Are Liverpool ( and Rafa ) done? *Haters Gonna Hate

Boggles

Liverpool are what they were under Houlier, a good cup team.

kryogen

SlickRic wrote: »

in terms of the record books, nobody could give a f***. absolutely.

in terms of how we've progressed over the last few years, it means a decent amount though.

I get your point but im sure you would all take a league title with the lowest points total anywhere in the world then second with the highest points toal in history hat would have been good enough to win the league for the last 78 years!

Pighead

SlickRic wrote: »

in terms of the record books, nobody could give a f***. absolutely.

in terms of how we've progressed over the last few years, it means a decent amount though.

Have they really progressed though? During Houlliers time they were the 3rd/4th best team in the league laying an unattractive brand of football. During Rafa's time (bar one season) they have been the 3rd/4th best team in the league playing an unattractive brand of football.

SlickRic

kryogen wrote: »

I get your point but im sure you would all take a league title with the lowest points total anywhere in the world then second with the highest points toal in history hat would have been good enough to win the league for the last 78 years!

well of course

Mr Alan

Rafa, tactically, is the biggest reason we won the CL. that and the addition of a couple of key players. Alonso & Garcia (Rafas buys were two of the main reasons we won the comp).

& points tallies do mean something, to me anyway. its really only some Utd fans who seem to be off the opinion, "unless you win something,there can be nothing positive about it!".... they can be used to gauge how a team is developing. our team is developing better under Rafa than under Houllier, and to a higher level with us being among the most feared clubs in Europe now.

SlickRic

Pighead wrote: »

Have they really progressed though? During Houlliers time they were the 3rd/4th best team in the league laying an unattractive brand of football. During Rafa's time (bar one season) they have been the 3rd/4th best team in the league playing an unattractive brand of football.

look at the quality of player at the club now.

look at our competitiveness in the Champions League.

look at the improvement of Carragher and Gerrard under Rafa.

we have definitely progressed, and the 'unattractive brand of football' comment is extremely outdated imo. highest scorers in the league last year and all that.

playing 'attractive' football is beside the point anyway; we are a better team now, consistently getting better results than we were under Houllier. Houllier did some decent ground work, but Rafa definitely took us to a different level.

Pighead

Mr Alan wrote: »

Rafa, tactically, is the biggest reason we won the CL. that and the addition of a couple of key players. Alonso & Garcia (Rafas buys were two of the main reasons we won the comp).

& points tallies do mean something, to me anyway. its really only some Utd fans who seem to be off the opinion, "unless you win something,there can be nothing positive about it!".... they can be used to gauge how a team is developing. our team is developing better under Rafa than under Houllier, and to a higher level with us being among the most feared clubs in Europe now.

Think you're still stuck in last season mode there Mr Alan. Liverpool aren't even the most feared team in Merseyside these days, never mind Europe.

You say you can use points totals as a measure to gauge how well the team is progressing, yet this season when Liverpool will undoubtedly finish up with less points than last I guarantee that you'll ignore point totals and throw out excuses as to why it's not Rafa's fault.

mayordenis

Pighead wrote: »

Have they really progressed though? During Houlliers time they were the 3rd/4th best team in the league laying an unattractive brand of football. During Rafa's time (bar one season) they have been the 3rd/4th best team in the league playing an unattractive brand of football.

Ah gway,
last season we were second and destroyed the scoring charts mangling a liteny of teams along the way.

Pighead

mayordenis wrote: »

Ah gway,
last season we were second and destroyed the scoring charts mangling a liteny of teams along the way.

Yes but for something to be considered the norm it generally has to happen more than once. Stiltskin had that one cracking tune but were they a great band? No chance.

Judging by this season thus far last season was a freak occurence. Normal service has been resumed perhaps.

SlickRic

Pighead wrote: »

Judging by this season thus far last season was a freak occurence. Normal service has been resumed perhaps.

it was constant improvement up to this blip.

maybe this is the freak occurance?

mayordenis

Pighead wrote: »

Yes but for something to be considered the norm it generally has to happen more than once. Stiltskin had that one cracking tune but were they a great band? No chance.

Judging by this season thus far last season was a freak occurence. Normal service has been resumed perhaps.

By your own metric whats happened this season is a once off and not normal service.

mayordenis

SlickRic wrote: »

it was constant improvement up to this blip.

maybe this is the freak occurance?

