Wigan 1-0 Liverpool: Post Match Nuclear Fall Out

in order for that to happen
rafa needs to take his head out of his own arse
because he hasnt got a clue!!

kyut knobrot lucas
insua and a few more had a very very bad game
but that again is down to rafa
so he needs to sort out his best eleven players
who will wear the shirt with pride
and player like there careers depends on it

My team for the next few games would be:
                               Reina
Johnson         Agger         Kyrigakos     Insua

                        Masch(c)    Aqualini
                                  
Maxi                       Pacheco             Benayoun
                               Torres
Bench:Gerrard, Cavaleri, Lucas, Babel, Carra,Kuyt, Ngog.

Kuyt needs to be sitting on the bench after that performance!!

I agree Pacheco & Aquliani need a chance,

Torres just needs a few games to get back into it.. (not that we have a few to spare!)

Maxi needs to be in the starting 11- he is getting better every match,

Kuyt needs to be sitting on the bench after that performance!!

I agree Pacheco & Aquliani need a chance,

Torres just needs a few games to get back into it.. (not that we have a few to spare!)

Maxi needs to be in the starting 11- he is getting better every match,

At least kuyt cares did you see Gerrard and Carra walking off looking like they didnt care a load of sh*t they both need to be dropped.

I have been a Liverpool Fan since I was 6 years old and last night in my humble opion was the worst Liverpool performance I have ever ever seen. Some people need a kick up the backside, because dire doesnt even cover it.

Do you actually believe that players like Carra and Gerrard think they've "made it"?

The manager should be getting the most out of his players whether they are international or not. And the fact of the matter is, he isn't.

'Sitting off and letting Wigan play', deary me. Rafa is hardly a cavalier manager and he DOES set his teams up to soak up, pressure, push the opposition. Under Rafa we defend as a unit (nothing wrong with that) but because of that we are comprimised up top. He has NEVER found the balance between defending misely and attacking dynamically.

We've gone stale under Rafa and he's taken us as far as he can.

Like I said, no manager would of ever been sacked if every chairman laid blame on the players' door. Unfortunately for him, his players aren't playing for him, therefore he's gotta go. Its as simple as that.



Quite simple really, HE ISN'T GETTING THE BEST OUT OF THE PLAYERS AT HIS DISPOSAL!

But I think the problem is deeper than just Rafa.

These are the same guys who had 2 losses, finished  2nd, 5 points out of winning our 19th Championship last season.  So just common sense is going to say that their is an Issue not known to the supporters.  It could be the players dont like playing for him, it could be the stress of the expectations of winning the league, it could be the financial issues and ownership chaos.

I find it hard to say Rafa cant get his players to play their best when he has proven that he CAN get his players to play their best.

My thought is he doesn't care. I think Ownership has just made his position almost unbearable and he wants out and to be honest, I never thought I would say this but that may be best for this team. A new coach may add a spark to this team and get them playing better.  I dont know. I'm just lost about this right now. I dont know what to think.

Get Hicks and Gillette out and get Rafa out too! Rebuild the squad getting rid of dead wood like Degen and Kuyt. Sell Stevie, past his best and his body language does nothing for the team on the pitch.

Isnt stevies body language the same as yours at the moment??

I've intentionally not posted till i'd calmed down.

H&G are killing the club and we alll know that BUT what happened last night and numerous times this season has been nothing to do with our clubs finances.

Johnson, Carra, Benayoun, Gerrard, Torres, Babel, Aquilani, Mascherano, Maxi are not a group of players who should be leaving the DW stadium with no points and after playing that badly (there are no excuses about injuries etc, those players are too good to have lost 7times this year in only 29games). So they either don't care or don't believe and for me both of those are unacceptable at Liverpool.

Rafa has hardly been an angel this year either, his attempts to change us into a more attacking team (Johnson and Aquilani) has meant losing control of the game. So he has played Lucas who has improved greatly but 2 defensive minded players is just not working. We all see that.

 Something is seriously up, i just hope Rafa can sort it out and we get fourth as its very important for investment etc

All we can do till May is to sit back and try and keep the faith. Come June something (preferably owners and players) will be changed at the club.

Isnt stevies body language the same as yours at the moment??

