Rafa´s make or break season - Title Challange........

[Paul]

Nice. Very difficult to establish what success is for us this year. And while I don't want to settle for 3/4th place scrap again, but im not sure it's realistic to expect us to be able to keep pace with Chelsea and United all the way to the wire.

 

I don't think it's difficult at all: Rafa will have by far the strongest squad he's had here, one that's demonstrably better than everyone bar The Mancs' and Chelsea's certainly and The Arse's possibly. To my mind, with that level of quality - and I only mean this if Keane arrives - then he has to be able to at least match his previous record points haul that was achieved with a manifestly inferior squad.

[spider-neil]

I don't think it's difficult at all: Rafa will have by far the strongest squad he's had here, one that's demonstrably better than everyone bar The Mancs' and Chelsea's certainly and The Arse's possibly. To my mind, with that level of quality - and I only mean this if Keane arrives - then he has to be able to at least match his previous record points haul that was achieved with a manifestly inferior squad.

 

another thing that we seem to be aquiring is match winners, players who make it their personal responsibility to ensure the team plunders all three points.

[Paul]

another thing that we seem to be aquiring is match winners, players who make it their personal responsibility to ensure the team plunders all three points.

 

That's right. For me, the most encouraging things about what was a largely very depressing season (bar Gerrard and Torres' partnership) was the overall goal tally. As I said elsewhere, if Torres, Gerrad and Keane can equal their gosl-scoring feats of last season and Babel can improve on his, then they could manage 100 goals in all competitions. If we're scoring in those sorts of quantities with others weighing in too, I can't see how we'll avoid beating that 82 point haul. Certainly, the number of bore draws that we're involved in should be dramatically reduced because, no matter how attacking our full backs prove to be, Pepe, The Chief and whichever two centre halves happen to be on the pitch will be very hard to beat.

[Catch22]

I don't think it's difficult at all: Rafa will have by far the strongest squad he's had here, one that's demonstrably better than everyone bar The Mancs' and Chelsea's certainly and The Arse's possibly. To my mind, with that level of quality - and I only mean this if Keane arrives - then he has to be able to at least match his previous record points haul that was achieved with a manifestly inferior squad.

 

"one that's demonstrably better than everyone bar The Mancs' and Chelsea's certainly and The Arse's possibly"

That is correct & is as expected given our budgets. However,on that logic it means we should be battling for 3rd with the Arse as the Mancs/Chavs have demonstrably better squads than us.

[Roy Hobbs]

I personally expect Rafa to get a one year extension before the season starts, he even said at the end of season that he has been told it will be sorted by then. That would Rafa has 3 years and will see us through the difficult construction phase of the stadium. Money will be tight but he has built a very good young team that should be top 4 competing, who knows even winning team.

 

We should IMO after this season be able to identify one or 2 areas to recruit, especially considering we could see benefits from our youth in the next year or two.

 

In summary I do not believe the yanks can afford to sack him and rebuild again during this time. We need stability and as long as things do not go tits up Rafa will be here until May 2011 and then everything will be reevaluated.

[Paul]

"one that's demonstrably better than everyone bar The Mancs' and Chelsea's certainly and The Arse's possibly"

That is correct & is as expected given our budgets. However,on that logic it means we should be battling for 3rd with the Arse as the Mancs/Chavs have demonstrably better squads than us.

 

I've got no idea where we'll finish the season because The Mancs and Chelsea are such powerful - but far from unbeatable - opponents. That's why I think it's right to use Rafa's own achievements in the league as a bench mark.

 

The time for excuses is over for me. He has to show this season that he can get the very best out of what could be a great squad for a whole season in the league. If he does that, I'll be as happy with our league campaign as I could possibly be without us actually winning the thing.

[Red Mist]

Unless Rafa has the money that is avaliable to Chelsea and ManUre, we will not challenge them I'm afraid. Arsenal came close last season despite not spending much but even they fell towards the end as the big spenders showed how useful that extra money really is. And with our fucked up ownership issue, we will struggle to break into the top 3. Not Rafa's fault, no manager could bring us the championship in our current state.

[spider-neil]

I've got no idea where we'll finish the season because The Mancs and Chelsea are such powerful - but far from unbeatable - opponents. That's why I think it's right to use Rafa's own achievements in the league as a bench mark.

 

The time for excuses is over for me. He has to show this season that he can get the very best out of what could be a great squad for a whole season in the league. If he does that, I'll be as happy with our league campaign as I could possibly be without us actually winning the thing.

