Liverpool Rumours And General Discussion 2007/2008

KdjaCL

mr alan PI and LGB seriously




kdjac

Zapp Brannigan

PSI's a woman? But, but....women know nothing of football?! Outrage!

I keeed, I keeeed

Very disappointed with today's result, but onwards and upwards. If we don't raise our game Inter are going to seriously embarrass us!

IrishMike

mike65 wrote: »

A bit of me hopes Inter wins as that could be Rafas last game in charge. Herasy I know but it may be better for all concerned - he has lost the dressing room as far as I can tell. A new boom might sweep clean esp as there would only be the league to focus on.

Mike.

+1
It sickens me to say it though.
Can Rafa sell himself in the transfer window?
Would be the best bit of business Liverpool would have done in 5 years outside of buying torres

IrishMike

Pighead wrote: »

Ah Jesus not more Alanisms, you're keeping me busy here buddy!





http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53852558&postcount=774
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53853033&postcount=781

Hahaha classic
Pighead for admin!

Mr Alan

who would people want to replace him?

Pighead

Lippi.

Italian Managers are all the rage these days dontcha know.

Spanish managers are so 2005.

Mr Alan

just watching these highlights, **** me there goalie had the game of his life!

Racing Flat

Mr Alan wrote: »

who would people want to replace him?

Looks like we missed the boat for Staunton. Bet Rafa was relieved when he signed for Leeds.:D

Peyton Manning

Mr Alan wrote: »

just watching these highlights, **** me there goalie had the game of his life!

You can tell he's ex-United!

LuckyLloyd

Just watched the highights and feel much better after it. Meh. We created tons and tons of good chances; should have scored at least three; and their winning goal was a moment of brilliance. These things happen in football, but enough effort and work was put in to win the game - which means I can't be too disappointed as a fan.

Annoying, but no more than that. Roll on Tuesday and Inter Milan. COME ON THE POOL!!

Racing Flat

Just saw Rafa on MOTD and it struck me - it's the goatee! Wonder if he got rid of that would everything be okay?

Mr Alan

same thing occured to me earlier!:)

mike65

No the only thing that would make things okay is if Ken and Deidre get marrried for a third time, a new Dr Who arrives, a new Pope is elected and a few other bits and pieces.

Mike.

Racing Flat

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Just watched the highights and feel much better after it. Meh. We created tons and tons of good chances; should have scored at least three; and their winning goal was a moment of brilliance. These things happen in football, but enough effort and work was put in to win the game - which means I can't be too disappointed as a fan.

Annoying, but no more than that. Roll on Tuesday and Inter Milan. COME ON THE POOL!!

Agree in general, it's just there's been too many 'Annoying' games in the last few months

mike65

Thier winning goal involved Carra backing off and turning away, no?

Mike.

astrofool

I think Carra has been found out a bit this season, I dare say, Liverpool probably need to go out and buy a really top class centre half and rely on Agger as his partner, with Skrtel/Carra as 3rd/4th choice.

Mr Alan

disagree totally. just think that Carragher needs to playing alongside someone who has a bit of pace ie with Hypia, Carragher is the quick defender in the duo, which does not bode well!

_blank_

astrofool wrote: »

with Skrtel/Carra as 3rd/4th choice.

Are you judging Skrtel on the games he's played since joining?

ffs like, give him a chance. It was least half a season before Vidic settled in at Man Utd, and look at him now.

Mr Alan

plus Skertle looked pretty excellent against Chelsea alongside Carragher, and Carra looked his solid self as Skrtel is quick enough.

as i said carra alongside somone with a little pace is still among the best in the league.

leninbenjamin

astrofool wrote: »

I think Carra has been found out a bit this season, I dare say, Liverpool probably need to go out and buy a really top class centre half and rely on Agger as his partner, with Skrtel/Carra as 3rd/4th choice.

he's not been found out. he's been as good as he always was, but he's only as good as who he plays with. bit like Terry, throwing himself everywhere, but if get's it wrong if he doesn't have someone like Carvalho or Ferdinand to sweep behind him he's ****. a centre half is only as good as his partner.

and back on Crouch, he always plays with his back to goal. he's not a playmaker, he's not a finisher, but he's a damn good outlet if you have midfielders good enough to support him. he only goes "backwards" because the damn midfielders dont follow up on their passes... yet Benitez always leaves him isolated...

