How many more fucking games are we gonna fucking lose this season?

[ThePositiveOne]

We are nine points off the pace, but this is football…

 

We win 4 in a row and the chavs lose 2 out of 4, and suddenly we are 3pts off the pace…

 

Why act as if the other teams will not lose games????? That is what I find amazing….

 

The mancs lost 4 games last year, 5 each the 2 years before, and the chavs lost 5 the year before that…

 

Now it is not ideal that we have lost 5 already, but if we do not draw any games, then the amount of games we have already lost will become a moot point…

 

We could still lose another 5 games, and still win the title with 84pts…

 

All is not lost yet, and as dire as the situation seems to be, we can still come out of this smelling like roses…..

 

Our squad was depleted on Sat (for whatever reason), and IMO we still should have won the game ..

 

These things happen...

[Herp McDerp]

We've lost 5 out of 11.

 

The Mancs have lost 2 out of 11.

 

The Renties have lost 2 out of 11.

 

Arsenal have lost 2 out of 11.

 

Chelsea aren't going to drop silly points like we do, people keep saying the Mancs are unimpressive and yet they're 8 points ahead of us and a supposedly weak Arsenal team are 5 points ahead of us with a game in hand.

 

So based on that the scenario you've painted seems pretty unrealistic, the only team that has proven that it can consistently fuck up is ours, the others have been getting the job done quite well.

[ThePositiveOne]

and of course they will continue on this path right???

 

They will not lose to teams they should beat, or draw, and they all will win out, right????

 

Wins and loses even out through out the season...

 

We will be fine....

[ZonkoVille77]

I always try to stay positive, but any small chance we had before the Fulham game is surely gone.

 

I can't remember feeling so down about the team in my life. Even when we were finishing 30 points behind the winners I didn't feel as bad. But Sat just took the piss big style and really can't see much hope coming anytime soon.

 

Loose to Lyon and we are left with the FA cup, and winning that takes a whole truckload of luck. Can't see silverware again this season. Please prove me wrong Rafa...

[Carra_is_legend]

Put a tenner on Tomkins coming out with some shite article about how it's not all doom and gloom and statistics prove we're still in the title race.

 

The beaut has again come up with a nice shite positive article. He is now moaning about the fixtures. He also says "an entire team missing at Craven Cottage" - who is going to remind him that 8 players who played against United also started against Fulham?

 

He also has a nerve to say Benayoun substitution was ok.

 

The Fulham fixture was the penultimate match in a run of 11 games with no fewer than eight away, and only three at home. Only two of the past seven games have been at Anfield.

 

So it was a horrible sequence, and far from indicative of the roughly 50-50 split you expect. It also included games against Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal, plus Fiorentina and Lyon in the Champions League. None was against a team lower than mid-table.

 

So, despite poor results, it was not your average run of games. Of the defeats, only those against Fiorentina, Lyon (which could have been so different had the second goal come) and Sunderland were hard to argue with (even if the Sunderland goal was worth a full-blown argument).

 

By December 5, the sequence will extend to 11 away games compared with a paltry five at home. So on paper it doesn't get any easier.

 

Thankfully it then switches, with four out of the next six at Anfield.

 

Add in a bit of an injury crisis, with almost an entire team absent at Craven Cottage, a thoroughly ludicrous red card (Degen) and goals conceded against the run of play, and it all got a bit surreal.

 

Liverpool were not outstanding, but they were not awful either; for the first 60-or-so minutes it was the kind of fairly impressive 'by the book' possession-based away display you'd have seen 25 years ago, just lacking a bit of cutting edge, as might be expected with so many of those who can supply it absent.

 

But by the end, with nine men, and an incredibly young set of players left out there, it was desperate stuff at times, as you'd expect.

 

No red card at all last season, or this, until last week; now three in two league matches.

 

Jamie Carragher found himself in three similar situations, and while none looked a clear sending off to me, there was probably a totting up process involved, even if that's not legal in terms of the decision process; in other words, the benefit of the doubt ran out, whether or not it was fair.

 

In each instance he was putting pressure on the forward, but on no occasion did they have the ball under control.

 

Going to a place where United were well beaten last season with so many players absent made it tougher; as did the need to not cause a recurrence of Torres' injury. At Anfield I'd have still expected a victory, but away from home it's naturally more tricky, especially when the pressure is on.

 

At 1-1 Liverpool were in control, although the sight of Torres leaving the field will have lifted the home team, and the Reds were not creating enough clear cut chances. That would be my main criticism.

 

The second Fulham goal was particularly frustrating, as Kuyt had bust a gut to keep the ball in, only to find his hard work rewarded Fulham. In hindsight, he'd have been better letting it go for a throw.

 

But hindsight really is a wonderful thing.

 

With that in mind, I would ask this: why does the average fan, or, given their ceaseless negativity, almost every football pundit (who have never managed, yet appear to know it all) have to 'understand' a manager's decision?

 

It's fine to have your opinions. But they, like mine, mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. They are made without full knowledge, from the safety of... ( – wherever – ).

