Atletico post-match downer

[Guest]

The ignore button was invented for The Rev and his fellow cronies

[PTP]

er....you're included in the cronies bit

[Vermilion]

We should sue ****in uefa .. we scored an away goal...a bloody good one too...did it make a difference, did it ****...because with extra officials in place for just this sort of instance...they still got it ****in wrong!!!!

You know, before we even played last night i was thinking that will cost us and will be the difference, and it did and was.

All the money in the game...and still when you score a perfectly good goal you can't be sure it'll be allowed !!!! bloody shoddy state of affairs if you ask me.

[Guest]

er....you're included in the cronies bit

Really? I need to ask the Birdman for confirmation! Eh mate, am I included in those cronies list?

[Slinky Skills]

2 main points of last nights game showed how much work is still needed for glen johnson on his defensive game......2nd to every ball, no urgency tracking back, weak tackles - but offensively he is a real treat to watch.

now for babel anybody who argues how **** he was last ngiht has absoloutely no football savvy and is a real **** for brains - ran his ****ing heart out, tracked back, was the only lfc player who got a buzz going in the crowd when on the ball, attacked really well, showed his confidence is returning, easily MOM last night.........so obviously gonna be dropped for chelsea game

all in though, i thought we were good last night and if only for a fit torres would have spanked them. just shows when the gaffer can get the team up for it they can really perform. unlucky lads.

Thought that we were excellent last night, all the team played well, no one really had a bad game imo.

Babel was actually good for a change, I'm not one of his biggest fans and he still can't tackle but at least he showed some fight, determination and hard work last night, something I don't think any of us have seen from him before.

I was quick to slate a few players after the first game, Babel, Carragher and Johnson in particular however they were all good last night. I'm still not keen on Carra booting ball up all the time but that's the way he is.

I was happy with the performance overall and I do still believe that Rafa will have us playing better next season, I have no doubts about that. I think we should all forgot about this season now and try and push in with renewed positivity for next year, regardless of whether you dislike Rafa or not.

[Mostar]

Thought that we were excellent last night, all the team played well, no one really had a bad game imo.

Babel was actually good for a change, I'm not one of his biggest fans and he still can't tackle but at least he showed some fight, determination and hard work last night, something I don't think any of us have seen from him before.
I was quick to slate a few players after the first game, Babel, Carragher and Johnson in particular however they were all good last night. I'm still not keen on Carra booting ball up all the time but that's the way he is.

I was happy with the performance overall and I do still believe that Rafa will have us playing better next season, I have no doubts about that. I think we should all forgot about this season now and try and push in with renewed positivity for next year, regardless of whether you dislike Rafa or not.

I agree that he was working hard for a change especially defensively but he is just not a true winger. He always cuts in (very predictable) and quality of crosses is just not there. Good effort though.

[squaddie]

I agree that he was working hard for a change especially defensively but he is just not a true winger. He always cuts in (very predictable) and quality of crosses is just not there. Good effort though.

He's not a true striker either.

[Bender]

tbh i have always been a fan of babel or more a fan of his potential....but last night showed one thing he has no end product nor seems capable of showing any footballing nous .....time to cut our losses on this £11million flop .......

[Guest]

tbh i have always been a fan of babel or more a fan of his potential....but last night showed one thing he has no end product nor seems capable of showing any footballing nous .....time to cut our losses on this £11million flop .......

It's taken you 4 years to see this?

[calvoboy]

now for babel anybody who argues how **** he was last ngiht has absoloutely no football savvy and is a real **** for brains

- ran his ****ing heart out

tracked back

, was the only lfc player who got a buzz going in the crowd when on the ball

erm...

attacked really well,

you sure?

showed his confidence is returning,

yeah, I'll go with you on that

easily MOM last night.

Where's the 'spitting your tea out' smiley?

Think you might have gone a little bit far on the last one!

He had a decent game. Still lacked a brain at times where he'd done the hard work and ran into dead ends when there were easy passes on. He's much improved lately though, if that improvement continues then he might still make it...hope so, it's taken long enough for the penny to drop with him.