Kimbot

Rafa should shoulder a bit of blame for taking Babel off, but the main people that should shoulder the blame for today are the players. There were plenty of chances to finish off the game but they didn't do it.

IF Rafa has lost the dressing room then brink back PACO......... Maybe there will be a "Bring Back PACO" march outside Anfield soon...

mayordenis

i would love to see his pass completition ratio(crouch that is) i just really think it would be dreadful he losses the ball more than garcia and benayoun combined

Mr Alan

Paco was at a Liverpool reserve match the other night supposedly.

zing

So was Paco

astrofool

DesF wrote: »

Are you judging Skrtel on the games he's played since joining?

ffs like, give him a chance. It was least half a season before Vidic settled in at Man Utd, and look at him now.

I'm not dissing on Skrtel, just that Carra mightn't be up to it as a CB for a title challenge, and might be better utilised at RB, with another CB coming in (could be Skrtel, but as you said, it's early days for him yet). Carra doesn't seem to be able to link up with the team from the back, has been giving away a lot of penalties, and seems a yard off the pace he should be at (even given Hyppia's slowness).

Mr Alan

omg, Carragher has been among the top centre halves in the premier league for the last 4 years, with people like Franco Breasi and John Terry refering to him as a contender for the best centre half in the world, few bad games and now he is not good enough to be in a title winning team?! i despair. i really do.

PHB

DesF wrote: »

lol

Was PHB playing for Liverpool today?

I think Liverpool would have won if I was playing for them today.

Carragher is too defensive to be a RB in a title winning team, doesn't offer enough going forward. Carragher is a fine defender, personally I don't think he's top of the world or whatever, but he's a solid defender. With a defensive midfielder protecting him, he pretty much does everything you can ask of a defender. It's like how Terry is magnificant for Chelsea with Makelele in front of him, but **** for England though. Carragher will always have trouble in an attack minded formation, largely because of his pace. But if he has somebody next to him with those attributes, it's fine (Like Vidic has with Ferdinand). Carragher not being 'good' enough is the absolute least of your problems

---

All I can say is lol. Jesus christ, what an absolute joke. Liverpools 'stars' were rested today, it's ****ing Barnsley.
I think we can discern a couple of things from this

A. Rafa cannot figure out a system which gets the best from his players in an attacking sense.
B. Rafa has lost the ability to motivate his players for non-huge matches
And I'm pretty sure about this one
C. If Rafa does not beat Inter, he will be gone without any doubt.

I think the owners, even if DIC do come in, will fire him.
He might go instantly, he might go at the end of the season, but personally, my feeling of the type of person Rafa is, is that he might consider resigning, and maybe he should.

In a battle for 4th with Everton, City, and Villa
Out of the FA Cup to Barnsley
Scrapped through a piss-easy CL group, about to face the Italian league leaders and in-form team in Europe
After spending a lot of money in the summer, the team has regressed

None of this makes any sense, which I guess goes to show people how fine the line between success and failure is.

leninbenjamin

PHB wrote: »

I think the owners, even if DIC do come in, will fire him.

it's been mentioned somewhere that DIC have even less time for him than the American duo. if they do buy in he'll be gone instantly I'd imagine.

el rabitos

Mr Alan wrote: »

omg, Carragher has been among the top centre halves in the premier league for the last 4 years, with people like Franco Breasi and John Terry refering to him as a contender for the best centre half in the world, few bad games and now he is not good enough to be in a title winning team?! i despair. i really do.

carragher is a fine defender, his reading of the game is up there with the best, the same goes for hyypia. but both are weak when it comes to linking up with the midfield.

neither are comfortable on the ball, and thats ok. cannavaro and other top defenders are just that, defenders, they dont like to play around with the ball, they win it or the oppositions play is stopped and they pass it on quickly, thats what they do, thats what they excel at. but when you have 2 players like carra and hyypia with the same faults (for want of a better word) in their game, it starts to work against you.