 

These opinions do not affect anything, and they are not affected by the realities of what is taking place. We can say "keep Torres on!", but we do not know what could have happened had he stayed on; we wouldn't have had to carry the can for any aggravation of his injury, or get flak for losing while he was in the treatment room.

 

If he'd stayed on and got injured, we could have said "You should have taken him off!" Commentators joke about it "being a lot easier up here", but still put the boot in all the same.

 

Against United, Torres was sacrificed after 80 minutes, with the game delicately poised. It was barely mentioned. In the event, his replacement sealed the victory. Of course, had United equalised, or worse still, gone on to win, the Torres decision would have been ripped apart, even though it was a necessity.

 

Because, as observers, we can always have it both ways. We can always damn for what happens and also condemn for what might have happened.

 

If every decision a manager makes is understandable, then that would suggest that they are easy, and obvious. Therefore, it suggests a job that anyone could do.

 

Clearly this is not the case. We ask our accountants, or computer technicians, or mechanics, to do work we don't understand. We trust that they know better; if we tried to tell them how to do their job better, without similar training, experience or knowledge, they'd tell us where to go. We trust that they understand the small details.

 

Not so with football managers. With football, everyone knows better.

 

As a bit of fun, a bit of banter, that's all right. But as a proper reasoned analysis, I'm not convinced. And what alarms me is the utter certainty of people who've probably never even been near a football pitch in their lives, either to watch or to play, and of those who know the game, but not the role of management.

 

For instance, taking off Benayoun at Fulham to bring on a fresh, eager young goalscorer. Whether or not you agree with that is up to you; it’s a judgement call. It comes with no guarantees.

 

But as a decision it is effectively rendered null and void by the immediate dismissal of Philipp Degen, for what was never a sending off in a million years. (David Bentley wasn't even booked for a far worse tackle earlier in the day.)

 

Any chance Nathan Eccleston had of coming on and making a name for himself, with a bit of league debut energy, was curtailed not by Benitez but by the referee's bizarre decision. While Liverpool equalising looked far from a certainty, there will have been more of a chance than before Degen's dismissal.

 

That put Liverpool under far greater pressure, and led to the Carragher sending off, with the Reds outnumbered.

 

Taking off Torres is another decision that seems easy to attack, but the season lasts well beyond Fulham and Lyon; Torres has not been 100 per cent fit, therefore the last 30 minutes were a risk.

 

Of course, taking him off is a risk too, and a boost to the opposition. That's the reality of management: a rock and a hard-place; damned if you do, and so easily damned if you don't.

 

Whatever is said about Rafa's tactics, last week against United Liverpool could have been undone when Valencia hit the bar. However good Liverpool looked, they got the much-needed breaks at the right time. Against Arsenal and Fulham, they didn't. Against Arsenal, a player was allowed to block a goal-bound shot with both hands.

 

I didn't write in the aftermath of last weekend's win that Rafa was a tactical genius in the way he set up and then made alterations, and I'm not saying the exact opposite now. Whatever you do, games turn on little moments, and often they are beyond the control of the man on the touchline.

 

For me, the decision I've least understood from any manager - ever - was when Rafa took off Steven Gerrard in the Mersey derby at Goodison a couple of seasons back. In that moment, I thought it was insane.

 

Surely the last player you take off in a pulsating Mersey derby is the local lad and captain who is playing with his heart on his sleeve?

 

However, Gerrard, with an understandable desire, was trying to take on Everton all on his own, and as soon as Lucas replaced him, Liverpool became a team again, passing and breaking down their 10-man rivals by moving the ball. In the last minute, Lucas effectively 'scored' the goal to win the game (only denied by an outrageous 'goalkeeping' save from Phil Neville, who was sent off, and the spot-kick converted by Kuyt).

 

Clearly Benítez saw something that I, and almost any other observer, didn't, because not only did it lead to the win, it led to a more coherent display.

 

That taught me that left-field decisions are made for a reason; reasons often well beyond our comprehension. But they can always go for or against. They can always look inspired, or foolish. Whatever you do right in football, things can so easily go wrong.

 

But that is what good managers do: they make decisions.

 

And on balance, over the course of his Liverpool career, Benítez's judgement calls have been successful.

 

However, it's obviously easy in a time of struggles to just focus on those you believe he got wrong, and, for instance, blame the lack of a title challenge in 2007-08 on omitting Torres against Birmingham, and so on.

 

Some managers make equally bold decisions but in other ways: I've often seen all three substitutions made at half-time. That often gets credit from the media. But one injury, and you're in trouble. Spurs lost against Stoke at home last week when they ran out of subs and ended up with 10 men.

 

Towards the end of his massively successful reign, and with his team still the best in England, Kenny Dalglish was torn apart for fielding three full-backs in midfield away at Arsenal. I even heard it mentioned by one commentator recently.

 

What wasn't mentioned was that the Reds won. Which just goes to show that managers are questioned, even when they get it right; just as Benitez was when Lucas inspired Liverpool to a win in the derby.

 

With that in mind, who'd be a manager on those days when you lose?

TOMKINS: TIME FOR UNDERSTANDING