Top 4

[red g]

YNWA, good times as well as bad times, that's the spirit.

I do not feel i can back a manager i have lost faith in

I love liverpool and i dont believe Rafa is the man to bring success.

its not about the good or the bad times, its about doing whats best for LFC and in my eyes thats a new manager.

[red g]

Out of curiosity, did the people slating Rafa for subbing Torres actually watch the Brum game, coz in the game I watched on Sunday, our attacking play [B]vastly[B] improved, IMO, once N'gog replaced an ineffective (due to exhaustion) Torres. We created 5-6 great chances to win it, which we probably wouldn't have created had Torres stayed on.
I was probably as frustrated as anyone when N'gog fluffed half of those chances, but I don't see it as entirely Rafa's fault that he is our best option to replace Torres up front.

nothing to do with Babel coming on or the brum defence tiring?

I am pretty sure that if torres had stayed on for ngog, he would have had at least 1 or 2 chances....and he would have buried one

[Craig_H]

Out of curiosity, did the people slating Rafa for subbing Torres actually watch the Brum game, coz in the game I watched on Sunday, our attacking play [B]vastly[B] improved, IMO, once N'gog replaced an ineffective (due to exhaustion) Torres. We created 5-6 great chances to win it, which we probably wouldn't have created had Torres stayed on.
I was probably as frustrated as anyone when N'gog fluffed half of those chances, but I don't see it as entirely Rafa's fault that he is our best option to replace Torres up front.

To answer your question, yes i was at the game and yes we created a lot after Torres went off, but it was largely due to the fact that Johnson started pushing forward more, and Babel had come on and was running at their defence at pace, causing problems.

I dont think we started creating more BECAUSE Torres went off.

[Guest]

Out of curiosity, did the people slating Rafa for subbing Torres actually watch the Brum game, coz in the game I watched on Sunday, our attacking play [B]vastly[B] improved, IMO, once N'gog replaced an ineffective (due to exhaustion) Torres. We created 5-6 great chances to win it, which we probably wouldn't have created had Torres stayed on.
I was probably as frustrated as anyone when N'gog fluffed half of those chances, but I don't see it as entirely Rafa's fault that he is our best option to replace Torres up front.

I've said this straight after the match. Torres created only one chance (the one Maxi put onto the bar) and that was in the first half. He didn't offer anything as a way of decent runs apart from this one. As soon as Ngog came on things changed, we started to really dominate the game and put them under pressure, creating 4 or 5 clear chances. He missed at least one sitter yes but I doubt we'd have got those chances with Torres on in the first place.

People do like to use anything against Rafa those days, he's too easy a target. It's good to see he doesn't give a **** about what people think and when it came to change Torres, he was bold enough to take that decision. It wasn't that game which made or broke our season, the damage was done well before.

[banditos]

nothing to do with Babel coming on or the brum defence tiring?

I am pretty sure that if torres had stayed on for ngog, he would have had at least 1 or 2 chances....and he would have buried one

Perhaps. He also could have got injured again, which tends to happen when he is overplayed. All hypothetical I guess. The substitution made sense to me, that's all.

[Guest]

I do not feel i can back a manager i have lost faith in

I love liverpool and i dont believe Rafa is the man to bring success.

its not about the good or the bad times, its about doing whats best for LFC and in my eyes thats a new manager.

You're entitled to your opinion so am I.

I can't blame you because the results haven't been going our way this season but I know for a fact that we've had a lot of injuries and our defence was all over the place at the start of the season. We couldn't field a stable back four for 3 games running plus a lot of our key players were out of form, Torres included.

Still it's strange that after our bad start to the season, we still managed to hit a run of 5 consecutive wins and battered teams we should have battered anyway (like the 6-0 win against Hull?), then we were totally complacent away to Fiorentina in the CL and things started to go wrong from then on. People always say that Rafa favours Europe over the league but it was in that game that things started going really wrong.

The manager shall partly take responsibility for it but I haven't been impressed by neither Torres nor Gerrard in terms of attitude on the whole this season. Torres has got his excellent goalscoring record to back him up so I'll cut him some slack, but it doesn't cut well with me seeing players giving journalists (and the rest of the world) ammunition when they react the way they do as it doesn't reflect a great sense of unity. I think that has been our problem this season. Major players have been too quick to lose faith and have been sulking in games when they should have provided leadership. Rafa can't get away with the flack when he has to face journalists after each game, he's carried on fighting even in the face of adversity.

The players? Well, the talking should have been done on the pitch, the manager can't kick a ****ing ball.

[red g]

You're entitled to your opinion so am I.

