I hope you're proud of yourselves

[Bulld0g]

All this controlled passing and attacking football Benitez' team played, makes me think why i came out of the ground nearly every game and asked myself why i bothered continuing to watch it. I thought it was boring but obviously i imagined it, it must have been exciting riveting football. Why oh why couldn't i see it at the time

[Shaggy]

its not dog****. we were ****ing awfull last year and no matter what peope on here say, theres no smoke without fire and rafa had lost that dressing room IMO. we were on a steady decline last year and had he stayed the performances would probably have gone the same way.

no evidence cause no one knows but **** me some people on here fail to see that its just someones opinion - we are all allowed one you know.

Were we awful last season by our own high standards?

Yes. We finished 7th.

Now we're 19th and you reckon "we would be in just as much **** if he was still here" - what's it based on? There's no evidence whatsoever and all the facts available bear it out - we were nowhere near as bad as this last season nor at any time during the six years Benitez was here.

You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to call it a load of bollocks.

[the rev leeroy brown]

Were we awful last season by our own high standards?

Yes. We finished 7th.

Now we're 19th and you reckon "we would be in just as much **** if he was still here" - what's it based on? There's no evidence whatsoever and all the facts available bear it out - we were nowhere near as bad last season.

You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to call it a load of bollocks.

fair do's i guess - if you want to paint this everlasting picture of rafa the messiah who can do no wrong then go on, i choose to realise he had lost it big time by end of last season and going on our form towards the end of the season when we were playing utter ****e ( the same level of utter ****e as now ) we would be in just as much **** right now under him - maybe not 19th but defo bottom third of the league.

[Galb]

No I understand why they say hes negative (two holding midfielders is hardly attacking) but there are various degrees of negative football

To me Houllier & Hodgson are far and away more negative than Rafa was

But Arsenal played with two holding midfielders in the days of Petit and Vieira and they were never accused of being defensive.

But I think you have a point though. I think people (and the English media especially) sometimes get too caught up on formations. One striker is automatically defensive, two holding midfielders is automatically negative. A lot of it was down to the single striker thing IMO as people are still too wedded to 4-4-2.

Including our current boss.

[Galb]

and going on our form towards the end of the season when we were playing utter ****e ( the same level of utter ****e as now ) we would be in just as much **** right now under him - maybe not 19th but defo bottom third of the league.

****e like this?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wwnv99bttk"]YouTube - Liverpool - Atletico Madrid [ WORLDS BEST ATTACK ][/ame]

[Shaggy]

fair do's i guess - if you want to paint this everlasting picture of rafa the messiah who can do no wrong then go on, i choose to realise he had lost it big time by end of last season and going on our form towards the end of the season when we were playing utter ****e ( the same level of utter ****e as now ) we would be in just as much **** right now under him - maybe not 19th but defo bottom third of the league.

Seriously man WTF?

How does that tie in with "last season was awful"? Like every manager on the planet he has his faults.

going on our form towards the end of the season when we were playing utter ****e ( the same level of utter ****e as now )

That is insanity. Last season's LFC would've done to this season's LFC what we did to Burnley and hammered us 6-0.

[Shaggy]

****e like this?

YouTube - Liverpool - Atletico Madrid [ WORLDS BEST ATTACK ]

FLMAO

Can you imagine us playing football anywhere near resembling that under Hodgson??!?

[Darkon]

No I understand why they say hes negative (two holding midfielders is hardly attacking) but there are various degrees of negative football

To me Houllier & Hodgson are far and away more negative than Rafa was

I agree that Houllier and especially Hodgson plays 'more' negative football than Rafa, but that hardly puts Rafa in the entertaining category.

Rafa deployed as Arn says a system of pressing the ball high up the field and then with players in stationary positions try and make a breakthrough. Ultimately there were 2 persons in the team with a creative role in Gerrard and Torres, and earlier Alonso due to his ability also had a deep-lying creative role.

But in the end it baffles me that anyone thought his type of football was anything but negative. The whole system was setup to break down oppositions play not to be the creative force itself. On the overall Rafa's team played boring football and very little happened creatively.

We had some great games under Rafa and he did much to restore LFC, but it was not by putting us in the free-flowing attacking football map.

Have so many people forgotten the many many games where the frustration over the lack of attacking skill and movement hit this and many other boards? To me it seems that people are hung up on the good memories, casting aside the bad ones, perhaps in an attempt to forget what it's like now.

But we really really really need to start looking forward and how we get out of this mess rather than reminiscing about past days.

[Galb]

Or this?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbqj9IOQiAs"]YouTube - ALL GOALS ☆ Liverpool 4 - Benfica 1 ☆ Europa League 8. April ☆ HIGHLIGHTS[/ame]


Look at the second and third goals and tell me that we were rubbish and that Rafa was no improvement on Hodgson.

[the rev leeroy brown]

****e like this?

YouTube - Liverpool - Atletico Madrid [ WORLDS BEST ATTACK ]

how often did we have passages of play like that last year? once maybe twice i bet. we've had the slick one touch passing this year in the early arsenal game although it was in the middle of the park. do it once more this year and it'll equal all of last year.