[Exiled_red]

I used to think that - but when you look at the first 11 (admittedly it's difficult to compare because the tactics are different)

Dudek - Reina = Reina big improvement
Finnan - Johnson = no better, certainly defensively
Carra/Henchoz/Hyppia - Carra/Agger/Skrtel = No better
Riise - Insua = Riise was much more dependable than Insua
Kewell - Babel = A fit Kewell was much better than Babel
Gerrard/Didi - Lucas/Mascher = Mascher slight improvement on Didi? Lucas weaker than Gerrard.
Smicer - Kuyt = different sort of players, Kuyt probably edges it
Heskey/Owen - N'Gog/Torres = Torres just about edges it from Owen, even at Owen's best, but there's not much in it, and Heskey gave us more options (shame we tended to take the one option of hoofing it to him!)

Yes, Insua is better than Traore, but he's not as good as Riise or Carra who tended to play left-back. Yes, Lucas is better than Diao and Biscan, but he's not as good as Didi or Gerrard who tended to play centre mid. To me, looking at the two first 11s we are much weaker at left back, left wing, up front, and defensively at right back. Against that, we have marginally improved in midfield and up front, but still have no depth.

You say that This team is better in goal, Right mid (Kuyt) and up front but weaker in left back (Riise) and left midfield (Kewell) and the same else where? By that count this team is better than Houlliers.

Also if you are ignoring fitness and counting Kewell, you should do the same for Aurelio. Although I don't want to get drawn into that debate, and discuss who should be compared with who.

But that's sort of my point. Maybe we need to re-think what is good enough? You can't have world beaters in every position, and you need some solid but unspectacular types. Bellamy would be a huge improvement on N'Gog. I still say Pennant is\was better than El Zhar or Babel, though I know everyone hates him on here, and he certainly never looked top class for us. Even Zenden and Ziege you could trust to come on and do a job if necessary better than one or two of our current squad.

I agree we don't need work class players in every position, very few teams have that situation. It's easy to say we should have kept x instead of buy y, but ultimately things don't work out like that. We had to sell a number of players in order to sign others we had to sacrifice some players to bring in the likes of Torres. We had better options than Pennant at the time so we let him go. The lack of investment and reshuffling of the squad that has had to occur has meant we have less depth, so perhaps Pennant would have been useful no but that's not the way things work.

Bellamy of man city this season would be an improvement on Ngog for us this year, but Bellamy was poor for us:

Bellamy (06-07) 41 games 9 goals
Ngog (09-10) 24 games 8 goals

Perhaps as you say it's time to re-think what is good enough

[Taxi]

Missed the match last night as I was working.

Never expected us to win this comp though, the way our season has gone and the total inconsistency of our play dictated that.

The most worrying thing about this season has been the fact that we've not put one decent run together. I can accept that we started poorly and as a result we were out of the running for the league, but its scary that at no stage of the season has Rafa managed to put a storming run together of anything more than a handful of games.

****ing Forlan the manc ****!

[red g]

Well I think Torres more than edges it from Owen. I haven't forgotten what MO did for us but Torres is in a different class completely.

Heskey, options. Meh. He had one great season and ****ing nothing thereafter, and we certainly never utilised any options other than whacking up towards him and watching him fall over.

Our squad now is miles, miles better than it was. Miles better.

Owen was and always will be one dimensional, it just so happens that 1 dimension was pretty good.

with no malice towards that little welsh backstabbing cunt they are chalk and cheese

[Bender]

It's taken you 4 years to see this?

Had hoped he would have transformed from headless chicken to free flowing chicken

[calvoboy]

You say that This team is better in goal, Right mid (Kuyt) and up front but weaker in left back (Riise) and left midfield (Kewell) and the same else where? By that count this team is better than Houlliers.

Yeah - I'm just saying that on reflection the improvement is pretty marginal, and nowhere near as big an improvement overall as I thought, and have asserted many times when sticking up for Rafa.

Bellamy of man city this season would be an improvement on Ngog for us this year, but Bellamy was poor for us:

Bellamy (06-07) 41 games 9 goals
Ngog (09-10) 24 games 8 goals

Perhaps as you say it's time to re-think what is good enough

Lies, damned lies, and statistics! (and some of my mates are statisticians). N'Gog did have a knack for getting in the right place at the right time earlier in the season, despite his obvious shortcomings. I wonder what Neil Mellor's stats were like...