KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Liverpool v Villa - MATCH DISCUSSION

Is there enough time to offload Babel and Lucas ans Voronin , ooohhhh sorry there all match winners aren`t they .
And guess what we will have to step up next week aswell !!!!

And if someone says OUR FU--IN SEASON STARTS NOW in the next week !!!

i doubt he will quit. he will loose money if he quits.

i think rafa maybe damaged goods his rows with the owners are affecting his ability to manage the team for them but hes very stubborn and he wont quit hes a good manager but maybe its just an impossible situation that not going to work with him as gaffer and the yanks in charge

We are not just one or two players short, we are three or four players short of the sort of quality required to be serious challengers. Last year we over achieved and this hid the cracks. Arsenal were rebuilding and had a poor start, Chelsea were badly managed until Hiddink arrived and now Man City and Spurs are being properly run. If we have to bring on Voronin, as a means of stepping up, it tells its own story.

Rafa hasn't got the players, we've been overhyped and we haven't got the money to sort the situation out. We're outside the top 4 in terms of the squad.

I agree with andrew 78 in that Benitez should never have tried to sell Alonso as this ultimately deprived us of one of our most unfluential players and G Barry would not, in any case have represented an improvement.

The immediate future looks bleak from where I'm sitting and we probably need a new owner and a new manager before things improve. Rafa's faith in kuyt and Lucas makes me doubt his judgemnet and we all know about the funding issue. In terms of where we finish, I think that this will be our worst season for a long time. Maybe it just has to get worse before it gets better. To put in perspective, if we suddenly swapped squads with Spurs, I think I'd be a whole lot more confident. To me, that says it all. We are currnetly nowhere.

Benitez said: "The first 20 minutes we had our chances, we didn't take them. Then we made a mistake, scored an own goal, then conceded in injury time. Afterwards we were pushing but gave away a penalty - there were too many mistakes in crucial moments.

"Clearly we did not play well. We gave the ball away against a team that's good on the counter. We have lost and we have to improve."

Benitez now wants his senior players to step up when Liverpool visit Bolton at the weekend.

He added: "Our target is to win against Bolton in the next game and that's it. We're not thinking about anything else.

"With this squad we won a lot of games last year and we have to do the same this year.

"When you are losing, the only way to change things is to win - that's the only way.

"You can talk about some names but clearly the team as a team has to improve. The senior players have more experience and they have to take responsibility and go forward."

To be fair to Benitez, that's both a fair summary of what occured and a balanced reaction but it's not always like that, is it? I'm surprised he didn't start blaming G Barry for a lack of loyalty or something equally extraordinary.

It's not quite the same squad however because last year we had Keane and Alonso and although Keane was indifferent he offered an option we don't have and of Alonso it's all been said.

In any event, I stand by my previous post and see nothing in yours that suggests I need to revise my opinion, sadly.

everyone see's a bleak future, until we string some wins together.

At the risk of sounding like the much maligned Emp, a few wins against Bolton etc isn't going to change anything. The problem is the squad is weaker than those of our competitors and that must be addressed or we'll lose the qualty we do have in the forthcoming transfer windows.

lucas is not great. the defeat wasn't his fault. he's a scapegoat. for what it's worth. we were back in the game at 2-1 when stevie made that challenge...which was shockingly bad decision on his part. ref had no choice. it was a stonewall penalty. stupid considering the attacker still had skrtel and the keeper to beat. and skrtel was favourite to get it. but going 3-1 down was game over. i also want to say that the defeat is not on stevie's head either. it's a collective defeat. but it's not the kind of decision an experience captain should make.

Lucas did what he can do, and he seemed very capable of passing the ball. scoring an own goal was not his fault, even Gerrard and Carragher scored stupid own goals in more important matches (Leage Cup Final 05 .. FA CUP Final 06).


our main problem was with Kuyt and Benayoun who did not offer any width, nor did they make the best use of our attacking full backs. we were too predictable.

If I was the manager, I would've played Riera on the left, with one of Kuyt or Benayoun on the right. if that didn't help, I will then play with Babel upfront along with Torres, with Gerrard pushed to the right.

that could have won us the match.