Liverpool v Spurs - Post Match Discussion

TORRES!!! YOU'VE SAVED RAFA HIS JOB!!!

oh for god sake....

you know what? if we dont win the league this year I hope we dont make many changes to the team at all so that the players can work harder, knowing each other, feeding of each other as if theyve been together since birth! they will know exactly what each other is thinking by next season, its abit hard to acomplish the tittle in your first season when youve never played together. when you think about it our whole striking force is new. tho I hate them you gota see that rooney and ronaldo have had a good amount of time to compliment each other, same at chelsea aswell. I have no idea why the fu*k people are saying they hate rafa or that he should be sacked?! wankers! got no idea. we definately need a number 2 next to him but dont you think they are working on that at anfeild?!
rafa will bring us the tittle. we can only hope for it this year but it will be a MASSIVE acheivement if he does

All I ask is to see progress each season, which I have done every year Rafa's been here.

Except last year where we definitely took a step backwards IMO

Except last year where we definitely took a step backwards IMO

Depends which way you look at it I suppose, I feel we made a little progress, just not as much as the other seasons.

We came third & got to another CL final, but the main thing for me last season was we got rid of the last of the dead wood from Houllier's reign, like Cheyrou & Diao.

2 - glaring weaknesses in the team. JP and JAR. Both do not have the speed. The opposition will just have to make sure that they pin JAR and JP at their own half or at the half way mark and they'll not be a threat. We can always see the opposition defenders not allowing JP to go beyond the 3rd quarter, if u try hard enough u'll pressure JP to loose possession and make silly passes, like the one that conceded a corner. Worst still the opposition is defending higher up the field and could start an effective attack. Its just that RB is too blind to see that and plays JP and JAR at his own half and hopes that they'll be able to start an attack. They simply can't, they need someone else with speed to bring the ball into the opposition 3rd quarter, park themselves at the 4th quarter and do the damages from there, that way they don't have to run the full length of the field or outrun by the opposition. Most of us can see this glaring tactical fault except RB. RB have to play to these players strength and not their weaknesses. Have we solved our flanks, don't think so. If RB continues this approach we are heading nowhere and the opposition will just say TQVM. Btw, JP crossing is horrible, Finnan crosses better than him and RB is blinded to that again. A winger who couldn't passes a ball effectively is no winger. So i said, off load JP this Jan. and get someone with speed and skills, maybe Queresma.

Since we beat derby 6-0 and went top we haven't played well.I put this down to nerves and pressure.

Media and fans alike were heeping more pressure on the club to maintain this impressive performance level.
"Liverpool top for the first time in five years" every ten minutes on SSN
"This could be liverpool's year" fans and pundits.

Those of you knocking Rafa I think are foolish.With the team being top, the team has more pressure on themselves by thinking too far ahead (how will we react ,perform challening for the title because they've never been there before) Rafa knows what its like(from his time at valencia) to be top and I feel this what he meant by grounding players like Torres ..... etc.I would be more than happy finishing within a dozen points of the champions using this season as a learning expierence for many seasons to come.Maybe we could give the cleaners at anfield more work to do ............when Rafa leads his great rotation mix to champions league win number SIX ...........

This doesn't help things at all when you fail to win your fall is even steeper than your rise,hence people calling for Rafa to be sacked and "criticising the rotation policy".

This combined with the injury to Agger(which is massive to me) has hindered the teams performance.When playing Hyypia at centre back ,the style of play differs ( carra is carrying the defense,stevie cant attack as much as he'd like,our strikers making challenges in or around our box and even reina made dodgy calls yesterday)everyone is playing twenty/thirty yards deeper and hyypia keeps hoofing the ball forward when there's no one up to chase it, because everyone is worried about conceding.

Once Agger returns things will revert to how we normally play, with carra and agger coming forward with the ball and finding the midfielders  and widemen, playing with freedom and higher up the field and hence not allowing teams to come onto us.

Like Eddie has said in numerous posts Rafa has over-achieved in previous seasons I feel he's also doing it this season.With us still being unbeaten in the league considering the above I feel this is due to Rafa.

IN RAFA WE TRUST. YNWA

ok
2 points.

1st one being danny agger - completely agree we miss him loads.
hes pivotal to the whole setup - which is mostly keeping the links between, defence, midfield and attack.

2nd point, we do not have enough quality in the squad.

compare JP to ronaldo, joe cole, alex hleb, malouda, theres too many to mention!

were gonna be playing for 3 / 4th place again i think.

but we are improving, its just that , so have the others! and theyve improved a lot !

thats why its emperical that we sign ricardo quaresma.....we have depth on our wings, however, the its the quality that counts....at the moment, we are lacky a pacey, tricky winger who can take defenders to the cleaners, whip in a nice cross and score a few goals himself....

yes mate, totally agree.
im not sure if rafa just buys 'hardworking squad players' and the odd bit of class (torres)

of whether its been a financial restriction and torres took up most of the wedge and rafa though he needed to buy a few cheap squad players.

time will tell but we need some magic on the wings!

yeah, we've had a habit of buying second rate players with maybe a hope of trying to turn them into something big, i dont know really.....anyway, now time to focus on the merseyside derby in 2 weeks....

ok
2 points.