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee6/ccwolfe75/internetHighFive.jpg

Boggles

Mr Alan wrote: »

& points tallies do mean something, to me anyway. its really only some Utd fans who seem to be off the opinion, "unless you win something,there can be nothing positive about it!"....

"If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing." - Bill Shankly

CHD

Boggles wrote: »

"If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing." - Bill Shankly

Like United at the moment

Ardent

kryogen wrote: »

Funny that you think Houllier had so little to do with the Champions League win considering it was basically his squad of players, that he assembled, that won it

We won the CL in spite of Houllier's players, not because of them.

SlickRic

Boggles wrote: »

"If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing." - Bill Shankly

thanks Boggles.

but as has already been said; in terms of the record books, Shankly couldn't be more right.

that doesn't take away from the fact you can still track the progress of a team, and make judgments accordingly.

Pighead

SlickRic wrote: »

it was constant improvement up to this blip.

maybe this is the freak occurance?

mayordenis wrote: »

By your own metric whats happened this season is a once off and not normal service.

Here's rafa's points totals for the past five seasons.
58, 82, 68, 76, 82.

Assuming he gets less than 82 points this season (pretty likely in fairness) his progression will read
Up, Down, Up, Up, Down. Nothing too spectacular there in fairness.

mayordenis

Pighead wrote: »

Here's rafa's points totals for the past five seasons.
58, 82, 68, 76, 82.

Assuming he gets less than 82 points this season (pretty likely in fairness) his progression will read
Up, Down, Up, Up, Down. Nothing too spectacular there in fairness.

I never said anything like that, I just said that you are saying the current situation is "normal service" which is totally incorrect.

edit anyway

your points totals aren't totally correct
86 last season, previous to his arrival our highest premier league total was 80 - which he's now beaten twice,

in premiership years pre rafa 65.91 points average since his arrival 74 points average.

Pighead

mayordenis wrote: »

I never said anything like that, I just said that you are saying the current situation is "normal service" which is totally incorrect.

Normal service as in not realistic title challengers.

The Davestator

Quote from Irish Times site today;

"Bad signings. Fact A poor transfer market record. Fact Negative, defensive unattractive football. Fact. Unnecessary tinkering. Fact Unexplainable outbursts. Fact He hasnt delivered the main aim for the club (which is the league championship) after 5 attempts. Fact Terrible man management caused one of the best midfielders to leave the club last year. Fact Morientes was managed to look like a donkey. Fact. He's mishandled Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch when Liverpool are crying out for an extra striker now. Fact. Torres is being played with a debilitating injury. Fact. The senior team has lost half their games in the league, have 4 points from a possible 12 in the champions league and limped out of the league cup. Fact. Liverpool are competeing solely for th FA cup and we're not even into the second week of November. Fact. That goatee is absolutely atrocious. Fact. When was the last time a decent youth player came through the ranks? Question. Time to go Rafael, you've been living on borrowed time since the Champions league winning team assembled by Houllier. One mans opinion. "

A lot of good facts in their imo.

SlickRic

no point going through everything in that.

suffice to say not much of that is 'fact'.

the best bits...

Morientes' failure is Rafa's fault?

Crouch leaving Rafa's fault?

Tinkering? really?

negative and unattractive?

awesome.

mayordenis

The Davestator wrote: »

Quote from Irish Times site today;

"Bad signings. Fact A poor transfer market record. Fact Negative, defensive unattractive football. Fact. Unnecessary tinkering. Fact Unexplainable outbursts. Fact He hasnt delivered the main aim for the club (which is the league championship) after 5 attempts. Fact Terrible man management caused one of the best midfielders to leave the club last year. Fact Morientes was managed to look like a donkey. Fact. He's mishandled Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch when Liverpool are crying out for an extra striker now. Fact. Torres is being played with a debilitating injury. Fact. The senior team has lost half their games in the league, have 4 points from a possible 12 in the champions league and limped out of the league cup. Fact. Liverpool are competeing solely for th FA cup and we're not even into the second week of November. Fact. That goatee is absolutely atrocious. Fact. When was the last time a decent youth player came through the ranks? Question. Time to go Rafael, you've been living on borrowed time since the Champions league winning team assembled by Houllier. One mans opinion. "

A lot of good facts in their imo.

Serious that's total drivel -

"Bad signings. Fact" no it's not.

"A poor transfer market record. Fact" same point as the first, still not a fact.

