Champions League Second Leg

Ruskie4Rent

marky4 wrote:

hey who do u support, liverpool were unlucky, liverpool are a better team than man united,

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha..............good joke.

What's the deal with teams on poor form in the premiership going the furthest in the CL? If I were an arsenal fan I wouldn't mind seing them coming up against benfica. They were never too impressive over the two legs and I think arsenal would fancy their chances against that defence.

kaimera

Pld Arsenal.

Very good over both legs and unlucky not to score tonight.

Gl next round.

samb

Ruskie4Rent wrote:

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha..............good joke.

What's the deal with teams on poor form in the premiership going the furthest in the CL?.

Yes its very strange. Arsenal never did great in CL when they were winning the league but now they are doing brilliant (best team in group I think) but now can't win in PL.
Mixed night for me because I kinda support liverpool and Arsenal. I don't think Liverpool can complain to much and they do need some new players. They definely need to get rid of Garcia, Morienties, Cisse and Troari,...I would bear with kewel and Crouch.,.,I suspect they may come good.
Hopefully as Dunphy and co say Arsenal will do well against the less argressive european defences (two years ago they were saying the opposite, that arsenals play was only suited to PL, the style hasn't changed). Anyway, Hopefully we'll have 5 teams in CL next year;) Liverpool 4 the Cup

The Muppet

PiE wrote:

Terribly serious. Another game that Liverpool dominated but with nothing to show from it. Bloody disgraceful finishing. Could/should have been 3 or 4 nil up by half time.

I may be going against the grain here but I wouldn't be sorry to see Alonso going (for a major profit) along with the majority of the forward line. At least we can focus on taking 2nd place from Utd now ;/

AHHH! At least you had the blow softened for you on tuesday night.:D


Let's just wait until the end of the season to see which is the second best team in the Prem.

Congrats to Arsenal BTW.

dirkey_wynne

marky4 wrote:

hey who do u support, liverpool were unlucky, liverpool are a better team than man united,

No they're not. They were beaten 3-0 on aggregate by Benfica. We were 3-3 with them on aggregate. But that's pretty meaningless. Look at the league table, Liverpool are 3rd. Utd are 2nd and have played one game less. Benitez is a stats man, and he knows the league table shows the ultimate stats.

iregk

Have to say lads I was delighted at Liverpool getting knocked out. I took a lot of stick yesterday for drawing 1-1 away to the best club on the planet. To go out 2-0 at home to Benfica well lets just say the Liverpool fans in here are sitting very quiet!

I said last year they were the worst side I have ever seen win the European cup, looks like they have been found out! As one of the guys (pool fan) just said to me, they made us look like Sunderland!

Fair play to Arsenal hats off. The best game of the night was in the San Siro however, that was one super game of football. All talk about Ballack, please, the game passed him by without so much as a hello to him.

Still im glad Chelsea getting nocked out softened the blow (as some liverpool fans put it) on what was a guttless performance.

dirkey_wynne

I have to agree. I'm so sick of hearing Pool fans saying "champions of europe" etc, and the big one "we're definitely the 2nd best team in the league." When you actually enter into a debate with them, the uppermost argument they have si that they've had "even mroe shots than Chelsea this year and jsut can't finish". Finishing is pretty important for a successful team.

For me anyway, the league doesn't lie. Bad decisions and luck are evened out over the course of 38 games. At present it looks like Utd are on course to finish 2nd (though that could all change) and therefore I would say Utd are 2nd best team. If Pool are to finish 2nd, they would in my eyes be 2nd best team.

and Utd are on course, despite an appalling season injury wise, as opposed to Pools relatively injury free season.

Anyway, I guess this debate will have to wait until seasons end really!

Excuse the off topic. As for the football, I have to admit I was happy to see both Chelsea and Pool go out. I was happy to see Arse through, even tho I hate them, I hate Madrid and their transfer policy more.

Here's hoping Barca win, restore my faith in the beautiful game.

Big Nelly

Well done Benfica, at last we might not have to listen to "Champion of Europe" and all that crap that has been posted here on a daily basis from the Liverpoll people. Liverpool shown exactly what they are last night, an average side in Europe who where very very lucky to win last season. Anyway I wont gloat about it and just leave them to lick there wounds.

Well done Arsenal, watched the game and they played very well, Madrid never really looked like they where going to over run them. Good performance.

elurhs

Liverpool were a shambles in the second half last night, they just can't score. As soon as I saw Traore on the team, I knew they wouldn't win. His teammates were actually afraid to pass the ball to him.

Who have Liverpool bought since they won Europe? Reina (who is a good goalie in fairness) and Crouch. Agger and Kronkamp don't really count yet, they've hardly played at all. They still need a whole new team, bar Finnan, Carra, Riise, Alonso, Stevey G and Reina. Hell they need a whole new squad. There's not one decent forward at the club. I just hope Benitez gets the money he needs in the summer, cos if he goes, Pool are well and truly fecked for another few years. I'd also like to see a few more youngsters getting a chance. Can't be any worse than Cisse or Traore.

eirebhoy

Arsenal are the only premiership club that deserved to get through to the Quarters. They went out and played decent football unlike the other 2. As Stan Staunton says, "If we lose, at least we'll lose playing decent football".

redspider

iregk wrote:

well lets just say the Liverpool fans in here are sitting very quiet!

