd, now its Chelsea and Man Utd. To break up the top two is a great achievement and Rafa did it this year and Houllier did it in 2002.

but we still lost over a quarter of our games in the league that season?
a freak season for sure?

[FatTony]

but we still lost over a quarter of our games in the league that season?
a freak season for sure?

eh?

[red g]

eh?

your right, we only lost 6 games thought it was 10 for some reason.

I still think its harder now though