"Negative, defensive unattractive football. Fact." certainly not true, maybe in the later stages of some competitions but liverpool under benitez have had some of the most outstandingly entertaining games of football in living memory and plenty of massively high scoring performance.

"Fact Unexplainable outbursts." ??? What the Ferguson Fact thing? He was bang on.

"Fact He hasnt delivered the main aim for the club (which is the league championship) after 5 attempts." true, but I think it's also acceptable if disapointing. He has a huge job on his hands.

"Fact Terrible man management caused one of the best midfielders to leave the club last year." That's not a fact, graet man management got Alonso to play his best football in his career last season, great work in the transfer market brough Alonso to our club for 1/3 of what we sold him for, he wanted to go end of.

"Fact Morientes was managed to look like a donkey." Morientes is anything but a donkey but coming into the Premier League at that stage in his career was too much to ask (look at sheva)

"He's mishandled Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch when Liverpool are crying out for an extra striker now." Yep he should of droped Torres for Crouch, and look how bad we player last season once robbie left.

"Torres is being played with a debilitating injury. Fact." I reckon the word debilitating is something this "journalist" is not familiar with.

"The senior team has lost half their games in the league, have 4 points from a possible 12 in the champions league and limped out of the league cup. Fact." Yep everyone agrees our form in League and Europe is shocking, give us 4 weeks and then we'll have a conclusive answer on whether europe is out of the question and maybe we'll have a more definitive answer on what our hopes are for the league.
League cup? senior team? nah **** that.

"Liverpool are competeing solely for th FA cup and we're not even into the second week of November." see the above point.

"That goatee is absolutely atrocious. Fact." Seriously, this kind of line appearing in a broadsheet is actually a massive indictment of society right now.

"When was the last time a decent youth player came through the ranks? Question." Insua. Kelly. Ayala. Insua becoming a frist team regular, the other 2 making first team appearances and looking like future first teamers.

"Time to go Rafael, you've been living on borrowed time since the Champions league winning team assembled by Houllier. One mans opinion." :rolleyes:

SlickRic

fair play, i was not bothered going into that detail.

wandatowell

With all the sh1t Rafa has had to put up with he deserves some kudos IMO. Having to work with those two septic tanks is an impossible job. No way would Wenger or Fergie or any other top class manager put up with it.

The 'pool are going through a torrid time but now is the time to keep the faith and support the team and the manager.

whatawaster

The Davestator wrote: »

Quote from Irish Times site today;

"Bad signings. Fact A poor transfer market record. Fact Negative, defensive unattractive football. Fact. Unnecessary tinkering. Fact Unexplainable outbursts. Fact He hasnt delivered the main aim for the club (which is the league championship) after 5 attempts. Fact Terrible man management caused one of the best midfielders to leave the club last year. Fact Morientes was managed to look like a donkey. Fact. He's mishandled Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch when Liverpool are crying out for an extra striker now. Fact. Torres is being played with a debilitating injury. Fact. The senior team has lost half their games in the league, have 4 points from a possible 12 in the champions league and limped out of the league cup. Fact. Liverpool are competeing solely for th FA cup and we're not even into the second week of November. Fact. That goatee is absolutely atrocious. Fact. When was the last time a decent youth player came through the ranks? Question. Time to go Rafael, you've been living on borrowed time since the Champions league winning team assembled by Houllier. One mans opinion. "

A lot of good facts in their imo.

I've rarely read a worse paragraph

K-9

It's encouraging to see the same types predicting Liverpool would fall away last season, saying Liverpool will struggle to qualify for a Top 4 finish this year.

m@cc@

mayordenis wrote: »

"He's mishandled Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch when Liverpool are crying out for an extra striker now." Yep he should of droped Torres for Crouch, and look how bad we player last season once robbie left.

Don't think that's what the piece was trying to suggest. What it is trying to suggest is how they were allowed to leave and leave the team in a position where the back up for Torres consists of N'Gog, Voronin and Babel.

mayordenis

m@cc@ wrote: »

Don't think that's what the piece was trying to suggest. What it is trying to suggest is how they were allowed to leave and leave the team in a position where the back up for Torres consists of N'Gog, Voronin and Babel.

Well I disagree personally, you can't hold players against there will Crouch wanted to leave, and off he went.

Keane is a messy affair but for me we've performed better since his departure, the squad was unharmonious while he was there, and we had to act quickly to make a smaller financial loss on that.