 

I've said all along we should concern ourselves with beating everyone home and away below the top 4 including the like of b'burn (very difficult ground to get 3 points)

 

its very tiresome watching us make such a big deal about playing the mancs when in the grand scheme of things its just 3 points. batter the lesser teams home and away and almost certainly you will be there or there abouts come the final months of the season. this is why its incredibly annoying when we go to grounds even difficults grounds and patently play for a draw.

[Catch22]

If, as looks almost a certainty, we sign Robbie Keane, I want to see us beat Rafa's 82 point record. That is a target that is achievable regardless of what our rivals spend or how they perform as we'll 32 matches where they have no bearing on the result. That's 96 points available from those below us and we should be well capable of beating almost all of them home and away. I also suspect, however, that if we do achieve that goal of 82 points or more then we'll be right up in the mix when the final reckoning arrives in May.

 

 

I am not questioing Paul's logic here with respect to the 96 points from the 32teams below us but does anyone else (probably older members) not find it very depressing?

Before Sky's (&then even more absurdly the Russian Mafia's) money distorted English football it was a proper tough, league competiton where teams were much more equal.

An away match should be difficult, going into your rival's home & fighting the crowd (& therefore the influenced ref). In this instance an away draw was never an especially bad result.

This is how i like my sport: hard,professional & somewhat attritional.

I do not like flat track bullying which is what the vast majority of the modern PL is... how insulting is it to team 5-8 that the big 4 regard a draw at their ground as a bad result?

 

Looking at the 'Paisley era' (his reign plus the final Shanks title & Fagan's treble year) these were our title winning sides: (Includes both 2 & 3 pts for a win; to compare with now i assume 3 pts for a win)

 

In 1972-3 when we broke a 7 year duck we went (W25/D10/L7 avg 2.024 or pro-rated over 38 games 76.9)

In 1975-6 (23/14/5 or 75.1)

In 1976-7 (23/11/8 or 72.4)

In 1978-9 (30/8/4 or 88.7)

In 1979-80 (25/10/7 76.9)

In 1981-2 (26/9/7 78.7)

In 1982-3 (24/10/8 74.2 although we took our foot off the gas after winning it)

In 1983-4 (22/14/6 72.4)

 

Average 76.9. Does any-one think that will win it this year?

 

They were proper Leagues. Maybe i'm just old but beating all the poor teams home&away holds far less interest to me.

[Code]

looking over the stats there was a ridiculous amount of games were we took the lead and then ended up drawing the game.

 

simply conclusion

a) the attack wasn't good enough to get the second goal to kill the game.

b) the defense wasn't good enough to keep a clean sheet.

 

basically we need to choose a path and ridigidly stick to it, either

a) take the lead and absolutely park the bus in front of goal and grind out continuous 1-0's. bad idea imho as mental fatigue will set in and we will start to slip up (usually around nov/dec)

 

b) take the lead and go hell for leather in pursuit of the killer second goal, with will obviously leave us more exposed at the back but draws are almost pointless so its better to lose trying to win the game then aquire a sea of draws playing it safe and squandering slender leads.

 

we have to chose one or the other our indecision last season saw us finish a distant 4th.

 

So in other words, you agree with what I said above?

[spider-neil]

So in other words, you agree with what I said above?

 

didn't read your post, sorry :whistle:

will read it when a get a spare moment.

[woodylfc]

I've said all along we should concern ourselves with beating everyone home and away below the top 4 including the like of b'burn (very difficult ground to get 3 points)

 

its very tiresome watching us make such a big deal about playing the mancs when in the grand scheme of things its just 3 points. batter the lesser teams home and away and almost certainly you will be there or there abouts come the final months of the season. this is why its incredibly annoying when we go to grounds even difficults grounds and patently play for a draw.

 

 

You say that but take the 6 points the Mancs took off us and add them to our total and we would have been 1 point ahead of them in the league if I'm not mistaken

[Guest TK-421]

It's not as straightforward as beating all of the teams outside of the top four home & away. I think that's a very simplistic approach to football/winning the league.

[stmichael]

I'm struggling to grasp why so many people who previously slated Rafa for not making the league a priority, are now getting uptight. Rafa is finally proving in this transfer window how much of a priority the league really is by targeting players that have delivered in the premiership.

 

Improving the team isn't necessarily about bringing in big name players. We don't have the money to be able to make mistakes like Utd and Chelsea can. Rafa instead is identifying players that will help to improve the team. Whatever your opinions on Barry and Keane, if we do bring both of these players in, I am positive they can help to make a big difference.

 

Rafa is now entering his 5th season in charge. The club and the fans alike expect us to be making a strong title challenge NOW, not in a few years time.

