A Disgrace

I can see us beating inter,so what have we got left to play for?

Well if you can see us beating Inter then surely we have the Champions League to play for.  :


Nice to see you back JD

The team is unrecognisable from the one that managed to get itself to the European Cup final last year.

Some of the players have been putting in performances which are a disgrace to the name of our club.

Nice to see you JD, nice

Apologies Graham, only just looked back & realised that you had posted before I replied to Galberto's post, that wasn't aimed at you mate

OK, Eddie was nearly going to set smigger onto you.

totally agree with eddie we are not that far away just the odd tweak here and there and lets not forget ths was not poor finishing yesterday their keeper had an outstanding game and fully deserved a motm award

Eddie C

Impressed with the Stats.

I agree that with better finishing, we would not be in this mess.

Let me put this scenario to you all.

We lack a finisher. I do not think anyone can deny that.
Yet in the transfer window, our only action is to secure (Even though i understand this isnt a done deal) a defensive midfielder in Mashcerano (Apologies for spelling!).

I rate Masc, i think he is a quality player, and the sort of player that every sucessful team requires. Yet how many of the chances we have missed would have involved him? If the answer is very few, and we could maybe assume that we would have created them anyway, whether he was on the pitch or not, then should rafa have used the money to get in a finisher?

I think he is over priced, certainly not over rated, and i would be gutted to lose him, yet if we had of brought a finisher who would have banged in 6 or 7 goals by now, would we be 5th & out of the FA cup?

I think the problem is it shouldn't be a case of either/or, we need both, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Well i have just seen the goals and what was Charles Itandje doing for the two goals. First of all he was in no mans land for the first and second no goalkeeper should be beaten at their near post. Im not sure if it was a bad day for him or if he is a second rate keeper?

I have to agree with a lot of you, this is not good.

You have to go back to the Reading game where we lost 3-1, no mater was people say Rafa threw is hand in on that game. In the games since then in the prem; we have played 10 games and we have only picked up 14 points, out of a possable 33 points., and gone out of the 2 home cups.
Before the Reading game we where 3rd and only a few points behind the top 2 and had a game in hand, now we are 5th and 19 points behind 1st spot, and 11 points behind 3rd spot, and 3 points behind Everton who are 4th, alright we have a game in hand, but we still have to win are game in hand, and the games we have coming in up over the next 4 weeks, it does not make good reading.

I have said it before and I will say it again, sometimes I do not understand Rafa, mixing players up does not work, you have to try and play your best 11 all the time, you might rest 1 or 2 of them but thats all.
When you are playing your best 11, the the team know how the other players play, and where they are, and if someone is playing sh*t like Kuyt has been doing, then put them in the reserves for a few games, that what we used to do, and it worked.

Will Rafa learn from his mistakes, I don't know.
Will Rafa still be at Liverpool come May, I don't know.
I would hope Rafa can learn, and still be with us come May, but I'm not sure.

Like all of you, I'm looking for a good game on Tuesday.

Come on Liverpool, we can still do something this season.  

Good post Graham. I certainly agree about putting under performing players in the reserves.

Obviously our league position and some of the play from the first team hasn't been good enough for LFC, to say the least. Things that have stood out for me is lazy attempts at goal or trying to walk the ball into the net and another thing that's beginning to creep in is lazy defending. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Some of our players are better than what they are making themselves out to be. If they carry on then it will inevitably continue to reflect on Rafa and he'll be gone. No matter who he plays. They look like a different team to the one of last season.

Well I have just seen the goals and what was Charles Itandje doing for the two goals. First of all he was in no mans land for the first and second no goalkeeper should be beaten at their near post. Im not sure if it was a bad day for him or if he is a second rate keeper?

My point as well Agger, David Martin would have made a better job of it and why was Pepe not even selected ? 

its very easy to come out and say, "get rid of rafa", and i have to admit after the result yesterday, that was my first reaction.  sure, rafa has made mistakes this season, particularly against wigan imho, but he is human, and his love for the club can't be denied.  but in the cold miserable light of day, this latest debacle isn't down to one man, it's down to the players on the pitch.....end of.  those players that took the field yesterday, should be able to eat and sh*t barnsley any day of the week, regardless of who is managing them.  i know i've quoted the fashionable line before about pako leaving affecting the team, but there can be no excuses for being dumped out of the cup by barnsley.  i hope the players feel ashamed of themselves.  they owe us a huge one on tuesday night,  there is so much hinging on the inter match, the players season........and possibly the managers job.

In fact I'd go as far as to say there have only been four, against Porto, Marseille, Reading & West Ham. .

I presume you mean Porto away, but I think we played well, a difficult place to go, 10 men for most of the game, and we came away with a well-deserved performance. But I think you may have meant Besiktas away, which was an extremely poor performance.

