Captain Cheesestick

Yeah I know I just loathe it when they say it on Match of The Day.

It's up there with when they say "well he took the ball before the man." Who cares - it's a foul either way in the rule book. I'm glad Mike Riley - tosser that he is - made such a fuss about it when he was on there once. He said it's the most misunderstood rule in football. He put it this way - if you're a goalkeeper and punch the ball and then follow through into the opponent players face is it a foul? Yes of course it is, so it's the same with your foot.

koogar

Well, I've woken up to worse news.
What's with the home form this season though?
United are to only team in the top 4 who have won more games at home than they've won away.
That's seems pretty odd to me.

fraser

More freedom away from home, fans get behind their teams real supporters.

Home games have football tourists who jump on every mistake and lack patience causing teams to be edgy.

Manc

Here is the thing......

Gerrard Alonso Mascherano > Scholes Fletcher Carrick
Torres > Berbatov
Reina > VDS
Kuyt > Park Ji Sung
by age I'd take Babel over Giggs (although Giggs is stellar) now.....

so that leaves the United back 4 > Scousers back 4

and Rooney and Ronaldo > N'gog and Benayoun / Lucas Leiva

so I don't understand why Liverpool are so far behind other than management........

and if that is the case the Rafa has to go.

elfman

I don't like "saved by the woodwork" - really? did the post leap out of the ground and block the shot? No - the shot wasn't on target and that was what prevented the goal.

iaink

Try that excercise with the backup players, and its obvious why liverpool are behind

You have to suspect that financial resources are a part of that. Liverpool have spent a fair amount, but it always seems to be to strengthen the "first" XI as someone ends up leaving. Man U's strength in depth cant be touched by anyone else in the league unfortunately.

After the draw with city, it looks like its all over bar the shouting now to me Liverpool are crying out for someone other than Gerard and Alonso who can open up these tight defensive games. A winger would be nice, David Silva perhaps, but I expect there will be a long line of clubs bidding for him, so why he would come to Liverpool is beyond me.

zargof

I tend to agree with you there, except I don't rate Alonso. I think Rafa's main problem is he doesn't know how to handle a team that defend in numbers and don't let Liverpool have time on the ball.

There's also the fact that Rafa has let off the field distractions get to him and it seems to have affected the team's performance.

Personally I think Rafa is doing a fantastic job as Liverpool manager, and I hope he stays there for a long long time...

Captain Cheesestick

Spot on there Manc.

Rafa will leave at the end of the season, if not 4 or 5 games before the end if Liverpool go out of the Champions League and go 9/10 points behind Manure. At which point the Spaniards will up and bugger off.

BUT I think the bigger news at the end of this year will be Arsene Wenger leaving Arsenal. Yeah I said it. 5 years with nothing? Not good enough. Fabregas, Adebayor, Van Persie and Kolo Toure will be off too.

Manc

agreed, they'll all be off if they don't qualify for the Champions League.

Manc

they are Rafa signings though....... 35 players in the Liverpool first team.......

Captain Cheesestick

That's why he's clearly being a baby about having full financial control. He's blown ALOT on fringe players he has then sold a year later. And that childish pish with Robbie Keane - just dumb. Not having a replacement was just very poor management.

iaink

Yup Rafas signings, but I think its a side effect of the way the money is available as much as anything, even under Houlier and before, the big money hasnt been there, so you have the choice of;

spend 20M on two or three mediocre squad level players

spend 20M on one big name player and have a thin squad as a consequence

sell someone to clear wages and generate a bit of money to bring in others.

Hes not in the situation Ferguson is where he can spend 20M on Hargreaves and then 20M on a similar player like Carrick in short order. Now, realistically Liverpool cant compete financially with Man U, the grounds too small, the global marketing not as strong, but I think this summer demonstrated some of the problems at liverpool pretty graphically. He wanted barry and silva too, but not enough money to go around, so he ends up paying over the odds with keane and having no one to supply him and no system he easily fit into. You cant help but think the reason he was sold so suddnely was cos another payment date was coming up?

The other problem at liverpool is the academy hasnt produced any top tallent in a generation, and the scouts are not picking up too many young tallented players for peanuts either.

Manc

Thydney

It's hard to feel sorry

DaveLovesDee

They can't spell Scouse properly, or is that a deliberate slur on Scousers.