1st one being danny agger - completely agree we miss him loads.
hes pivotal to the whole setup - which is mostly keeping the links between, defence, midfield and attack.

Danny agger is pivotal - can someone come in for him with the same Quality?- no we haven't got another expierenced CB with a bit of pace to replace him or carra, hence we wanted Heinze.Also I didn't just put it down to his injury,I said that and pressure.

2nd point, we do not have enough quality in the squad.

compare JP to ronaldo, joe cole, alex hleb, malouda, theres too many to mention!

I never said we have enough quality in the squad.What I will say is that we have more quality than last season.

were gonna be playing for 3 / 4th place again I think.

but we are improving, its just that , so have the others! and theyve improved a lot !

I never said we weren't gonna playing for 3/4th.I said I would be happy finishing within a dozen points of the champions and if means 3/4th so be it.
Man u-- how many seasons have they spent big? non stop
Chelski-- This is their fourth.
Arsenal -- they haven't but that team has played and grown together for the past three seasons.
Liverpool -- This is Rafa's FIRST season and if in three years we still have the majority of the players playing together we will have the same cohesion as arsenal.

I'm sure you've heard of the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day" well neither is Rafa's squad hence he's over-achieving.

For some reason, i have a feeling we can finish second this season....we can do that, and im confident we can....

look we finished high last year, and were even in with a shout for the win for one week (then we lost to utd) and i thnink at this time last year liverpool were like 12th, so compared to our normal starts, i am very happy to be in the top 4

best part of Sunday was without doubt the half time appearance of Mrs Paisley. 93 i think she is. 45 thousand people taking in her every word as she told how she and Billy Liddels wife used to wait outside the ground after games to get the bus home. Even the spurs fans sat there listening didnt make a sound fair play to them.

Could have listened to her all day. Only downside was as she was leaving the pitch the crowd burst in to a PAISLEY PAISLEY chant that fella who does mc from radio merseyside start talking over the chants that pissed me off a bit     

best part of Sunday was without doubt the half time appearance of Mrs Paisley. 93 I think she is. 45 thousand people taking in her every word as she told how she and Billy Liddels wife used to wait outside the ground after games to get the bus home. Even the spurs fans sat there listening didnt make a sound fair play to them.

Could have listened to her all day. Only downside was as she was leaving the pitch the crowd burst in to a PAISLEY PAISLEY chant that fella who does mc from radio merseyside start talking over the chants that pissed me off a bit    

Totally agree mate.

The respect the full-house gave Mrs Paisley at HT was grand. The visiting Spurs fans deserve credit for that... (if nothing else ... the library chant was killing me all game!!...)

we didn't do too much to shove there library chant up there arse did we?

we didn't do too much to shove there library chant up there arse did we?

I tried to mate, as I said I would do on here - but got daggers from a few folks in the main stand... I'm sure people would much rather go to the game with a novel/book - much like some people who go to cricket do!!! It's getting that stupid... people are even whispering to eachother - WHAT IS GOING ON!!!!¿¿¿???

If we can't be vocal in our support, why bother going?

Fortunately, I managed to watch the entire match on TV as well as listen to the crowd whom I was positive would give it everything. All I could hear though, for a large part of the game as "Anfield's a library..."

The two decent chances Spurs had they converted. For me, Masch gave the ball away at crucial times on more than one occasion so I won't be voting him for M.O.T.M. Like so many comments posted over the last few days, Riise was ineffective and JP didn't get past his defender much at all, if even. Alot has already been said regarding the role Carra and Sami played in the goals so I won't add comment.

I'm not trying to be biased (quite the opposite actually) but I felt Spurs goals really came against the run of play. We were on top, got the wind knocked out of us and we needed to show character to win. No better time to show what we're made of and we produced enough for a point.

Torres was superb again, his positional play, his pace and the way he makes chances for those around him. Everytime he scores, the commentator can't help with what has now become the obligatory "That's why they paid 26 million for him!"

I was disappointed, but we played better and I think we deserved more...

Fortunately, I managed to watch the entire match on TV as well as listen to the crowd whom I was positive would give it everything. All I could hear though, for a large part of the game as "Anfield's a library..."

The two decent chances Spurs had they converted. For me, Masch gave the ball away at crucial times on more than one occasion so I won't be voting him for M.O.T.M. Like so many comments posted over the last few days, Riise was ineffective and JP didn't get past his defender much at all, if even. Alot has already been said regarding the role Carra and Sami played in the goals so I won't add comment.

I'm not trying to be biased (quite the opposite actually) but I felt Spurs goals really came against the run of play. We were on top, got the wind knocked out of us and we needed to show character to win. No better time to show what we're made of and we produced enough for a point.

Torres was superb again, his positional play, his pace and the way he makes chances for those around him. Everytime he scores, the commentator can't help with what has now become the obligatory "That's why they paid 26 million for him!"

I was disappointed, but we played better and I think we deserved more...

Don't think we deserved more as we had possesion but couldn't creat a thing with it.

Torres proving to a Rafa life-saver... the chap is humble-class... if you know what I mean.

Agree with you there mate...he lets his performance on the pitch do the talking.

the lad is worth every penny we paid for him...and i believe he can only get better and better in the years to come...