Liverpool Real Madrid

[aws]

Great times but, for some, not great enough.

 

And I blame Webb more than Macheda and Arshavin who were only doing their job.

[ZonkoVille77]

Poor Jay Spearing. Where did it all go wrong?

Seriously though. That's fucking depressing stuff. We took it for granted too.

[mattyq]

For some our manager at the time was a fraud...crazy stuff

Oh well, we are where we are and whilst it's bittersweet looking back i prefer to look forwards. This season is going to be very interesting

[Kevin D]

Hope we get beat.

[aws]

We'll get snotted.

[DooooodekNo5]

Poor Jay Spearing. Where did it all go wrong?

Seriously though. That's fucking depressing stuff. We took it for granted too.

 

We all did, Rafa used to say it aswell towards the end.

 

I was one of the planks who thought it was time for Rafa to go, with all the other shite going on i think it just messed with some peoples heads regarding whether Rafa should stay or go, don't think a lot of the people who wanted Rafa gone were thinking straight at that time, i certainly wasn't, though i wasn't one of those 'anyone but Rafa' crew, really wanted Joachim Low or someone of that calibre even though looking back that was never going to happen.

 

Wasn't happy at all when we appointed Woy, the writing was on the wall and i realised then even before we had kicked a ball under Hodgson that it was all wrong.

 

Depressing thread, we won't be getting back to that level any time soon, unless we get bought out by some multi billionaire i don't think we ever will, we can't even qualify for the fucking thing anymore.

[ronnie38]

Sigh.... Mourinho, broken glass............

[WhiskeyJar]

I don't really follow your last line there, WJ.

 

Let me explain:

 

I think our rapid decline since Benitez left has been down to a combination of factors, WJ; manager instability, owner instability and poor transfer dealings.

 

The way you phrased that made it sound that the managers instability and the owners instability are two separate matters. They were not. Hence my last line.

 

If we take, for example, the owners we have today and put Rafa at the helm, I do not think we would see a volatile Rafa but the one that re-built the academy and turned good players into great players.

The fact we had owners that nearly stripped the club down to the bare minimum had a major influence in the way Rafa behaved.

 

But, no, I am fairly ambivalent towards Benitez so don't get wound up by these discussions at all. I wasn't disappointed when Rafa left LFC but with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps I was wrong not to be. Who knows.

 

Saying that, our subsequent decline can not be solely attributed to his departure (in my view), there are other equally fundamental reasons; the ones I mentioned.

 

And saying that, looking at the Madrid and Fulham games is just so depressing. I wonder how long it'll actually be before we get back there.

 

That's fair enough, although you can understand why fans wanted Rafa to come back, its because of nights likes those.

 

We can almost be forgiven how dark those times were, instead we will remember them fondly because of Rafa, the players we had, and the way we played.

 

Now its all about opinions, but I just sometimes wonder where would we be today had Rafa stuck around.

 

Better off or worse? Such questions are sometimes better left unanswered.

[FrenchEyeGlass]

That Fulham game.

 

Jesus fucking wept.

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/forum/ff-football-forum/89805-can-we-sack-benitez-now.html

 

I'm not even in the mood to debate it. If you aren't seeing what I'm seeing you either are blind, or just fucking moronic.

 

Jesus fucking wept indeed. Moron.

[Barney_Rubble]

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/forum/ff-football-forum/89805-can-we-sack-benitez-now.html

Jesus fucking wept indeed. Moron.

Haha, fucking owned!

 

 

As far as the subject of this thread goes, this is the game I find myself watching with disturbing regularity, particularly given that I have it with a Spanish commentary and thoroughly enjoy the 180 degree swing in the commentators' opinions at the start of the game, compared when Casillas had his head in his hands after the 4th went in.

 

We were simply sublime - no other word to describe it. To top it all, we tore the mancs a new one a week after that game at their place.

 

Simply put, in that period we were the closest to Rafa's "like-a-machine" team as he had it with Valencia before he came to us.

 

The sad thing in all of this though, is that we are sitting here discussing "what-would-have-been" scenarios instead of being at the very top of English footy. Sad times indeed.

[fowler9]

what gets me if realising how good we were at times and how good we could've been had Rafa been allowed to get his initial targets, imagine had we got the likes of Dani Alves (at the time a right winger)and David Silva instead of the likes of Pennant and Keane

 

 

at least we didn't get Barry and kept Xabi another year mind

[Barney_Rubble]

I was one of the planks who thought it was time for Rafa to go, with all the other shite going on i think it just messed with some peoples heads regarding whether Rafa should stay or go, don't think a lot of the people who wanted Rafa gone were thinking straight at that time, i certainly wasn't, though i wasn't one of those 'anyone but Rafa' crew, really wanted Joachim Low or someone of that calibre even though looking back that was never going to happen.

You have my utmost and sincere respect for admitting something like that.

 

This forum is filled to the brim with utter nobheads (yeah, I am looking at our resident Norgie troll72) who know they are wrong, but are hell-bent on digging that hole even deeper and winding everybody else up in the process, so reading something like the above is ... well, refreshing!

[SCOUSE TAPAS]

And your take on this is....

 

In the end we did the Champions League for granted, and our fall from grace coincided with Rafa leaving.

 

If we did not have those yank owners back then, then 2009 would have been a foundation to build on, not the highlight of the past 5 years.

I thought we never qualified for the champions league in his final year? Another thing is not taking away what a great manager he was. The only reason he got the players he did was by money we didn't have.

I think the current set of owners and him would of been a good match but I would also want Pako back as well.

Still don't think we would ever of won the league under him though.