Salif and Djimi in, but..

[Paul]

At last! We finally show some bollocks away from home. Rafa must have gone absolutely mental at them during half-time because, judging from the radio commentary, we were worse than appalling in the first half. It sounded like Xabi single-handedly turned it around second half. He's a class act.

 

In a way, I'm glad the game went like this. The team needs to start showing its character, and results in these circumstances can quickly breed confidence. Hopefully we can go on a bit of a run now in each of the two main competitions (although I agree that the league must be our priority).

 

It'd be good to see Rafa really start to make his mark, results wise, in the run up to Christmas, before possibly adding a couple of classy players in the transfer window, and getting Gerrard back, in order to really go for it in the second half of the season. Despite our shakey start to the campaign, third place is very much there for the taking if we can develop that long-absent quality of consistency.

[Guest LEE R HARKIN]

At last! We finally show some bollocks away from home. Rafa must have gone absolutely mental at them during half-time because, judging from the radio commentary, we were worse than appalling in the first half. It sounded like Xabi single-handedly turned it around second half. He's a class act.

 

In a way, I'm glad the game went like this. The team needs to start showing its character, and results in these circumstances can quickly breed confidence. Hopefully we can go on a bit of a run now in each of the two main competitions (although I agree that the league must be our priority).

 

It'd be good to see Rafa really start to make his mark, results wise, in the run up to Christmas, before possibly adding a couple of classy players in the transfer window, and getting Gerrard back, in order to really go for it in the second half of the season. Despite our shakey start to the campaign, third place is very much there for the taking if we can develop that long-absent quality of consistency.

 

 

 

Great to see the lads showing bouncebackability

[Hermes]

Great news, all of my fixed odds selections are winning.

 

Arsenal - Celtic - Clyde - Gretna - Peterhead.

 

Fingers crossed. x

 

I'm in the money, I'm in the money.............

[danhaddad]

I got 7 out of my 8 results correct.

 

That Leon Osman twat cost me dear, as I had a draw in that game.

[Hermes]

Last minute as well. Never mind, I'll be thinking of you when I pick up my 4,432.

[danhaddad]

You must have put a fair bit on to get that return, as the ones you picked were all dead certs.

 

Mine was £1 stake to win £1350!

 

Nearly put my foot through the TV strait into Jeff Stelling's face!

[Hermes]

Who mentioned £'s, I was talking about pence. :>)

[Guest banner78]

xabi was class today

[Paul]

Having now watched the match and read several reports on it, as well as having listened to the commentary on Radio Merseyside, I saw it quite differently to the pundits. Whilst we certainly didn't set the world on fire in the first half, we were by no means shite. By the same token, we weren't especially amazing in the second half and I'd describe Xabi's performance as effective rather than inspirational, as it's being reported by most media commentators.

 

In the first half, we looked like a team that is slowly trying to respond to the manager's coaching: Cisse worked much harder up front, Riise and Garcia showed width and effort from the flanks and the defending looked much more confident. The first goal came after (the admittedly poor) Diao gave the ball away without being under pressure, and the second was down to good Fulham football. We seemed to have quite a lot of possession and I wouldn't disagree with Rafa's assertion that we controlled the first half, despite the impact the classy Malbranque was having.

 

The second half come back owed a lot to fortune, as Baros' first was a massive fluke and I don't think Alonso's free kick would have troubled them at all without Diop's intervention. Xabi certainly curbed Malbranque's influence and ensured our game was more incisive, but Fulham were poor, really.

 

On Josemi, who I've been far from impressed with so far, he had a better game and had several good attempts to hit Riise coming in at the far post behind the last defender. However, he was not faced by any real pace or trickery, and I think he was naive in some of the tackles he made after his first yellow. The snidey Boa-Morte conned the ref for his second yellow card, but he was living dangerously prior to it. Having said that, the ref showed poor consistency in not booking Malbranque (I think) for a raking challenge down Didi's achilles in the first few minutes, but then (justifiably) booking Josemi for his first offence.

 

In short, we had a lot of luck against poor opposition, but the players showed signs of addressing the basic problems they've shown so far this season, and hopefully they'll take a lot of confidence from this much needed win.

[Red Nick]

I saw the whole game live on tv here in spain.

 

in the first half we were very positive until Diao showed why he should never play for us again and why Rafa is totally out of his mind to pick him and from 2-0 down to half time we went to peices

 

Alonso was truly magnificient 2nd half and we rode our luck a bit with 2 of the goals

 

The most pleasing thing about this game is we were much more positive and Garcia was on the ball much more but on the negative side the strikers were pure shiete and you can see why Rafa wants rid of both. They both want to run behind but neither is prepared to come short to start the play. Cisse has more awareness but thats not saying al lot.

 

Lets stay positive away from home because were a lot better going forward than defending

[redjohn]

I think Diao is playing to put himself in the shop window. Only problem is the more he plays, his value plummets!

[Nunavut Patrick]

One thing I noticed was Baros (I think, only saw highlights here) when he got the equalizer picked the ball out of the night and ran it back for the restart. Before we would have been quite satisfied at 2-2, but this showed that we wanted the win.

[Hermes]

That's Milan for you. He may have his weaknesses- head down and occassionally run into blind alleys- but you can never accuse him of not trying or having a poor attitude on the pitch.