 

How many of us laughed at Utd when they bought Carrick from Spurs (the same club we're trying to buy Keane from incidentally for those who slate him) and said that Carrick was over priced at £18m? How many of us were then laughing the following year when Utd won the league? Carrick may not have been the main reason Utd won the league in 2006-07 but he filled a gap in their team and made an improvement to it.

 

If Barry and Keane help us to land the league title next season, we'll all be hailing the genius of Rafa next May. If these 2 players even help us to make a strong challenge and be in the thick of it come March/April, it will give the rest of the players in our squad an enormous belief that they can be champions and beat anyone domestically.

 

No one at our club has been part of a team that has consistently challenged for the premier league and so no one in the squad has the invaluable experience of being able to challenge in the premier league, even if some of our foreign players have already won with their previous teams.

 

Barry and Keane may be over priced in many people's minds and its true that we may not even get a return on investment if they don't work out. When you spend big on any player there is always a risk of it not working out. However, you can minimise that risk by choosing premiership players who have performed at the top level for their respective clubs, because they won't need to adjust to a new league.

 

Barry and Keane may not be the glamour signings we were hoping for but they are still quality players. You don't need to be foreign to help make a big difference to the quality of our side. Rafa has chosen a short term strategy in these 2 to help us win the league. If we can afford to do that, we won't need to be thinking longer term about possible returns on either of them for which to buy better players with.

 

In 3-4 years time a crop of the reserve team players should be coming through and forcing their way into the first team. This should help us to save money in the future. The medium-long term has been covered.

 

Rafa's choices may not be popular with everyone but he is the best judge of the players. For now he is our manager and he deserves our support.

[woodylfc]

I'm struggling to grasp why so many people who previously slated Rafa for not making the league a priority, are now getting uptight. Rafa is finally proving in this transfer window how much of a priority the league really is by targeting players that have delivered in the premiership.

 

Improving the team isn't necessarily about bringing in big name players. We don't have the money to be able to make mistakes like Utd and Chelsea can. Rafa instead is identifying players that will help to improve the team. Whatever your opinions on Barry and Keane, if we do bring both of these players in, I am positive they can help to make a big difference.

 

Rafa is now entering his 5th season in charge. The club and the fans alike expect us to be making a strong title challenge NOW, not in a few years time.

 

How many of us laughed at Utd when they bought Carrick from Spurs (the same club we're trying to buy Keane from incidentally for those who slate him) and said that Carrick was over priced at £18m? How many of us were then laughing the following year when Utd won the league? Carrick may not have been the main reason Utd won the league in 2006-07 but he filled a gap in their team and made an improvement to it.

 

If Barry and Keane help us to land the league title next season, we'll all be hailing the genius of Rafa next May. If these 2 players even help us to make a strong challenge and be in the thick of it come March/April, it will give the rest of the players in our squad an enormous belief that they can be champions and beat anyone domestically.

 

No one at our club has been part of a team that has consistently challenged for the premier league and so no one in the squad has the invaluable experience of being able to challenge in the premier league, even if some of our foreign players have already won with their previous teams.

 

Barry and Keane may be over priced in many people's minds and its true that we may not even get a return on investment if they don't work out. When you spend big on any player there is always a risk of it not working out. However, you can minimise that risk by choosing premiership players who have performed at the top level for their respective clubs, because they won't need to adjust to a new league.

 

Barry and Keane may not be the glamour signings we were hoping for but they are still quality players. You don't need to be foreign to help make a big difference to the quality of our side. Rafa has chosen a short term strategy in these 2 to help us win the league. If we can afford to do that, we won't need to be thinking longer term about possible returns on either of them for which to buy better players with.

 

In 3-4 years time a crop of the reserve team players should be coming through and forcing their way into the first team. This should help us to save money in the future. The medium-long term has been covered.

 

Rafa's choices may not be popular with everyone but he is the best judge of the players. For now he is our manager and he deserves our support.

 

Spot on

[Code]

I am not questioing Paul's logic here with respect to the 96 points from the 32teams below us but does anyone else (probably older members) not find it very depressing?

Before Sky's (&then even more absurdly the Russian Mafia's) money distorted English football it was a proper tough, league competiton where teams were much more equal.

An away match should be difficult, going into your rival's home & fighting the crowd (& therefore the influenced ref). In this instance an away draw was never an especially bad result.

This is how i like my sport: hard,professional & somewhat attritional.

I do not like flat track bullying which is what the vast majority of the modern PL is... how insulting is it to team 5-8 that the big 4 regard a draw at their ground as a bad result?