agger compliments carragher perfectly, he's a near by option for a pass and he's more than comfortable on the ball, without him there carraghers giving the ball away far more often, punt upfield after punt upfield, i'm sick of looking at him do that, its a shocking bad quality in his game.

add to all that:

- he's had a couple of injurys
- he's compensating for hyypia's lack of pace too often.
- riises been all over the place this year
- aurelio is in and out and in and out the past 2 years
- arbeloa is on the left, no he's on the right, no he's in the middle??
- finnan is having a pretty poor season by his own standards

between players in and out of form and in and out with injurys we've been all over the place at the back. 'm more suprised lately when we keep a clean sheet.

i dont even know what to make of that match. a new low, thats all i'll say.

now watch us beat inter. thats how fcuked up we are.

Melion

We'll get a draw against Inter and everyone will be happy again. Then we'll do them at Anfield

Dub13

Melion wrote: »

We'll get a draw against Inter and everyone will be happy again. Then we'll do them at Anfield

We came second in our group....our first match against Inter is at Anfield

Tusky

You cant help but feel if Liverpool dont progress past Inter-Milan, Rafa is gone at the end of the season.

Not challenging in the league
Out of fa cup
Out of Carling cup
Scraped through the group stages of Champions League.

If it were up to me I would give him one more season. Buy some new players in the summer and have a good go at it next year. If we fail to challenge next year, he should go.

KevIRL

Melion wrote: »

We'll get a draw against Inter and everyone will be happy again. Then we'll do them at Anfield

lol, just LOL

Melion

Apologies, got my fixtures the wrong way around. We'll beat them at Anfield on Tuesday and get a draw in Milan. Either way, everyone will be happy again.

Tusky

Melion wrote: »

Apologies, got my fixtures the wrong way around. We'll beat them at Anfield on Tuesday and get a draw in Milan. Either way, everyone will be happy again.

Not really. If we don't win the champions league, this season has been a failure.

Melion

Tusky wrote: »

Not really. If we don't win the champions league, this season has been a failure.

If we knock out Inter the Barnsley game will be forgotten about

Guy:Incognito

Melion wrote: »

If we knock out Inter the Barnsley game will be forgotten about

Doesnt change the fact that it happened. Plus we are then relying on winning the cl (while trying to also scrape 4th in the league) to make the season even remotely salvageable.

Melion

Stekelly wrote: »

Doesnt change the fact that it happened. Plus we are then relying on winning the cl (while trying to also scrape 4th in the league) to make the season even remotely salvageable.

If we were to win the CL nobody would care that Barnsley knocked us out. Without googling or anything can you instantly remember who knocked us out in 2005? A lot worse than Barnsley you'll remember

el rabitos

Melion wrote: »

If we were to win the CL nobody would care that Barnsley knocked us out. Without googling or anything can you instantly remember who knocked us out in 2005? A lot worse than Barnsley you'll remember

traore knocked us out. we all remember that one

Guy:Incognito

Melion wrote: »

If we were to win the CL nobody would care that Barnsley knocked us out. Without googling or anything can you instantly remember who knocked us out in 2005? A lot worse than Barnsley you'll remember

Burnely wasnt it? The Troare "backheel"?

My point was though, we are now basing our whole season on winning the CL, not even oing well in it, winning the bloody thing. At the end of the day we are more likely not to win it than win it and if we end up in 5th or 6th place we are going to be playing UEFA cup football next season.

Tusky

Melion wrote: »

If we were to win the CL nobody would care that Barnsley knocked us out. Without googling or anything can you instantly remember who knocked us out in 2005? A lot worse than Barnsley you'll remember

Melion, its not simply the fact that Barnsley knocked us out..its the whole season. I couldn't care less who knocked us out. Even if we progress past Inter, thats not gonna make people happy about the season as a whole. The fact is, the only chance we have at a trophy is in the Champions League. We have to win it AND finish in the top 4 for the season to be remembered in a good light.

PHB

Rafa has to win the CL imo to have anything close to a sucessful season, even then I'd still say it was a poor season, since his goal was clearly the PL.