Im not the captain though am I. He's out there to set an example and he goes and sticks his fingers up to the ref. That's not what you need from your captain.


Im not sure the players fear Rafa. If we had a manager like Fergie, Wenger, Ancelotti or Mourinho i'm sure we'd have won that game in the second half by a large margin. Rafa's not the type of manager to tell his team their not good enough to wear the shirt like Wenger did earlier in the season and that effectively changed Arsenal's season.

Fair play lad
Chilled out, taken the abuse from my mates and calmed down today
I thought Aquilani did very well when he came on, good point that
Definately drop Stevie, not done enough all season, Vermaelen has scored more than him for god's sake, and give Aquilani a good go
Think we need a good re-vamp next match v Lille, an 'easier' opponent (although nobody is easy recently) give Pacheco a go, drop Kuyt, who was woeful too.
No desire or fight at all last night, i actually felt shameful

I do believe some of this blame lies with Rafa also, whether he told them to stand off them and let them play and then get it to the 40yard line and try a killer ball and fail or they just decided to be tits i do not know
Just really annoyed

Remember when H+G said it will be a big summer for us? Yes, it will, i see about 6 players leaving

I agree that there's more to whatever things being said/written behind the scene. Besides the lack of investment that shows the Board's lack of intention to improve the club, we also had some terrible run between Sept-Dec, which made things much worse for players. This is when the blame game started in the dressing room and all of it seem to have affected the players. A

Lack of faith in each other/blame game(some of them knows the lads playing with them are 2nd/3rd choice), they may have absorbed the pressure earlier in the season but as time went on and few results went against us, it's reaching breaking point.

I don't know how Rafa gonna solve this, and if a new Manager comes in, I don't know how long he's gonna survive coz' this thing gonna reappear again after back to back loss.

Having said all that, I still believe in Rafa(at least until next Christmas).

He was angry!!!  Not that i am justifying his behaviour,  but he is human like the rest of us!!

I cant slate stevie too much- he has done so much for lfc, when everyone else is slating him- other players, fans, opposition fans, sky sports, etc, etc, I cant join them!

Sure he deserves it at the moment- but he is frustrated like we all are!

Still can't get my head around last night.

Makes me propr depressed thinking about it. Want Thursday to hurry up so the lads have a chance to put things right.

We've scored 12 goals in 15 Premier League away matches this season.

West Ham have also scored 12 away.

Only 7 teams have scored fewer on the road: Burnley, Fulham and Wolves (11), Blackburn (9), Hull 8, Portsmouth and Stoke (7).

The players should be ashamed of last night's non-performance.  But it's the manager's job to motivate and organise the team properly. Rafa Benitez is failing dismally to do this on a regular basis.

I remember something Parry said when the club hired Benitez in 2004 - something along the lines 'it won't be very entertaining football, but it will be winning football.'

It's neither.

Time to say goodbye, Rafa.

I've given myself 24 hours or so before posting hoping that I would have more clarity but I'm just more angry and frustrated at what was probably the worst performance I have ever witnessed from a Liverpool team...not one shot on target for fucks sake..against WIGAN ATHLETIC!!

I really feel for the 4000 or so reds that travelled last night!

We played some sh*t football under Souness but this match along with Portsmouth away is the lowest for me.

Where do we go from here...I'm not sure but the first time under his management putting aside all the crap that's going on with the yanks at boardroom level I have serious doubts if Rafa can lead us anywhere but downwards from now on.

We were playing like a bunch of strangers, pub teams show better passing that us last night!

Dirk's miss placed pass to set up the goal sums our evening up

We lack game changers, we have the "attacking" game changers in gerrard and torres, but dont really have anyone in the middle who can get the ball down and play a few simple passes to get the team going again... i miss Xavi 

I remember something Parry said when the club hired Benitez in 2004 - something along the lines 'it won't be very entertaining football, but it will be winning football.'

It's neither.

Time to say goodbye, Rafa.

You got to admit though, he was right at the time!

I have been a supporter of Rafa all season.  I thought that the early season calls for his head were a bit of a knee jerk reaction. However, I may be changing my thoughts.  No matter how much success a club has their is always a downturn. Right now it seems were heading in that direction.