No I did mean Porto mate, I wasn't necessarily saying the overall performance was poor, just that we didn't create enough chances to win the game. I actually forgot about the game in Turkey, it should really be listed with the others, although I can understand how the atmosphere that night put them off.

Birmingham at home,Wigan,Portsmouth,Villla,Chelsea,will i continue?i might run out of ink,all in all the league does;nt lie,

The tactics and selections of Rafa have been questionable at times this season. But as i said in the beginning of the thread its the players. If you are not constantly in the starting 11 and are fighting for a place, then ffs i dont understand how you can not grab the opportunity with both hands at Anfield and leave your balls and heart on the pitch.

Bless you, once again you have completely missed the point. Read what I posted earlier, the question was in which games
have we not created enough chances to win? You have instead managed to name the three games where I already showed that we did create enough chances, plus a couple more. I can't be bothered to dig up the stats right now, I'm going to bed in a minute, but I shall get back to you in the morning.

you are right up to a point,if the players are not up to it in the first place then it means touble,bad players usually get bad results,most of Rafa's signings are just not good enough

liverpool should get an assistant for Rafa.. this whole bad result really pissed me off but let bygone be bygone and go winning the champs league! winning it for 6th times ain't bad. hoho hoho!

you are right up to a point,if the players are not up to it in the first place then it means touble,bad players usually get bad results,most of Rafa's signings are just not good enough

Are you stuck in the 80's by any chance? Liverpool led the way and the likes of the mancs followed. 

You've got every right to be upset and frustrated by the way we haven't been able to kill teams off and get three points this season. Sometimes draws are harder to take than a defeat, especially when we've had most of the play but can't be ruthless up front.

If you've ever played football yourself, you know once you go on that pitch, it's up to you to do your best. It should be instinctive. When I've been at the match these last few months it's looked like a lot of players have lost the instinct. Whether that's down to the managers tactics or motivation is debatable. Whether it's down to pressure of living in the shadow of past glory like Istanbul is also debatable. But when you see hesitation in front of the goal or the lack of desire to stop the opposing team advance into our penalty area and put a tackle in, then that's down to the players on the pitch and not the manager.

It's all too easy to suggest something isn't right in the team talk or we've got many rubbish players. The simple fact is, it boils down to a missing link when we attack. Have a think about Luis Garcia. He could probably define our season so far when you look at the frustration. But he had that extra bit of spark and creativity which could turn draws into wins. We miss a player like that right now. And while he was on our books with his instinct, there wasn't many people calling for Rafa's head.

I'm not saying I agree with everything Rafa does. An example like Saturday. I was baffled why he left Mascherano out and in the game took Babel off for Kewell. I honestly think if Mascherano was playing and he'd brought Gerrard on instead of Kewell, we would have won that game.

But the major factors for me is that some of the players are coasting - not the manager. Which is a disgrace. And we lack bite when the ball is around or in the box. It's up to the manager to identify this and bring someone or some people in who can turn draws into wins. If he's still here in the next transfer window and doesn't address this, it's time to move on. Our league position is not right.

Are you stuck in the 80's by any chance? Liverpool led the way and the likes of the mancs followed. 

You've got every right to be upset and frustrated by the way we haven't been able to kill teams off and get three points this season. Sometimes draws are harder to take than a defeat, especially when we've had most of the play but can't be ruthless up front.

If you've ever played football yourself, you know once you go on that pitch, it's up to you to do your best. It should be instinctive. When I've been at the match these last few months it's looked like a lot of players have lost the instinct. Whether that's down to the managers tactics or motivation is debatable. Whether it's down to pressure of living in the shadow of past glory like Istanbul is also debatable. But when you see hesitation in front of the goal or the lack of desire to stop the opposing team advance into our penalty area and put a tackle in, then that's down to the players on the pitch and not the manager.

It's all too easy to suggest something isn't right in the team talk or we've got many rubbish players. The simple fact is, it boils down to a missing link when we attack. Have a think about Luis Garcia. He could probably define our season so far when you look at the frustration. But he had that extra bit of spark and creativity which could turn draws into wins. We miss a player like that right now. And while he was on our books with his instinct, there wasn't many people calling for Rafa's head.

I'm not saying I agree with everything Rafa does. An example like Saturday. I was baffled why he left Mascherano out and in the game took Babel off for Kewell. I honestly think if Mascherano was playing and he'd brought Gerrard on instead of Kewell, we would have won that game.

But the major factors for me is that some of the players are coasting - not the manager. Which is a disgrace. And we lack bite when the ball is around or in the box. It's up to the manager to identify this and bring someone or some people in who can turn draws into wins. If he's still here in the next transfer window and doesn't address this, it's time to move on. Our league position is not right.

