Premier League whopper weekend 12/13 December

They may look distinctly different. But the stench coming out of Anfield is decidedly similar. Like Houllier's side in 2004, Benitez's Liverpool appear to have reached that crisis point where a paper thin squad collides head-on with fragile confidence, an alarming lack of wit and invention and more worryingly than anything, absolutely zero fight.

For the Diao's, Dioufs, Traores, Biscans and Cheyrou's of 2004, look no further than the likes of Lucas, Ngog, Degen of 2009. None of the above are terrible footballers. But they are all no where near the required standard for a team that has expectations of winning the title or at least challenging for it.

Houllier's side that fateful season was full of dross. But ultimately it was his dross. He signed them. He picked them. And he got what he deserved in the end.

It pains me to say it, but i see so much similarity now with the squad that Benitez has built and the performances are going much the same way. Just as in 2004 after 6 seasons with Houllier, i think perhaps it's time to accept that the Benitez era has run its course.


-----------------------------------

It's proper deja vu all over again. Houllier complained in his last year about ex-players criticising his rubbish players, tactics. We've had 5 years to work out Rafa's beliefs and they can be summed up as: defensive, exaggerated idea that can turn cr@p players into good, lousy youth system, divisive, pig-headed stubborness.

-------------------------------------

Rafa reminds me of tin cup.

You know that impossible shot at the end. He's trying for the win and takes a risk to get it. But he fails, so tries the same shot again, again, again, again etc until it goes in.

-----------------------------------------------------

100% Right, the only problem is the thick sad retarted IRWT gang will stand up for him till we are in the championship, 13 points from the top 13 points from the bottom. LIVERPOOL FC R.I.P

------------------------------------------------------

Gerrard Houllier was the man who originally took the club Liverpool FC Forward, the manager at the time 'Roy Evans' was seemingly struggling and it was very evident that he couldn't move his team no further, so the board opted for a proven World Cup winning manager called Gerrard Houllier.

Houllier enviably tinkered with the squad and brought in some overseas players like Didi Hamman, Stephan Henchous, and Sami Hyppia. When he assessed the youth and reserve set up, he moulded in Local talent like Jamie Carragher and a young promising midfielder called Steven Gerrard.

In the early years at the club, he managed to form a formidable defence which was the once regarded as the best in Europe (Sami Hyppia and Stephen Henchous), he won a Cup Treble which has never been done in the history of club football and no one has emulated this since. This sort of success wowed all Liverpool fans (including myself) and wetted their appetite for more of the same.

Mr Houllier then concentrated on the League and guides Liverpool FC in the Premier competition of Europe, a trophy called 'The Champions League', a competition of which Liverpool were yet to feature (since the old UFEA Cup). The very next season Gerrard guided this rejuvenated bunch of Kop hopefuls to 2nd in the Premier League, but sadly after that the adventure for Houllier started to plunge.

In Gerrard's last season he began to feel the wrath of Pundits, reporters and critics for playing negative tactics and eyebrow raising signings. Houllier always remained adamant that he was the right man for the job and you could feel for him, look at his honours record. Sadly soon after poor old Houllier started to breathe rather uncomfortably in the dizzy heights of success and was replaced with a young clean shaven Spanish manager who answered to the name of Rafa Benitez, who had a fantastic record of winning big trophies.




Bill Shankley (Liverpool FC) 1959 to 1974

Sir Bobby Robson (Ispwich Town, England, Porto, Newcastle and Barcelona) 1969 to 2004

Sir Alex Ferguson (Aberdeen and Manchester United) 1978 to ????

Gerrard Houllier (Paris St Germain, France, Liverpool FC and Olymipique Lyonnais) 1985 to 2007

Rafa Benitez (Valenca and Liverpool FC) 2001 to ????

Each Manager has their own lifespan at the top and each will be a very different outcome

Discuss.....




Nananananana

I think its time now to let this guy go. He has had 5 years at the club and yes well done he wone the champions league and fa cup but come on is he a good manager. I have always backed him but i think now its time for him to go. Some of his descions really baffle me. Like whats point having 4 defenders on the bench and two left backs, its pointless. He could have put pacheco, eccleston or another young player on the bench who we could have bought on and have better impact than DEGEN. He was clueless and he is a very cautios manager. Again today he brings on Ngog and takes of Yossi and puts Stevie on the left why didnt he take of lucas and keep yossi on.