I think that we need to face facts and be prepared for a few lean years and some injection of youth, rebuilding and trial and error.  Every great team in every sport goes through rebuilding.  You cant be a champion every year without paying the devil his due. Look at Man U's debt. The 800 Million dollar debt is from all those championships over the last 15 years. Its just a matter of time before Man U are done. In the next few seasons they will be a mid tier team.

Just for example I'm a Yankee fan and we had a great run of championships and winning seasons.  Then the team fell into a rut. So they rebuilt, got a new coach added some youth and solid veterans and they won the World Series last year.  Thats what winning organizations do.  They realize that rebuilding is just a matter of fact and it seems that maybe Liverpool need to do just that.

I am not against rebuilding. But it needs to be done right. You can get stuck in a constant cycle of rebuilding if done wrong.

First and most Important.  Nothing is going to happen without new Ownership. These owners are pissing this team down the drain and its not going to change.  Once new owners come in, lets bring in a new coach, get rid of the old guard, bring in some youth, sign some veterans and build a new generation of champions.  The current formula seems to be stale, Rafa and the team are just going through the motions.

''We're sh*t and we know we are'' F**k me that was woeful, Just how bad are we going to get? Confidence is non-existant, And no matter what we try it just seems hopeless, Now we go into Thursday's game struggling to even care what sort of outcome occurs, Personally i cant wait for this season to end and i'm no longer bothered about what anyone thinks in the media, This season has trully been our Anis Horribliss, Last nights starting 11 looked impressive apart from Masch playing RB, I'll never understand why Rafa played him there instead of his usual position and played either Degen or Kelly, But saying that with Gerrard in CM and Maxi and Benny on the flanks we looked well balanced, And with kuyt in the hole i thought finally Rafa has decided to go on an all out attack Especially with Nando as hungry as a f***in racehorse, But apart from hitting the post Kirkland could have had a wee nap, I just hope to F**k Rafa gives all concerned the Spanish inquisition, That has to go down as one of the worst displays if not THE worst under Rafa, A performance never to be seen again......I hope!!

It was awful sat in the North Stand last night having to listen to the few Wigan fans who bothered to turn up, same old sh1te different match. Rafa stop picking such a negative team and let them attack.

The highlight of my night was bouncing 2 coppers who came into the Red Robin pre match   

Why is everyone saying Kuyt was terrible? That pass that created the goal for Wigan was pure genius.

I didn't think Maxi was that bad. Was he the one who lifted the ball for Yossi to drag back to Gerrard? He may not be a class midfielder throughout the match, but he has created chances that can lead to goals, he has the class to be a match-winner (he set up Torres' last goal with a lovely little low cross). I really thought Yossi should have shot that one, at least tested the keeper and see where the rebound went if there was one. Same thing with Torres' shot that hit the post. If he had tried to drag it far post instead of near post, he would have at worst had a rebound possibly fall to a player in the area with the keeper out of position. That is basic football, when you are shooting from a tight angle, aim far post so you can at least get a deflection.

And to those who are saying "if torres had taken his chances, etc," if Wigan had taken theirs that they left they would have won. They dfeserved to win, we only created a couple of real chances, and NEVER tested the keeper. I'm still keeping the faith but those games in hand are more daunting than ever.

I am not against rebuilding. But it needs to be done right. You can get stuck in a constant cycle of rebuilding if done wrong.

First and most Important.  Nothing is going to happen without new Ownership. These owners are pissing this team down the drain and its not going to change.  Once new owners come in, lets bring in a new coach, get rid of the old guard, bring in some youth, sign some veterans and build a new generation of champions.  The current formula seems to be stale, Rafa and the team are just going through the motions.

It's not fair to say he's okay his 3 years tenure but hasn't won us anything since. But that' SINCE' coincided with the arrival of the YANK$(2nd in the League last season was over-achievement). We just need to change the OWNERS and let Rafa run his Plan A, at least for 1 season. 

Having tried to sign Alves, Simao, Silva and achieve 2nd in the League, I'm sure Rafa knows his stuff and he has pretty good idea on how to achieve No.19. It happened in Valencia before, the year after they won the League they stumbled into 5th place, the next season they won the League again.