SlickRic

keane, he mishandled maybe. that's definitely arguable.

crouch he didn't. crouch wanted to start ahead of torres, good luck. i'm sure he was told the position, and he decided he'd prefer to play every week for Pompey.

rafa cannot be blamed for that one.

ntlbell

K-9 wrote: »

It's encouraging to see the same types predicting Liverpool would fall away last season, saying Liverpool will struggle to qualify for a Top 4 finish this year.

lets face it, one has to find encouragement from somewhere at this point

mayordenis

ntlbell wrote: »

lets face it

lets not.

ntlbell

mayordenis wrote: »

Well I disagree personally, you can't hold players against there will Crouch wanted to leave, and off he went.

Keane is a messy affair but for me we've performed better since his departure, the squad was unharmonious while he was there, and we had to act quickly to make a smaller financial loss on that.

I think this is a perfect example of _why_ rafa is a bad man manager and manager in general.

he's given one of the top strikers in the prem and his team performs drops? lol

so it was nothing to do with dropping him after games he scored, never giving him a chance to get a run in the team

how many coaches does rafa have at his disposal? backroom staff? etc

and yet still he can't figure out a way to deploy one of the best strikers in the premier league.

then flings him out like some old bit of half time orange peel.

yes, it was robbie's fault.

and liverpool fans question everyone else who things they're delusional...

ntlbell

mayordenis wrote: »

lets not.

excellent contribution.

as usual.

cutting.

K-9

ntlbell wrote: »

lets face it, one has to find encouragement from somewhere at this point

:rolleyes:

Just pointing out the Nay sayers where wrong last year.

Not counting the always Nay Sayers in that.

ntlbell

K-9 wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Just pointing out the Nay sayers where wrong last year.

Not counting the always Nay Sayers in that.

yay sayers "liverpool will win the league, this is our year"

nay sayers "no you won't"

united win the league.

nay sayers eh, who'd have em

K-9

ntlbell wrote: »

I think this is a perfect example of _why_ rafa is a bad man manager and manager in general.

he's given one of the top strikers in the prem and his team performs drops? lol

so it was nothing to do with dropping him after games he scored, never giving him a chance to get a run in the team

how many coaches does rafa have at his disposal? backroom staff? etc

and yet still he can't figure out a way to deploy one of the best strikers in the premier league.

then flings him out like some old bit of half time orange peel.

yes, it was robbie's fault.

and liverpool fans question everyone else who things they're delusional...

Thought you were talking about Crouch for a sec there.

Never agreed with the signing of Keane myself.

Really, who has been able to manage Keane? I think Keane with Crouch would have worked.

K-9

ntlbell wrote: »

yay sayers "liverpool will win the league, this is our year"

nay sayers "no you won't"

united win the league.

nay sayers eh, who'd have em

Did I post that?

ntlbell

K-9 wrote: »

Really, who has been able to manage Keane? I think Keane with Crouch would have worked.

goal every 2.4 games over 8 seasons?

i guess no manager has cracked it yet :rolleyes:

whatawaster

ntlbell wrote: »

I think this is a perfect example of _why_ rafa is a bad man manager and manager in general.

he's given one of the top strikers in the prem and his team performs drops? lol

so it was nothing to do with dropping him after games he scored, never giving him a chance to get a run in the team

how many coaches does rafa have at his disposal? backroom staff? etc

and yet still he can't figure out a way to deploy one of the best strikers in the premier league.

then flings him out like some old bit of half time orange peel.

yes, it was robbie's fault.

and liverpool fans question everyone else who things they're delusional...

Keane has been terrible since going back to spurs by and large.
It was his fault. 90% of his performances for us were terrible. He had ample opportunities

ntlbell

whatawaster wrote: »

Keane has been terrible since going back to spurs by and large.
It was his fault. 90% of his performances for us were terrible. He had ample opportunities

this is the sort of thing that annoys most people about liverpool fans.

blind faith.

it's sort of cute in a way, but mostly it's just annoying an irritating.

keane since going back's record is 1 in 2??

I thought even while not getting the goals, alot of his performances whiile not exceptional were competent.

nice hold up play, few assits and a few goals

he made a total of 19 app's in the prem, and most of the time didn't start

that's bang on _half_ the games.

how many minutes out of them 19 did he play in?

this is how we bleed players into a team?

his handling of keane was shocking

you have to credit rafa for certain things is handling and man management of keane is not one of them, and i don't think this sort of thing is a one off, there's too much smoke around his man management for there to be no fire.

mayordenis

ntlbell wrote: »

you have to credit rafa for certain things is handling and man management of keane is not one of them, and i don't think this sort of thing is a one off, there's too much smoke around his man management for there to be no fire.

