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Alan Hansen - Perfect Analogy

Rashid

By Rashid,
in FF - Football Forum

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Rashid Grand Master

Rashid

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Benitez must act to halt alarming fall from grace

By Alan Hansen

 

The Telegraph

Last Updated: 10:30pm BST 22/10/2006

 

Eleven points off the pace and with the big three slipping ever further away, it looks all over as early as October for Liverpool's pursuit of the Premiership. And when you think that the season began with many tipping them to run Chelsea closest, that is a truly sobering thought.

 

They may yet produce the kind of unbeaten run that they put together towards the end of last season but those kinds of statistics are a long way from the reality Liverpool face now. After five away games in which they have gained one point and scored one goal, they look badly in need of a strategy.

 

If you want to consider yourself one of the country's top clubs, you cannot continue to keep looking to a single player for inspiration. However great a footballer Steven Gerrard is, that is too much pressure to heap on one man's shoulders, especially when he is not performing well.

 

I have always maintained that Gerrard's best position is in the centre of midfield, driving forward; but he can play wide on the right, he can play as a holding midfielder or as a right back. He would probably play in goal if you asked him to. But for one man to shoulder so much responsibility for the way a club of Liverpool's size perform is impossible.

 

Analysing Liverpool, you see problems throughout the side and it is up to Rafa Benitez to sort them out. The manager is the man who took the plaudits when Liverpool won the Champions League and the FA Cup and it is up to him to take decisive action when things are not going well.

 

There is plenty for him to consider. His goalkeeper, Jose Reina, produced one world-class save from Louis Saha but recently he has made many errors of judgement and he seems very uncertain when coming off his line.

 

There are serious problems with the back four. My views on Liverpool's rotation policy are very clear: the time to rotate players is generally when you are winning, but the one area you should be very wary of rotating is your defence.

 

The game may have changed since I played it, but what is still true is that the centre-backs do less running and more talking to each other than any other players on the pitch. It is an absolutely crucial area that depends on understanding and reading your partner's game. As a manager, you would be looking to play the same back four 20 times on the trot, not split them up.

 

Up front, Liverpool's weaknesses were glaring. At Old Trafford yesterday, they created one chance – Dirk Kuyt's header – and they passed the ball so poorly that you never expected another. You can talk about lack of pace or lack of height or lack of anything in Liverpool's attack but not since Michael Owen have they had a player capable of scoring 20 Premiership goals in a season. At Old Trafford there was no passing, no cohesion and no threat.

 

Whereas Chelsea and Manchester United spend £30 million on a player and even Arsenal can and do pay big money, Liverpool spend between £4 million and £9 million on transfers. That gets you 'maybe' players, footballers who could do a job but who would be dangerous to rely on in a crisis.

 

The fact that there is talk of new investment in the club from Dubai is welcome, but it is irrelevant to what is happening on the pitch now. When Old Trafford holds 75,000 and Anfield can accommodate 44,000, it is obvious that Liverpool are operating under a huge disadvantage. David Moores has been a great chairman of Liverpool and if he feels the need to sell the club, he should be supported and I would back him if he decides to stay.

 

However, there are factors other than finance that separate Manchester United and Liverpool. Yesterday so much of United's play revolved around Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville, men who are immersed in the club. Their enthusiasm for football and for Manchester United has not diminished more than a dozen years after they made their debuts at Old Trafford. Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United each have sides who you can see going on 14-match unbeaten runs.

 

Liverpool, in contrast, would struggle to get through three unbeaten games in their present form and seem to have slipped back to the pattern of Benitez's first season, when Liverpool were excellent in Europe but could not win away from Anfield in the Premiership. Back then they looked too fragile, while now their away record suggests they are not good enough.

 

Benitez might argue that Liverpool are nearly there, especially when at Anfield, but in the context of what they need to achieve in the Premiership, nearly could mean a million miles.

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fivetimes Grand Master

fivetimes

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Read the fucking thing first for fucks sake, surely you must be sobering up by now?

 

I am not pissed Rashid. I just dont read ex-player bollocks.

 

Go the game or read ex-player shit. We take our chances dont we.

 

Why are you awake at this time anyway? Are you making assumptions Rashid? All English men at this time must be drunks? Imagine if I said some like that.....shame on you .

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Guest molbyscorchio

Guest molbyscorchio

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Hansen IS a cunt. Fact.

 

Anybody else noticed that he looks like a Thunderbird, ie. plastic face?

 

You, my son, are a whopper. Take yourself and your hugely original observations off to bed. Go on.

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Rashid Grand Master

Rashid

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I am not pissed Rashid. I just dont read ex-player bollocks.

 

Go the game or read ex-player shit. We take our chances dont we.

 

Why are you awake at this time anyway? Are you making assumptions Rashid? All English men at this time must be drunks? Imagine if I said some like that.....shame on you .

 

I am saying you are drunk cos you are being a fucking pain in the neck today!

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Guest molbyscorchio

Guest molbyscorchio

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Ha! A Daily Torygraph reader and a licker of Hansen's arse!

 

EDIT: Remove the word 'shitty'. For all I know, he wipes.

 

Fuck me, you've got me bang to rights there. Remarkable. How do you do it?

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Paul Grand Master

Paul

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That article is utter shite though. Completely scattergun approach blaming everything from Rafa, to foreign players, to investment, to stadium capacity. Utter fucking shite that he wasn't coming out with at the end of last season.

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Guest molbyscorchio

Guest molbyscorchio

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Hang on a mo. (scouse indian). Which parts of the article do you disagree with? We played fantastically well at the end of last season; we're playing shite now. At the beginning of the season, we thought we were nearly there in terms of being able to compete. Does anybody seriously think that now? There's a lot wrong at the moment, and it's not just the quality of the players.

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Guest molbyscorchio

Guest molbyscorchio

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What Paul says is right. Also his comments on £4m to £9m being maybe players. What about Veron and the like of him? Sheva is hardly digging up trees is he?

 

Well the best you can say for all of the close season signings is that they are maybe players. None of them have set the premiership alight yet. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. We've bought some great players for next to nothing in the past; we've bought some whoppers for a king's ransom. I think we should wait for one or more of our current crop to come good before saying that Hansen was wrong on this one. I hope they all come good, do fantastically well, and we win the league.

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Spy Bee Grand Master

Spy Bee

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Well the best you can say for all of the close season signings is that they are maybe players. None of them have set the premiership alight yet. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. We've bought some great players for next to nothing in the past; we've bought some whoppers for a king's ransom.

i.e All players are maybe players regardless of transfer fee.

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Rashid Grand Master

Rashid

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Last time he wrote us off and hammered Rafa (think he called us the worst Liverpool side ever - and yes Rash lapped it up) we trotted home with #5 a few months later.

 

No.5 saved us from humiliation that year mate - in the league we were a disgrace and in the FA Cup. Any idiot could see then like they can now that we are well short of being a team that will challenge for the league.

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