Well said RedKenny,  the team that Rafa put out on Saturday should have easily beaten Barnsley, and once those selected to play run onto the Anfield pitch it's down to them to perform, unfortunately as Kenny said, quite a few are underperforming this season, now is that down to the players, the Manager, the unrest behind the scenes,  the tw*ts that we have who own our club, no link man from Rafa to the players?
Could be any or all of these, could be things that we don't know about? one things for sure, it needs sorting out and soon.

One thing I do know is that we are becoming a laughing stock at the moment...........BUT hang on a minute aren't we playing in the Champions League this week?
How many teams would give their right arm to be playing in the Champions League?

I know our League position is crap, we all had such high hopes this season, and we are out of the FA Cup, but we have our pride and we have the best supporters in the world, and one of the best Managers, so lets all get behind Rafa and the lads and spur them onto victory tomorrow night against a very good Inter Milan side.

Our season is not dead and buried yet, let's keep it truly alive, aim for that fourth spot and progression in the Champions League.

Birmingham at home,Wigan,Portsmouth,Villla,Chelsea,will I continue?I might run out of ink,all in all the league does;nt lie,

Might run out of ink at a Computer? Villa, created enough chances to win, Pompey away too, Chelsea; we deserved to win both games (especially the F***ing first one.) Wigan, already said Kirkalnd had a blinder, and Bramble chooses to score a screamer against us, and then assist everyone else, not out fault is it? And Portsmouth, we would have won if Torres played, he would have taken most of the chances that fell to Voronin. (By played i mean all 90 mins)

Right then, as promised, stats on the other games rednblack mentioned. Against Pompey we had 13 shots on goal but drew 0-0. Does that sound like a sh*t team performance or would better finishing have won us the game? Against Villa we had 17 shots on goal, Villa had 5 of which 3 were on target & they scored 2. Again doesn't that suggest our overall play was the better just that they were a lot more ruthless in front of goal?
 
As I said before, try looking past results and actually look at the performances.

Seeing as it doesn't look like Galberto is gonna get back to me, I'll put the question out to everyone else. Can anyone name a game this season where we haven't created enough chances to win, apart from the four I've already named, against Porto, Marseille, Reading & West Ham.
 
If no-one can, then surely it's fair to say that our problems lie with our finishing rather than in other areas? I really don't think we're that far off the winning formula, we just need that finisher to convert the chances we make.

What's the point of creating chances if we can't finish them?

It's not about not having a finisher...so we buy the best striker in the world...will that win us games? What if he gets injured ? Don't they work on "finishing" during training ? If we blame our DISMAL season on "one" position I think we'd be in DENIAL. We have capable players but somehow we become disorientated (it might be the constant changes made to the team).

Did we hire a special finisher when we put 8 goals past Besiktas ? What about when we put 4 past Porto and Marseille?

I know the players have to take responsibility for their own failures...but i think it's time for us to be realistic ... starting a Rafa cult and crucifying everyone who questions his "questionable" methods will not help us in any way.

So there...label me an optimist...challenge my soccer knowledge but I've had it with Rafa...

So we get rid of Rafa, who will do a better job?? Its a no brainer, the man is building for the future and the inability to finish and a goalkeeper from the opposition having a good brilliant game cant be be blamed on Rafa. He picks the team and since November he has picked the strongest available team so the players have to start taking responsibility!! The majority of them are more interested in lining their pockets!!!

Not entirely sure what Rafa could have done about that on Saturday.

I'd just like to point something out. Wenger gets beat 4-0 and plays a "weakend side" but nothing gets said. The man is a still a genius

Also Taggart leaves out Ronaldo completely and shock horror at home, he plays a 4-5-1. Rooney up front on his todd. If that had been Rafa playing 1 up front at home tactic he'd have been slated.

So the actions Rafa selectionwise isn't exactly exclusive to him and the other top managers do it. But they have and added advantage. Serious money. With serious money it gets you better players, and more of them. This in turn leads to better squads and better results. Therfore lies they can chop and change as much as they like with no-one crtiticising. Although if Wenger wins nowt this seaosn that'll be 4 years on the bounce withuot  anything. Will the fans be calling afor a new manager ? I doubt it ?

Beleive your own eyes and don't let the press influence your decision making.

Things aren't great at the moment but ejecting one of the best managers in the world and passing the clubs problems onto someone else isn't the way forward.

To be in honest I'm amzed he's still about. What he jumped ship for in Valencia is nothing compared to the ineptness snd scullguggery our new board have been upto the last 14 months.

So if he's prepared to put up with the club and the shape it's in at the moment, then we should at least back him until we can offer him the chance to be on a level playing field and give him the chance to compete for the players lieks Torres quality/Value on a regular basis.