[Darkon]

Again, I don’t think you’re giving the team the credit it deserves for that 18 month period. Bar last year, the PL winners had a similar goal scoring record of 2 per game. It’s all well and good remembering the Evan’s era and the exciting football, but what made it so good? Was it our attacking flair or our **** defence? Evan’s goal scoring record doesn’t come close to our average over them 18 months, and our returns in other years with rafa were also quite similar to Evan’s (without the **** defence).


94/95
Position: 4th.
Games Played: 42
Goals Scored: 65
Average: 1.55 per game

95/96
Position: 3rd
Games Played: 38
Goals Scored: 70
Average: 1.84 per game

96/97
Position: 3rd
Games Played: 38
Goals Scored: 68
Average: 1.79 per game

97/98
Position: 4th
Games Played: 38
Goals Scored: 62
Average: 1.63 per game


We had a bad spell approaching Christmas in 08/09 when we drew a few games back to back and Sky became obsessed with our ‘negative’ formation. I’m guessing for some reason people seem to remember these few weeks before the many months either side of them when we were destroying teams for fun.

fair enough if you don't think I give them enough credit - not much I can do about that. As I said that side gave me some of the best memories I have as a LFC supporter and especially during the first 2-3 seasons under Rafa, but I still don't think it was ever an entertaining side to watch football wise. It was an effective team with the high pressure focus of breaking down opposition play, and it managed to produce a lot of results due to that.

[Arn]

I agree that Houllier and especially Hodgson plays 'more' negative football than Rafa, but that hardly puts Rafa in the entertaining category.

Rafa deployed as Arn says a system of pressing the ball high up the field and then with players in stationary positions try and make a breakthrough. Ultimately there were 2 persons in the team with a creative role in Gerrard and Torres, and earlier Alonso due to his ability also had a deep-lying creative role.

But in the end it baffles me that anyone thought his type of football was anything but negative. The whole system was setup to break down oppositions play not to be the creative force itself. On the overall Rafa's team played boring football and very little happened creatively.

We had some great games under Rafa and he did much to restore LFC, but it was not by putting us in the free-flowing attacking football map.

Have so many people forgotten the many many games where the frustration over the lack of attacking skill and movement hit this and many other boards? To me it seems that people are hung up on the good memories, casting aside the bad ones, perhaps in an attempt to forget what it's like now.

But we really really really need to start looking forward and how we get out of this mess rather than reminiscing about past days.

It wasn't down to Torres and Gerrard to create anything the 08/09 season. They only played together 22 times that season. Rafa had built a system that wasn't depending on any key player. That was the big strength of that system. That changed the 09/10 season because we suddenly didn't had a fit playmaker and a fit ball playing central defender. Aquilani and Agger.

Instead we suddenly had two defensive midfielders, Lucas and Mascherano and Carra and Skrtel/Kyrgiakos to feed our attacks.

As long as he had players that could play in certain positions then the system worked very well.

[Darkon]

It wasn't down to Torres and Gerrard to create anything the 08/09 season. They only played together 22 times that season. Rafa had built a system that wasn't depending on any key player. That was the big strength of that system. That changed the 09/10 season because we suddenly didn't had a fit playmaker and a fit ball playing central defender. Aquilani and Agger.

Instead we suddenly had two defensive midfielders, Lucas and Mascherano and Carra and Skrtel/Kyrgiakos to feed our attacks.

As long as he had players that could play in certain positions then the system worked very well.

Fair enough, misplaced on me using player names. What I should have wrote was the striker and Attacking mid / forward lying just behind instead, because you are correct when injuries, the time before Torres etc. are accounted for. So 2 players having a creative free input then.

[RedReet]

No I understand why they say hes negative (two holding midfielders is hardly attacking) but there are various degrees of negative football

To me Houllier & Hodgson are far and away more negative than Rafa was

But that's the thing. Xabi was hardly a defensive midfielder as such. Mascherano broke up the play and Xabi orchestrated our attacks. He didn't play as far forward as he did in his first season and he wasn't given as much freedom, but he was hardly a defensive minded player. The thing is, the two of them were world class in their positions and when we first set out like that, we were scoring freely having previously just struggled against the likes of Luton, Havant & Waterlooville and losing to Barnsley playing 442. It was then near a full year later that we got a few draws back to back against Everton, Stoke etc, (I know there were a few before that too) that these two world class players were then being targeted and there was suddenly no need for them, despite the fact we were blowing away 90% of the other teams beforehand.

People were also arguing at the end of that season that there was no need for Mascherano against lesser opponents despite the fact that the stats showed we scored far more goals with him in the team that without him. It’s maybe unfair to judge with Roy in control, but those who also said there is no need for a world class DM in our team, an average one could be just as effective are starting to look a bit silly. One decent performance all season and that was against Arsenal, and Masch was in the thick of it.

[RedReet]

fair enough if you don't think I give them enough credit - not much I can do about that[/B]. As I said that side gave me some of the best memories I have as a LFC supporter and especially during the first 2-3 seasons under Rafa, but I still don't think it was ever an entertaining side to watch football wise. It was an effective team with the high pressure focus of breaking down opposition play, and it managed to produce a lot of results due to that.

Ha ha, I didn’t mean that to sound so patronising, not intended.

That’s fair enough, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I personally thought watching Xabi, Gerrard and Torres in tandem was a joy to behold when they were on form. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ignorant or dismissive of the games we didn’t win and the frustrating draws, but I honestly thought the good heavily outweighed the bad.

Ahh well, it’s in the past now, we must move on.