If he had funds in the summer than he probably wouldnt be in this situation imo.
--------------------

How much? He spent 40m.

---------------------


BUT he DIDNT get his number 1 target did he. Garreth Barry.
He got Aquilani and Johnson but those are the only ones i can think of.




I think the time has come now really for Liverpool fans to start asking: what more does Benitez have to do to get sacked?

Baffling decision not to give £20m midfielder a starting slot ahead of Lucas despite now having been fit for 8 weeks? Check.

Turgid, uninventive, technically retarded football? Check.

Atrocious transfer market record bar maybe 2 or 3 signings? Check.

Slowly destroying the confidence and belief of those better players? Check.

Clever ability to hoodwink gullible supporters by using the press and the American ownership issue as an excuse for his own failings? Check.

3 wins in 15 matches? Check.

He simply needs to go. Liverpool need major surgery.

I'm guessing he would have to agree to changing the terms of his contract so that there wasn't a whopping payout for firing him.

I've said this a couple of times - everyone slags off the Yanks for what they've done to our club but in my eyes the worst piece of business they have done is to tie us into Rafa for 5 years on the basis of one night in Istanbul which seems like a very distant memory right now.

ouch

Wow, definitely did not expect the game to play out like that...it was like watching Arsenal in reverse - play horribly but somehow emerge with a win thanks to individual errors from the opposition.

Denilson had an awful game both defensively and attacking-wise yesterday...lucky not to give a penalty in the 1st half when he stuck his leg out like a school kid, but Johnson moved his leg out the way and kept running unlike most footballers nowadays.

First half was all Liverpool...the penalty probably would have been given on another day, but the big thing against Gerrard was that he had lost control of the ball. Still, it's the kind of inconsistency that will always remain in the game as long as referees are humans. And as Pierre said, it didn't matter that much because Liverpool eventually got the goal that their first half dominance deserved. Torres' missed chance was probably something they should regret more than the penalty non-decision.

While I agree with Pierre and Kimbo that Andy Gray exaggerated Arsenal's "tactical changes" after halftime, you can't deny that their players looked much sharper after the break. They kept their shape much better and the midfield was more compact, and we did get glimpses of their typical passing combinations...in the first half they weren't fighting for any balls, weren't trying to keep possession when they got the ball, and just generally strolled around the pitch offering Liverpool lots of space to attack. Both Vermaelen and Fabregas have said how Wenger got very angry at halftime, so credit to him for that because he's delivered a team talk that helped change things.

But at the end of the day, it was basically 2 mistakes from Johnson combined with a brilliant finish by Arshavin that won the game for Arsenal. I don't buy this "bad luck" rubbish from COTR and other Liverpool fans - if your player is not good enough and the other team has one who produces something brilliant, it's not bad luck. And surely Benitez could have tried something different than just crossing it non-stop into the box...in theory that tactic works well against Arsenal but they were doing well in the air in this game so IMO there was no point in continuing with it. For example, Benayoun should have got involved in the game more...maybe played centrally for a spell. He was far too isolated on the left.

A real statement win for Arsenal but although they could go level with Man. Utd. by winning their game in hand, you just know they'll suffer more disappointing results over the course of the season. So they're not title contenders IMO. The lack of a focal point in attack is still a big problem. Liverpool will end up getting 4th.

Pierre Littbarski wrote:

The Professor wrote:
Didn't u see the numerous longballs into our box + some vital blocks and challenges?

Standard EPL defending that you see week in, week out from Nelsen, Zayatte, Dunne etc.

Yes but that's exactly what Arsenal fail at. In fact, Liverpool took the lead thanks to Manuel "I'm only here because Arsene Knows" Almunia pushing a cross straight back into a central area.

So when they withstand a barrage of aerial balls from Liverpool (which seemed to be Benitez's only real tactic in the 2nd half) you have to give them credit for it. IMO Vermaelen was indeed excellent in this aspect. Wenger will definitely be smug about it considering all the criticism in recent days about how short Arsenal's team is.

Essay writing

Laudable Laudrup wrote:Essay writing

L r dd wrote:so the board opted for a proven World Cup winning manager called Gerrard Houllier.

Who did Houllier win the World Cup with? I must have been out that night.

good grief

looks like the village Leetard had a fulfilling evening

Did lerd actually write all that or was it copied and pasted from redcafé?

kas wrote:
Denilson had an awful game both defensively and attacking-wise yesterday...lucky not to give a penalty in the 1st half when he stuck his leg out like a school kid, but Johnson moved his leg out the way and kept running unlike most footballers nowadays.
.