Nobody will remember losing to Barnsley if you win the CL, but even if you beat Inter, there's still a long way to go

Melion

Just a quick thought i had while watching LFC tv just now.

Anyone think we could lose Stevie this summer? He is out of contract in summer 2009, we could lose him for nothing if we arent top of the table by this time next year. He wants to win trophies and if it doesnt look like that we are going to then surely he will be off and for a lot less than we could get for him this summer.

DSB

I'm baffled by the amount of Liverpool fans that think they're going to beat Inter, its surely possible, but I'd be so shocked. Huge difference in class between the sides, and confidence will be rock bottom in the Liverpool camp.

Helix

DSB wrote: »

I'm baffled by the amount of Liverpool fans that think they're going to beat Inter, its surely possible, but I'd be so shocked. Huge difference in class between the sides, and confidence will be rock bottom in the Liverpool camp.

liverpool fans are deluded for the most part, about absolutely every facet of their club

~Rebel~

Didn't see it mentioned, but apparantly we enquired about Real Madrid's Diarra (http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_3156483,00.html). Was during the transfer window, so we must have been closer then we feared to losing Masch. No way we'd be looking for him otherwise, unless Alonso's days are really numbered. Id nearly prefer to hang onto Alonso i think.

Id imagine with his value estimated at close to 20mill we wont be pursuing it anyway. Money is needed much more in other areas, and Masch looks to be as good as ours.

On our season, I agree with the general consensus that anything other then at least a fairly comfortable 4th finish and a champions league semi final would be a complete failure, and even that would be a bad season.

Rafa absolutely has to show between now and the end of the season that he can still get the team to string a decent number of wins together. Its been a looong time since we've got, say, 6 wins on the bounce, and he needs to prove he hasn't lost the dressing room.

DSB wrote: »

I'm baffled by the amount of Liverpool fans that think they're going to beat Inter, its surely possible, but I'd be so shocked. Huge difference in class between the sides, and confidence will be rock bottom in the Liverpool camp.

I wouldn't say im anything like certain, but i definately think we have a very decent chance of beating them. These games aren't Liverpools problem, Liverpool are rubbish against smaller teams, but fairly consistently good against bigger teams. We could well lose out, but it WILL be a tight affair, just like Juventus was, just like barca was, just like Chelsea was X2, just like Milan was X2.

citytillidie

Helix wrote: »

liverpool fans are deluded for the most part, about absolutely every facet of their club

Or it could be like last season with everyone expecting Liverpool to get tanked by Barca, with the fall out at the training camp before hand and all.

Tusky

DSB wrote: »

I'm baffled by the amount of Liverpool fans that think they're going to beat Inter, its surely possible, but I'd be so shocked. Huge difference in class between the sides, and confidence will be rock bottom in the Liverpool camp.

I'm not confident of beating Inter but I still think we have a good chance. Under Rafa (over the last 3 years) we have knocked out.

Chelsea x2
A.C Milan
Juventus
Barcelona

Thats why people are confident.

Rafa absolutely has to show between now and the end of the season that he can still get the team to string a decent number of wins together. Its been a looong time since we've got, say, 6 wins on the bounce, and he needs to prove he hasn't lost the dressing room.

6 wins ? When was the last time we had 3 wins on the trot ?

[edit] Just checked our results.

We went on a 5 match winning streak which started with Besiktas on the 6th November & ended with Reading on 8th December. Before that we had one other winning streak of 3 matches, Sunderland, Toulouse & Derby at the start of the season. Apart from that we havent won more than 2 matches in a row.

~Rebel~

Tusky wrote: »

6 wins ? When was the last time we had 3 wins on the trot ?

Too true, but even an improvement isnt enough, he needs to show title challenging form for the next few months. In Short, we need to be pretty much the best team in england until the end of the season for Rafa to have a decent shot at keeping his job. If the rot continues in the league, he's gone imo.

el rabitos

DSB wrote: »

I'm baffled by the amount of Liverpool fans that think they're going to beat Inter, its surely possible, but I'd be so shocked. Huge difference in class between the sides, and confidence will be rock bottom in the Liverpool camp.

forgot inter were renowned for steam rolling their way through teams in europe. we've no hope