Man City v Liverpool (30th December)

No danger of me getting kicked out for celebrating a reds goal today was there.  Arguable that we could still be playing there and it would be 0-0.

City were understandably relieved at having withstood that.  We put a lot of pressure on but there were no real killer chances.  Probably down to City's defence holding up so well.

Gotta hand it to Sven - he's turned them in to a completely decent looking side.

Back to the reds though and I feel that we really do need that little bit extra quality up front.  I get a bit tired of all the blind faith we have in some of our players.

Crouch - 'he offers something different'
Kuyt - 'he works hard'
Voronin - 'he was free'.

I know they didn't all play today but the fact is singularly none of them are prolific enough goalscorers.  Quite often this season we have had some goalfests - but they have been when players all over the park have chipped in.  Against the better defensive sides in the league - Arsenal, United, City, Chelsea - basically the other sides in the top 5 we have only managed 2 goals against.

We have got 3 points out of a possible 12 in those games and it is those games precisely that have prevented us being top.

At the end of the day if we can't beat any of the other sides in the top 5 then it's unlikely we will finish above them is it?

It's not rocket science.  We can steamroller over weaker sides (a few exceptions this season granted) but we have a real problem against better sides.

On this occassion it's all about personnel. We simply haven't got that extra 5-10% we need up front.  Until we get another couple of wingers and goalscorer with the strike rate of, say, Michael Owen we won't win the title.  I know it - you probably know it - and I hope Rafa knows it.

Because Voronin was free is not a good reason to have signed him, sure he has long hair, like Ronaldinho, but it doesn't make him a good player. We really need to emulate the 8-0 win against 8esiktas in most games, and we would be top of the league no problem. The reason he looks good with Torres is because Torres brings out the best of all the players he plays with, and we can't keep relying on him to win games. When he has an off-day (City and Newcastle notably) The only reason we beat Newcastle was because Gerrard was on form, but what do we do when they are both off form, which is inevitable.

We created enough chances to have been deserved 2-0 winners, just one of those games. It is really hard to stomach when we all thought we were going to close the gap on the leaders.  

I think the players played well, but one thing I don't get is - why does Kuyt try to break the off-side trap?  He nearly always gets caught off-side and the rare time he does beat the trap nothing ever happens.  I was frustrated with him he gets caught far too often and is toothless.  I appreciate his hard work and effort but that raw talent is not there, which is needed at this level.

With the way Torres has been as a striker, doesn't it make the other strikers look like they're coming up short? Kuyt is beginning to look like he is not LFC Class.

We will beat wigan and close up the gap by say 3 points; it would have been lovely if we closed the gap by 6 points. but, we are still in the race.

What's all this closing the gap nonsense. Everyone else plays Tuesday we will probably be 12 points behind before the Wigan game!

I also don't think it's a given that we'll be double the points behind come the end of the season. We have always performed better in the 2nd half of the season, and I don't see any reason for that to change.

Good point. 20 points behind the top by the end of the season is laughable and clearly a miscalculation.

I knew we would have a lot of the ball today but I didn't think we'd have so much as we did!! All good apart from being effective up front!

Koolkidda made a very good point about a partner for Torres earlier on. I've already said this in another thread. Today was a stonewall example of that. If teams will deal with Torres and suffocate him out of the game then we'll find ourselves very frustrated. If teams have to deal with two dangerous strikers then we wont be too far off turning draws into wins.

This is why Dunne had a blinder of a game today. He and none of the other defenders didn't have to worry about Kuyt.

I don't know about anyone else but I don't think Kuyt is effective enough anymore. Works hard but you need more than that.

i cant believ we lost. we shud of easily beeten them bout 7nil
kuyt was bad 2day. very bad

Unlike some I don't think we are many players away from being a top notch side. With a proven goalscorer we would've had a couple of goals today, and other times this season we probably would've too. People say we need players to provide opportunities but I cannot recall a game this season when we haven't created enough chances to win, our only problem has been converting them. Torres' finishing has been a lot better than I thought it would be, but we still need that guy who only needs one shot to score.

My summary of yesterday's game would be "so near, but yet so far"...credit to Man City (especially Dunne) for their defensive display - bit of a shame as they are the home side, but shows the level of respect other top teams have for us now. This is still not over, not by a long way... half a season left and we need (and will  get) a long winning run.

My personal ranking for yesterday's game vs Man City.

Reina - 6 - Looked unsettled for some strange reason, as he nothing to do.

Finnan - 6 - Not his best game, getting on... looked tired last 20 mins
Carra - 9 - My MoM - Awesome as usual, solid
Arbeloa - 6 - Looked nervy, credit he can play along the back but CB not his best position
Aurelio - 8 - Had his best game to date in a Liverpool shirt, looked a genuine threat

Yossi - 7 - Not his best game, could do better
Masch - 8 - Very good holding role, could have attacked more
Gerrard - 6 - Poor game from our top man
Kewell - 7 - Was our main threat down the wing 1st half

Torres - 6 - Probably worst game in a LFC shirt, short of lightening-pace vs Dunne
Kuyt - 7 - As usual, worked his bollocks off to no effect, should have scored

Subs:
Babel - 7 - Looked a threat versus tired (by then) Man City defenders


I feel Torres should have gone off earlier, must have been feeling a knock.