I can't blame you because the results haven't been going our way this season but I know for a fact that we've had a lot of injuries and our defence was all over the place at the start of the season. We couldn't field a stable back four for 3 games running plus a lot of our key players were out of form, Torres included.

Still it's strange that after our bad start to the season, we still managed to hit a run of 5 consecutive wins and battered teams we should have battered anyway (like the 6-0 win against Hull?), then we were totally complacent away to Fiorentina in the CL and things started to go wrong from then on. People always say that Rafa favours Europe over the league but it was in that game that things started going really wrong.

The manager shall partly take responsibility for it but I haven't been impressed by neither Torres nor Gerrard in terms of attitude on the whole this season. Torres has got his excellent goalscoring record to back him up so I'll cut him some slack, but it doesn't cut well with me seeing players giving journalists (and the rest of the world) ammunition when they react the way they do as it doesn't reflect a great sense of unity. I think that has been our problem this season. Major players have been too quick to lose faith and have been sulking in games when they should have provided leadership. Rafa can't get away with the flack when he has to face journalists after each game, he's carried on fighting even in the face of adversity.

The players? Well, the talking should have been done on the pitch, the manager can't kick a ****ing ball.

i will give you that, and also if Rafa had been given just a little extra and we brought in say turner and a goalscorer things may have been so different.

The problem is i think Rafa needs all the cogs in his machine working ot get the best out of them

Look at Arsenal, Scum and Chelsea all had major injury problems this year and only chelsea have strength in depth.

My own personal opinion is that while we were winning our players went along with Rafa's methods although not sure they always agreed but since we have hit a sticky patch the players seemed to have stopped playing which is a disgrace.

I just feel Rafa does not have a big club mentality about him, which is a shame as he is a lovely fella

[Guest]

i will give you that, and also if Rafa had been given just a little extra and we brought in say turner and a goalscorer things may have been so different.

The problem is i think Rafa needs all the cogs in his machine working ot get the best out of them

Look at Arsenal, Scum and Chelsea all had major injury problems this year and only chelsea have strength in depth.

My own personal opinion is that while we were winning our players went along with Rafa's methods although not sure they always agreed but since we have hit a sticky patch the players seemed to have stopped playing which is a disgrace.

I just feel Rafa does not have a big club mentality about him, which is a shame as he is a lovely fella

I don't buy into that 'the manager doesn't have a big club mentality' mate, I don't think it's right. Who's been the one fighting in the press when he was pressed all the time, who put all his faith in his players finishing fourth when he 'guaranteed' we would come fourth? That's the least he could do no?

The rest is all down to the players, as the tactics haven't changed.

[Jack D Rips]

Just a thought, but as we really needed to win a game that was there for the taking, why not bring N'Gog on, leave Torres on and take someone else off. Lucas?

[red g]

I don't buy into that 'the manager doesn't have a big club mentality' mate, I don't think it's right. Who's been the one fighting in the press when he was pressed all the time, who put all his faith in his players finishing fourth when he 'guaranteed' we would come fourth? That's the least he could do no?

The rest is all down to the players, as the tactics haven't changed.

to me there are 3 games which we shoulbe be happy to get a point at playing away to

arsenal
scum
chelski

there sould be then a few more which we should go to win, but be happy with a draw away from home

everton
villa
spurs
city

aall other games we should be battering all the other teams, setting out from the get go to knock them into next week.

we never do!! we set upto contain for an hr and then up the tempo.

I dont believe Rafa's teamtalk consists of just go out and stuff these. More keep it tight and lets break them down in last 30mins.

wrong mentality imo.

[banditos]

Just a thought, but as we really needed to win a game that was there for the taking, why not bring N'Gog on, leave Torres on and take someone else off. Lucas?

Torrs was knackered, Lucas wasn't. Not rocket surgery.

[red g]

Just a thought, but as we really needed to win a game that was there for the taking, why not bring N'Gog on, leave Torres on and take someone else off. Lucas?

i think he was going to sub lucas but he was invisible , hence he couldnt find him to take him off

[Pablo]

Torrs was knackered, Lucas wasn't. Not rocket surgery.

Immense typo

[-V-]

I can't believe that after all this time people still think Torres needs to be fit and fresh to win matches for us. On numerous occasions he has done nothing for 89 minutes and his only contribution to a game has been that 1 all important goal from the 1 and only chance we ever create. Anybody who thinks taking off our match winner at a time like that is the right approach is a ****ing numpty.

And its ****ing funny as hell to me that anybody would think its Torres job to create chances for the team. Bollocks, his job is to make space for himself and get on the end of them. Taking him off was signalled the end of the game for us, we were never going to win after that

Didnt surprise me one bit though, Rafa's been doing stupid **** like that all year long

[Shaggy]

Immense typo

Brain science