Last night was probably one of the most frustrating nights I have watched in years.
For me, a lot of people are on here lambasting Rafa. And if they do, the get lambasted by those who are pro Rafa. To be honest, it should be somewhere in the middle. Rafa was far from blameless last night for a really poor performance, no matter how many positives we can take from it, and fans should be allowed to have a go because I believe we are entitled to criticise when we are really poor. However, although Rafa is not perfect he is still an excellent manager who has had far more good nights than he has bad, and last season he was being hailed as a genius. I believe he is the man to lead us through the most difficult period in our history but that does not make him perfect as last night showed.
Apart from one or two players who were obviously used to doing something more interesting on a Thursday night, it was tactics that annoyed me the most. Why we continued to play with 4 at the back all night long when they had absolutely no interest in going forward is beyond me. Yes, the full backs push up but with 3 at the back we could have pushed another attacker up to trouble their 5 defenders where N'gog was left with the job of making it difficult for them. I am not N'gogs biggest fan but to give him the task of holding the ball up against 5 defenders was really poor. We then went left and right all night long to put cross balls in (which would have been better if Aurelio or Riera could control and pass the ball properly) and with 5 or 6 of them in the box to our 2 players meant it was quite easy for them to just clear all night. Aqualani offerred absolutely nothing apart from a few nice sideways passes but we already have the King of the Sideways pass in our squad. To me it is easy. The captain is by some distance our best midfield player where he carved his name in central midfield for years. Play him there. Aqualani is supposedly intelligent and creative. Play hm further forward. Why try and turn him into the Bride of Lucas?
A few people have commented that they are the Champions of Romania and that they are better than we thought they were. I totally disagree. This team were one of the worst teams to ever play at Anfield. The didn't create one thing. didn't string passes together and were only capable of being physical at the back.
This was not a defence of Baresi, Maldini, Nesta et al, this was wee Mustapha and big Jimmy who get paid 40 shoogels and a packet of Skittles to play in a very poor league. Add to that they have not played for months and anyone who has played football at any level knows that if you do not play competitively for a while your fitness suffers. We did not test their fitness as they were happy to stand and defend. This is a team who played Northwich Victoria in a friendly last week and won 1-0!!!! So no, they are not a good side.
Tactically wrong. Some players are not good enough and how we have got ourself in a position where we have absolutely no spark up front is crazy.
Aaaah, that feels better!
Where's the wife she's next!
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