Good to see u join the rest Kas

I have re watched the game about 3 times since yesterday and why u chose to highlight Denilson's performance is beyond me.

He struggled defensively(along with his partner in crime - Song) in the 1st half to close the gaps because we were frequently caught upfield and the lines were stretched( very naive from us - i'll write more about this in the coming days), but he was about our only midfielder who didn't join in cheaply giving the ball away. He had a good 2nd half just like almost everybody - industrious and composed on the ball. Inshort, he was no worse than Nasri, Cesc, theo etc

I don't like singling out players, but if i were to single out awful performers then i'd pick Theo, Almunia and Diaby(what an idiot, playing risky passes when we were trying to keep the ball).

Song was uncharacteristically sloppy but he was very good defensively in the 2nd half - overall our best midfielder on the day and 2nd to Vermaelen as our MOTM.

What about the school-kick incident with Johnson? It would have been a penalty. Unless of course Johnson kept his feet than going down. Kas remembers Xavi against Espanyol I think when he says, unlike most footballers nowadays.

Laudable Laudrup wrote:Kas remembers Xavi against Espanyol I think when he says, unlike most footballers nowadays.

You can read my mind




(Also Rooney, Gerrard, etc.)

Laudable Laudrup wrote:What about the school-kick incident with Johnson? It would have been a penalty. Unless of course Johnson kept his feet than going down. Kas remembers Xavi against Espanyol I think when he says, unlike most footballers nowadays.

What about it?

He had to make that challenge because things went wrong before that(u should look at the shape of the team instead of blaming him), he had to make an effort to win the ball. What was he supposed to do, make no effort to win the ball at all?

He didn't even touch Johnson ffs. I see u have followed Hansen's expert view "Johnson should have made the most of it as it is part of the game(cheat in another words)".

There are better ways to "make an effort" than plant your body but stick your leg out at a player running past you at pace...in fact, doing nothing is better than doing that.

I think you'll struggle to find a player who'll just stand there and do nothing.

I have seen far more experienced pros do something similar in big games - Sol Campbell against Rooney at OT, Carvalho against Henry in the world cup semis etc.

Anyway, that incident was just one of many (potential)mistakes by both set of players in a mistake ridden match. Gallas's mistakes were far worse coz he actually touched the player(s).

You have still not told me how he was worse than Theo, Almunia, Cesc, Diaby etc for u to single him out.

I didn't say he was worse than the others...his poor performance was just something I noticed during the game and with Almunia, Walcott and co. already getting plenty of stick, thought I'd post my own thoughts about Denilson.

kas wrote:I didn't say he was worse than the others...his poor performance was just something I noticed during the game and with Almunia, Walcott and co. already getting plenty of stick, thought I'd post my own thoughts about Denilson.

Come on Kas stop making things up now

None of those players got any stick - go through the match thread and prove me wrong.

Denilson, just like the rest of the team, didn't play well in the 1st half(he was atleast less sloppy though). But he put in a good 2nd half performance - similar to most of our players. He didn't stand out for being our best performer nor he did he stand out for being our worse. He had overall a decent game. How u came to the conclusion that he was awful is beyond me.

I see most major newspapers have gone down the same road as Andy Gray by talking about how Wenger changed the game at HT

I'm sorry but, unless it later emerges that Wenger put Rohypnol in Glen Johnson's half-time Lucozade, I'm not buying that !

very 80s, rohypnol that is. wicked stuff with alcohol combined.

The Professor wrote:

kas wrote:I didn't say he was worse than the others...his poor performance was just something I noticed during the game and with Almunia, Walcott and co. already getting plenty of stick, thought I'd post my own thoughts about Denilson.

Come on Kas stop making things up now

None of those players got any stick - go through the match thread and prove me wrong.

Denilson, just like the rest of the team, didn't play well in the 1st half(he was atleast less sloppy though). But he put in a good 2nd half performance - similar to most of our players. He didn't stand out for being our best performer nor he did he stand out for being our worse. He had overall a decent game. How u came to the conclusion that he was awful is beyond me.

I'm not talking only about this board, I'm referring to the media reports of the match and posts on other forums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrw4IlKRPmc&feature=player_embedded