 

Looking at the 'Paisley era' (his reign plus the final Shanks title & Fagan's treble year) these were our title winning sides: (Includes both 2 & 3 pts for a win; to compare with now i assume 3 pts for a win)

 

In 1972-3 when we broke a 7 year duck we went (W25/D10/L7 avg 2.024 or pro-rated over 38 games 76.9)

In 1975-6 (23/14/5 or 75.1)

In 1976-7 (23/11/8 or 72.4)

In 1978-9 (30/8/4 or 88.7)

In 1979-80 (25/10/7 76.9)

In 1981-2 (26/9/7 78.7)

In 1982-3 (24/10/8 74.2 although we took our foot off the gas after winning it)

In 1983-4 (22/14/6 72.4)

 

Average 76.9. Does any-one think that will win it this year?

 

They were proper Leagues. Maybe i'm just old but beating all the poor teams home&away holds far less interest to me.

 

Interesting this, I have said the English league gets less competitive by the day for some years now, where we have the top 4 teams running away from the others.

 

I looked into how many teams had finished in the top 3 during 10 year periods a couple of seasons ago and this is what I found.

 

1996/97 - 2005/06 (6 teams):

Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Leeds

 

1986/87 - 1995/96 (13 teams):

Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Newcastle, Leeds, Everton, Tottenham, Blackburn, Nottingham F, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Norwich, Sheffield Wed

 

1976/77 - 1985/86 (13 teams):

Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Everton, Tottenham, Ipswich, Nottingham F, Aston Villa, Manchester City, West Ham, Watford, Southampton, West Bromwich.

 

1966/67 - 1975/76 (12 teams):

Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Everton, Tottenham, Leeds, Nottingham F, Manchester City, Ipswich, Queens Park Rangers, Derby, Chelsea.

 

Since Newcastle finished third, before The Roman Empire entered the scene, in 2002/03 season, only us. the mancs, Arsenal and Chelsea have finished in the top 3, thats 5 seasons gone already, if I had to bet on it my bet would be that no other teams than the "top 4" will make it into third during the next 5 seasons either, so we will be down to only 4 teams.

 

Considering the fact the Scottish league only have 12 teams in it, would it be too far out to suggest the PL is almost as predictable and boring as the Scottish league with the Celtic/Rangers domination now?

[Guest TK-421]

The idea that the top four are dominating the PL is hardly new, is it?

[Paul]

It's not as straightforward as beating all of the teams outside of the top four home & away. I think that's a very simplistic approach to football/winning the league.

 

Of course it's not. However, I reckon that with the rght approach, our squad (assuming it includes Keane) could match or better Rafa's 82 point record next season. The bulk of those points should obviously come from the 16 "weaker" teams. The bottom line is that Rafa has to be accountable for our performances and I'm fed up of seeing so many provisos and excuses attached to any call for such accountability.

 

The only thing that I think it is reasonable to say is that it would be quite ludicrous to expect him to win the league when there are two clubs with such riches and talent playing in the same competition. What is not unreasonable is to expect him to do what he's already done with a much weaker squad. In his fifth season at the club, he has to show that he can manage successfully in the league. He'll have the players and the experience to do so and short of losing two or more of our best players for the season to injury, I for one won't accept anything less.

 

Having said that, I don't think I'll have to as I'm very confident that we'll have a great season if we sign Robbie Keane.

[Unrighteous]

I'll judge him at the end of the season etc. In our current climate anything more than a top 4 finish is a bonus.

 

Spot on. If we challenge that will be fantastic but i am realistic and dont expect it.

 

We need more quality coming off our bench.

[Code]

The idea that the top four are dominating the PL is hardly new, is it?

 

No its not new at all, but still we hear people saying that the PL is the best league in the world.

 

When it comes to competetiveness(is this an actual word) its actually one of the worst.

 

English clubs dominated Europe in the late 70`s early 80`s as well and considering the numbers shown above and the European Cups actually won in the earlier period, I think the development we have seen the later years are really bad for the English league and English football in general.

 

But this was just a sidestep from the original discussion.

 

Considering how the top 4 teams have moved away from the rest of the teams, no one can really expect to win the league since its down to narrow margins between these said teams.

 

But we can expect Rafa to understand that his cautious approach who won him titles in Spain might not work since there are totally different conditions in this league compared to La Liga.

 

If you get 80 points you will win La Liga most of the time since its much more competitive and draws will be enough more often than not, but this does not work for the PL and thats why we need to see a change in approach, we need to see us go for the win more often, we need to be willing to risk to lose more often to get the needed win to be able to reach the amount of points needed to win the league.