I would love to see what you give Rafa credit for.

ntlbell

mayordenis wrote: »

I would love to see what you give Rafa credit for.

well he never tires of trying to flog an aul goat.

gotta give him something

whatawaster

ntlbell wrote: »

this is the sort of thing that annoys most people about liverpool fans.

blind faith.

it's sort of cute in a way, but mostly it's just annoying an irritating.

keane since going back's record is 1 in 2??

I thought even while not getting the goals, alot of his performances whiile not exceptional were competent.

nice hold up play, few assits and a few goals

he made a total of 19 app's in the prem, and most of the time didn't start

that's bang on _half_ the games.

how many minutes out of them 19 did he play in?

this is how we bleed players into a team?

his handling of keane was shocking

you have to credit rafa for certain things is handling and man management of keane is not one of them, and i don't think this sort of thing is a one off, there's too much smoke around his man management for there to be no fire.

Far more players are positive about Rafa than not.
Particularly people like Hamann, Hyypia and Riise who have left the club and were all top pros.
Pennant wasn't so positive . . .

mayordenis

whatawaster wrote: »

Far more players are positive about Rafa than not.
Particularly people like Hamann, Hyypia and Riise who have left the club and were all top pros.
Pennant wasn't so positive . . .

But Keane is such a positive influence on the pitch he's always encouraging his team mates and applauding the idea...never acting the maggot throwing his arms in the air, not playing where he's told.

ntlbell

whatawaster wrote: »

Far more players are positive about Rafa than not.
Particularly people like Hamann, Hyypia and Riise who have left the club and were all top pros.
Pennant wasn't so positive . . .

so were you happy how he managed keane?

were you happy with the treatment of him?

after keane described how he was treated were you not slightly embarrassed?

it was a disgrace.

nothing short of it.

not surprised them 3 were so nice.

3 mediocre players given more chances than they deserved.

who wouldnt be

K-9

ntlbell wrote: »

goal every 2.4 games over 8 seasons?

i guess no manager has cracked it yet :rolleyes:

For Spurs.

He isn't a top 4 First team starter.

He doesn't want to be a squad player.

Ironically, Keane is proof of a bad Rafa (debatable) buy. You arguing otherwise tells me a lot.

K-9

K-9 wrote: »

Did I post that?

Did you see this post?

ntlbell

mayordenis wrote: »

But Keane is such a positive influence on the pitch he's always encouraging his team mates and applauding the idea...never acting the maggot throwing his arms in the air, not playing where he's told.

when you play one of the best strikers in the league in a team full of mediocrity

you probably get frustrated.

stevie g has never let roar for stupid passes.

given his team mates a mouthful

and moaned constantly about being played in the wrong position publicly in the press

this shirt looks creased

whatawaster

ntlbell wrote: »

so were you happy how he managed keane?

were you happy with the treatment of him?

after keane described how he was treated were you not slightly embarrassed?

it was a disgrace.

nothing short of it.

not surprised them 3 were so nice.

3 mediocre players given more chances than they deserved.

who wouldnt be

f*ck off. Hamman and Hyypia mediocre.

how was it a disgrace how keane was treated. He was paid a fortune by the club during his short spell there. Got plenty of chances on the pitch. how was it a disgrace.
He's not fit to lace Hamman or Hyypia's boots.

kryogen

K-9 wrote: »

For Spurs.

He isn't a top 4 First team starter.

He doesn't want to be a squad player.

Ironically, Keane is proof of a bad Rafa (debtable) buy. Why you are saying otherwise tells me a lot.

i dont fully agree with that statement, i think Keane could do a job for a top four team, i mean if United had Berba and Keane together (very hypothetical) do you not think their great partnership at Spurs would continue to flourish?

Oddly enough i remember how many pool fans at the time were raving about how they got the better striker! now he isnt good enough to be a top 4 striker?

he wasnt right for the system Rafa uses, and this makes a pretty excellent arguement of why he should never have been bought and was a bad buy of course But if he was in a team who actually provided a strike partner for him and gave them time to gel there is no reason why he wouldnt be good enough for a top 4 team