Just bumped this up because I've been looking at our group again and I really don't see how people thought (think) it's a hard group.
I'll start this by saying why the F**k are people holding us joint top as some sort of achievment? Have you seen the sides we've played? Marsielle and PSV would struggle to make the top 10 in the Premiership and we're cocker hoop because we've beaten them. They are teams we should be beating and for fucks sake we struggled through Marsielle enough.
I'm as happy as anybody when we win and probably as optimistic (to the point of blindess at times) as anybody I know but trying to make out we're doing great in the Champions League by beating two sh*t teams is getting out of hand. We in fact should be disappointed that we haven't got 9 points, but that's a different kettle of fish to do with Robbie Keane and the wind as well as some diabolical defending.
By the skin of our teeth or rather the skin of Reina's teeth we managed to stay in the tie with Liege and after a great cross by Babel and a somewhat fortunate goal by Kuyt we made the group stages where we drawn three sides who in all reality shouldn't be causing us problems. Marsielle are sh*te, PSV are worse and for 45 minutes we saw what Athletico Madrid can do. The reason they got into the game is we let them, if we'd killed it off when we had the chance(s) they wouldn't have had the heart to come back but credit to them they did and didn't let our (or the officials) silly mistakes go unpunished.
People seem far to keen to throw our Champions League group into debates as some sort of achievement but what have we achieved from beating two extremely poor sides and throwing away two points? This group should be a walkover for Liverpool and we shouldn't be sitting second but we are because of us throwing two points away and Carragher not getting out in time against Marsielle. That mistake by Carragher could be the difference between Barcelona or Roma in the next round. Personally I don't fear either but the same people making out we're doing so well at the moment in Europe will be the same ones praying we don't get Messi and co in the next round.
Sitting second in this group is no achievement, beating Marsielle and PSV is no achievment. We stumbled through Marsielle thanks to a wonder goal by Gerrard and some clever play by Babel to win the penalty. PSV we thumped and played reasonablly well considering we never left second gear, but that's expected. We didn't excell against them and give them a right pasting, we were content with a few. Again Wednesday's result was thrown away because we didn't take our chances. Nothing to do with Benitez being cautious or happy with one, it was missed chances that cost us.
So now as we enter the second half of the group stages we're in need of a win against Athletico at Anfield or giving a real hammering to either PSV or Marsielle because the Spaniards are the second best team in this group and like us, should have no problem beating the Dutch/French. It comes down to the head-to-heads against us and them or the goal difference to determine which position we'll finish up in. Again being the optimist I am, I expect an easy three points against Athletico so Carragher's mistake in France and Keane's missed chance in Spain won't cost us the number one position in this group, but those mistakes cannot be made in the next round because there isn't another five games in the next round to save your skin. It's a two leggered affair and those mistakes are much more costly. The quicker we remove them from our game, the better and safer our route to Rome in May will be.
Next up for us in Europe is the home game to Athletico Madrid and hopefully a certain Fernando Torres will be able to face his boyhood club this time, as well as Flo and Luis getting a nice reception from the Anfield crowd. Whereas Forlan will probably get booed thanks to his United connections.
Overall a very easy group and not one to get overly carried away with because we're second.
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