The non-appearance of Crouch must signal route-to-exit for the lad.

Not a good day in the office versus an average/tired looking Man City.

Wigan to get back-lash !!

DON, I agreed with you that Aurelio and mash had a WOW factor yesterday.Aurelio should be in starting line-up every game.Should he stop Arbeloa????Babel's favourite position=Left winger .....plss don change rafael

I knew we would have a lot of the ball today but I didn't think we'd have so much as we did!! All good apart from being effective up front!

Koolkidda made a very good point about a partner for Torres earlier on. I've already said this in another thread. Today was a stonewall example of that. If teams will deal with Torres and suffocate him out of the game then we'll find ourselves very frustrated. If teams have to deal with two dangerous strikers then we wont be too far off turning draws into wins.

This is why Dunne had a blinder of a game today. He and none of the other defenders didn't have to worry about Kuyt.

I don't know about anyone else but I don't think Kuyt is effective enough anymore. Works hard but you need more than that.

This is what we have been saying week in week out, get another striker to complement Torres but Rafa kept on playing Kuyt every other week. We have seen in one too many games already that Kuyt made more back passes than going forward, this is no way for a forward to go about doing the business. Looks like Mascherano is better at going forward, with a bit more training, shooting practice and link up play with Torres, he can even be more effective than Kuyt as a forward while he can defend better from the front. It's really frustrating to see Kuyt play where he's always short of that 1 or 2 yards to the ball. His positioning is poor as well. If he had been quicker, sharper, tougher and has a better sense of positioning, we would have won many of the drawn games. Besides that, he's seldom found inside the box, so how can he expect to score while being too lightweight. I'm not sure what Rafa is thinking at the moment, Kuyt kept churning out those poor display and he kept playing him every other week. For a start and to improve things until we get a suitable partner for Torres, Babel will have to partner Torres which I believe will give us more bite.

On the other hand, its truly frustrating to watch yesterday's game where a simple pass at the edge of the box to the next best positioned player inside the box would have breached City's defence, no, we chose the difficult route of getting the ball to a player in a difficult position. At times I'm led to believe that some of our forwards would like to dribble the ball till the goal line before shooting, or that their vision of their teammates are somewhat blurred. Its a case of we need to pass, we didn't, but shoot instead. We need to shoot, we didn't, we pass instead. We need to dribble, we didn't, we shoot instead. Looks like the forwards and midfielders need to practice more on how to link up with each other better. The training programme must look into this immediately.

DON, I agreed with you that Aurelio and mash had a WOW factor yesterday.Aurelio should be in starting line-up every game.Should he stop Arbeloa????Babel's favourite position=Left winger .....plss don change rafael

I think our back line for big games this season should be (until Agger returns)

AA JC SH FA

SF and JAR to play FA Cup games... but in JAR's case - P45 would not be a bad idea during month of January...

The non-appearance of Crouch must signal route-to-exit for the lad.

The non-appearance of Crouch must signal that he was suspended for the match because of the red card he received in the Carling Cup against Chelsea. So no reason to judge him out. I think he should be available for the Wigan game though.

Kuyt was pretty awefull today apart from his work rate. His footballing prowess was nil. Rafa should have been brave enough to put Babel on after 20 mins by which time it was obvious it wasn't going to be Kuyts day.

GERNS, absolutely spot on mate. I was screaming at the TV after approx 20 mins telling Rafa to get Kuyt off and Babel on. I honestly don't think he was listening to me. 

I know I'll get slated probably for this. I do like Dirk and was very excited when we signed him, but lately I just can't help of keep thinking of when we did sign Dirk, Berbatov was on sale for I think 500,000 pounds more...... Berbatov scores 4 this weekend and if Kuyt had only scored 1, we would have been 2 points closer to the top.   

The non-appearance of Crouch must signal that he was suspended for the match because of the red card he received in the Carling Cup against Chelsea. So no reason to judge him out. I think he should be available for the Wigan game though.

Well spotted - totally forgot about the two footed tacke and Chavski's amateur dramatics... 3 games should be up by Wigan... hope to see him back - although I am personally convinced that if a decent offer for him came along, Rafa would take it to part-fund another forward.

Villa wants out from Valencia... mind boggles...

My concern is that we haven't beaten any of the so called "top 6".

I don't think the premiership is going to be ours this season.  This is not bitterness or Pessimism. This is reality.

At the moment we only have 2 match winners, Gerrard & Torres.  I think we need 2 more.

Has any one seen the player ratings on ITV teletext! according to them our ratings were poor to fair, but City's were fair to good, now the thing I don't get is although we did not score we, in my opinion, we battered them and they had only 1 shot. I just don't get it!

Has any one seen the player ratings on ITV teletext! according to them our ratings were poor to fair, but City's were fair to good, now the thing I don't get is although we did not score we, in my opinion, we battered them and they had only 1 shot. I just don't get it!

It's called bollocks.

We should have beat them 3 or 4 nil - but had no class or heart in the last third.

Of course we mullered them - they were 10 behind the ball defence merchants for all 90 minutes.