The reason why it may seem that we're sitting quiet in here is that we have our own thread on the match.

A very poor night for Liverpool, and a night when many of the home truths came home to roost.

The problems we have had this season have been well documented and I've pointed them out, with poor strikers neither creating nor being able to finish as being one of the main problems.

That problem came back to haunt Liverpool last night with a vengeance. On one occasion Crouch was right through one on one with the Goalie from about 10 yards out yet pathetically hit the shot straight at the keeper. I hope everyone including Benitez have their eyes fully open now in terms of his capability. Garcia also should have done better with his chance. Although Liverpool did manage to hit the woodwork a few times, a side-netting and get the ball into the net, Benfica also had a chance or two.

So where did it all go wrong? Although Hyppia was out and Traore replaced him, this was not a factor. Even for the 1st Benfica goal which was a killer (lets foget about the 2nd one which came at the death when Liverpool were playing risk-football), it was only half-chance that was very well finished. I would blame Carragher about 10% for the goal, perhaps he should have cleared it rather than trying to pass it out, and Traore 20% for letting Simao (one of Liverpool's potential buys!) get a shot off unchallenged. No blame on Reina though and the goal was made 70% by Simao. It was just a brilliant shot.

Liverpool were left with an uphill challenge from that point, and although in previous occasions in the CL (Olympiacos, AC Milan) we have managed to pull 3 goals back when asked, I felt that psychologically asking this off the team again was just a step too far.

Morientes was woeful. I must be saying this for 14 months now as I said it last year too. Benitez, wake up! Also for the fans and the Liverpool board, there is talk about giving Rafa more money, but it is not the total amount of money that a manager gets, its important that he uses it wisely. If anyone writes out a list of signings Rafa has made, what percentage rate does he have of signing good players that are good enough for a starting place. Alonso, yes, a great buy. He did good last night. Anyone else? Reina, ok, no mistakes last night or much throughout the season. This is an exercise that needs to be done. To me, Rafa has a hit rate that is below average.

Back to the game. With Riise injured and Warnock standing in, our attacking potential was reduced further. Riise usually gets up and down the pitch a lot and can support the left midfielder, Kewell in this case. You will all probably have seen that Kewell hugged the touchline too much and hardly got the
ball. He should have changed his approach as the first half progressed and got himself more involved in the mix, coming inside, or switching sides.

Now, there must be some hats off to Benfica and Koeman, who organised his team well in midfield and defence. At times, they were man-marking Gerrard and Alonso, and were snuffing out build-up play in the middle of the park. Gerrard who showed good movement as usual unfortunately had no-one who could play with him in terms of speed and speed of thought up-front. Kewell stayed out wide too much. Garcia tried, but his attempts didnt come off and his crossing was below par, although he had little movement to aim at. Morientes speed of thought was in the snail category. Crouch was Crouch, too slow, big, awkward - crap.

I dont blame Benitez for the selection, although surely Pongolle (I know, he's on loan) would have been better than having Cisse out wide right. Cisse is NOT a winger, how many times does Rafa have to play him there and see him not do it there for him to realise that.

Its frustrating because if we would have had a few different players together, perhaps it could have been a much better result. If Riise was fit, if Fowler was on from the start or Cisse, drop Morientes. Maybe Hamann on from the start with Gerrard out wide right. 0-1 down was not difficult to overcome. The key was to score, and that was something that we just coudlnt do.

We've no-one to blame but ourselves, and the seeds for this have been sown for some time. And surely Baros is better than Crouch or Morientes.

A big lesson for Liverpool last night, and one for Rafa as well. I'm not calling for his head, far from it. He is a type of manager that can learn from his mistakes, but its important that when he is in his own thoughts and blames some of the players for under-performing, that he re-thinks and realises that the reality is that they do not have the capability, which is an entirely different thing. That is his responsibility, to compile a team with capability and to set-up a structure, and then its up to the players to deliver on their own capability and style of play.

I dont blame Crouch as a person, or Cisse or Morientes. They tried their personal best. But they are just not good enough, they just dont have the capability. Rafa needs to recognise that.

I agree with you elruhs about the lack of depth in the squad and the short-list of good enough players.

redspider

ps: Yes, Henry FC certainly did it last night. He was taking on 3 or 4 defenders at a time last night and although there were no goals, it was a very entertaining match for neutrals and either team could have scored a couple. Boy, Ronaldo is sooo sloooow. Lehman saved Arsenal a couple of times but Reyes probably should have stuck at least one away. A fair result though with Arsenal going through.

RE*AC*TOR

I'd like to see Arsenal do well - but I'd also like to see Houllier do well - the man's a gent and I have a lot of time for him. There were plenty of supporters of English teams (on the forum and elsewhere) who weren't supporting Liverpool.
If you like, go back and read the threads.

iregk

redspider wrote:

The reason why it may seem that we're sitting quiet in here is that we have our own thread on the match.

Actually I was talking about work when i said in here!!!!