 

When Rafa won the title in Spain with Valencia he got 75 and 77 points, thats simply not enough in this league and I`m not sure Rafa`s cautious approach ever will win us the league in the current conditions, we are set up not to lose but we should have been set up to put teams under constant pressure and go for the win most of the time considering the difference in quality between the us and most of the teams in this league.

 

Looking at the attacking players we are linked with and the ones we have who get most playing time, I have a feeling it wont change much this season either and thats pretty depressing.

[Unrighteous]

Unless Rafa has the money that is avaliable to Chelsea and ManUre, we will not challenge them I'm afraid. Arsenal came close last season despite not spending much but even they fell towards the end as the big spenders showed how useful that extra money really is. And with our fucked up ownership issue, we will struggle to break into the top 3. Not Rafa's fault, no manager could bring us the championship in our current state.

 

Its money or time, really.

 

If we finished 2nd, I will be over the moon. I would expect us to finish third as Arsenal have lost some key members of their squad: Hleb, Flamini, Adabayor wants to leave, etc.

 

Hleb was 'replaced' with Samir Nasri, whom is superb, but new to the league. I think we can push Arsenal into 4th and claim third again.

 

The question is will Scolari's Chelsea perform? Will their new signings bed in? Will the mancs be as dominating without Queroz, and maybe Ronaldo?

 

It's not inconceivable to win the league this year if everything goes right for us but we'll seriously be hard pressed to do it.

 

Anyway, our first XI is prem-winning in ability. If we sign one or two first XI quality players next summer... We will then have what its takes to win the Premiership, IMO, as we will be able to rotate Class for Class like the Mancs/Chavs do.

[spider-neil]

It's not as straightforward as beating all of the teams outside of the top four home & away. I think that's a very simplistic approach to football/winning the league.

 

you may say its simplisitic but a game that instantly springs to mind was the away game at pompy where (imho) we played to shut them out when in the previous four game we played some simply superb football, that early in the season its almost putting a marking down how we were going to approach the rest of the season.

 

we should believe we are the best and go out every game against any opposition to prove we are, rather than setting out our stall for a draw in the hopes that 'maybe' we can nick a winner. simplisitic maybe but that's how I feel.

[kopite_Dave]

Okay assement time......

 

Lets take into account the form of the past two seasons, the chaotic financial state of the club, the transfers out and in and we left with nothing more than hope.

 

Hope that at finally long last Liverpool can actually challange for the title and not just sit and big talk it all the way to May.

 

The time has come where now is the season of great things or just another failed attempt at the title. As it was, the sqaud could have achieved much more than it actually did last season....some of you put the failure down to the rotation policy of the manager in the first half of the season, whilst others just put it down to the lack of quality.

 

My opinion is simply put, we were very unlucky at times at this started at the beggining of the seasons with that harsh penalty claim against Chealse and then that own goal again against Chealse in the CHL. These key moments contributed greatly to what happend in the season.

 

Now we are at a point where Benitez in my view has made the right transfer choices in order to make his squad even more competitive for the next season. I expect Livepool to be much more closer to United and Chealse, if not closer then better than them.

 

Such is my hope for the next season and whilst there was nothing wrong with the squad last season.....with the new transers in Keane, Barry, Dossena and Degen, I expect Liverpool to achieve great things under Benitez this year.

 

Don't even think your remotly close. Got rid of the utter shite shite houllier left us with this year. We are fucking lucky to have one of europes top coaches in charge. took over a club that was in the last few breaths. Had to put up with twit & twat, coco and david balloon moores. took the reserves and youth teams to a level they'd not been at for decades. Quite simply the best "manager" we've had since Bob Paisley

[Unrighteous]

Don't even think your remotly close. Got rid of the utter shite shite houllier left us with this year. We are fucking lucky to have one of europes top coaches in charge. took over a club that was in the last few breaths. Had to put up with twit & twat, coco and david balloon moores. took the reserves and youth teams to a level they'd not been at for decades. Quite simply the best "manager" we've had since Bob Paisley

 

Totally agree with this... Rafa saved our club from being pushed out of the top.

[aws]

I don't think that the domination of the "Big Four" proves that the other Prem sides are poor. I think the general level in the Prem is a lot higher than it was say five years ago - fuelled by the sky money.

 

The top four are now all at the top end of the best ten sides in Europe and the UEFA teams are having more success (even though they don't really prioritise the tournament because it doesn't bring in much cash).

 

Staying in the top four is getting harder as you have to improve every year at least as much as the chasing pack. It's like a treadmill - one mistake, you fall off and it'll be hard to get back on again.