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I agree with that..he put a few crosses in which created excellent chances had the strikers been alert! He's not going to be outstanding in the sense of burning full backs off but much of his best work involves the chances he's creating.

Did nothing wrong last night..had a bright game I thought!

The ' you're not singing' looked (from the UC) to start in the main stand towards the away end..and we got a few 'easy' chants as well from various parts of the ground. Toe-curlingly embarrassing to hear all that at Anfield especaill y aimed at about 1200 visiting supporters!

ST holder..so all home games and about a third of the aways.

Mostly crap but NOT total crap! The author was absolutely right about Kuyt needing to get on the end of his own cross..out there on the right the cross comes in and nobody whatsoever in any position to utilise it! Kuyt had an thankless task on his hands at OT imho!

A really excellent post with which I completely agree.Watching Liverpool's insipid play is real frustration ..I watched Arsenal against Reading and they have always three or four runners who move up field quickly to make themselves available and give options when in posession.By contrast when we have the ball up the pitch there's invariably no one up in support!A prime example in the first half today when our one front man Kuyt had the ball near the corner and put a cross in there's was absolutely nobody to get on the end of it and the ball sailed across the goalface to the opposite corner flag!

With respect mate,we showed a fighting spirit in Istanbul which is something today's team seem incapable of doing for some reason. As for winning the league this season..we'll have our work cut out to even qualify for the CL..!

We were very poor against weak opposition tonight.We got the points of course and that's a relief but we all know how unconvincing it was and how easily we could have let it slip.I'm delighted by the win but still very concerned about the 'quality'of our football and the fact that we look so lightweight overall.

If we win on Sunday it will be a huge lift I grant you but it's the standard of our play and the apparent half-arsed attitude of some of the players which has me worried. Anyway,there are very very few games in this league which are'nt hard games now and I would'nt have thought we would have dropped 8 pts at Sheffield,Blues**** and Bolton and another 2 at home to Blackburn! Of course,there's a long way to go yet but I just can't see us finishing above a***,Chelsea and Man U..sincerely hope I'm wrong.

I fully concur with that and that we will have to put some good runs together to make the fourth spot the way things are looking so far this season.It will take a massive improvement to qualify for the CL through the league.

An absolutely spot on assessment of Peter Crouch imho..a great lad and a great trier and sometimes very useful but an average footballer imho.

He's a very average footballer imho..not particularly good in the air especially for a tall man,slow to react and slow across the ground.Useful in some games to bring on and capable of scoring the odd very good goal such as against Gala but not at all sure he's good enough for a regular place at LFC and nowehere near as effective as Kuyt.

We have to qualify for the CL during this season in order to play in it next season is what I meant! In other words we need to finish in the top four..unless of course we win it again! OK?

With respect for your viewpoint,I dont subscribe to this idea of the officials always against us and the 'if only'we'd have hit the net instead of the post business.We were lucky to get a draw at Sheff U..we lost 0-3 at Goodison and 0-2 at the Reebock! we should look more closely at our players' efforts and performance levels imho as well as the selection process if we are to have any hope of qualifying for the CL this season rather than making excuses for our shortcomings..imho.

There will be serious questions about finishing top THREE if we lose on Sunday ! OK..it's very early days but it's dropping points in these early games that gives us so much pressure trying to make up ground later on. We look a long long way off the finished article this time around.After a very poor pre-season,it just has'nt happened for us yet except in the CS when we looked decent.

I wanted a manager used to the English game first and foremost so would have liked MON.That said I'm glad we got Rafa but I still have an admiration for MON's ability to manage players and he'll improve Villa without a doubt this season.

My thoughts exactly..early on at Sheffield he did'nt look like he relished the physical side of the game and he was surely ball watching..along with others..for their goal.But he was good going forward and has a stinging free kick in him and his passing is good.Needs to improve his defensive play and probably will when he's up to the pace of the game here.Some people have him motm which is stretching it a bit imho..I'd have Bellamy for that 'honour'.

He was good against Chelsea but at Bramall Lane he was muscled out of the game for the mostpart by a strong physical side.Too lightweight was our opinion on leaving the ground.Our centre midfield failed us for once on Saturday.

Like Bigbird says..getting a good start against Sheffield U tomorrow at Bramall Lane which is going to be difficult but then..getting through to the CL next week! These are my immediate concerns without even looking ahead to the rest of the season! If the unthinkable happened (it wont!) our mental state could be badly affected so although I'm reasonably confident,I'm still bloody concerned because that's what I'm like!

I'm not concerned about Palletta as such but I am concerned about all players coming in from Spain or South America who struggle with the language and may find the EPL something of a culture shock as well as coping with life over here in winter for example.Obviously such as Xabi seems to have coped well but on average more than half of these lads dont seem to make the grade here.I do think that both Pennant and Bellamy will be good signings and add to the first team's strength but the rest would most likely be squad players imho.

I hope we're still not tired then come Wednesday! I can see no benefit whatsoever in losing 5-0 even in a friendly game.If we are not going to compete at all,we may as well have stayed in Melwood and played between ourselves.Friendly or not,it was still an emabarrassment and well we all know it.OK,it was just a friendly and hardly crucial I admit but still rather worrying imho.Hope we can avoid the malaise carrying over to the CL on Wednesday with CL fotball at stake as well as £12m!

I like Defoe personally however I also think that Bent would be a good signing and a stronger and more aggressive kind of striker imho. Darren Bent has had a very good season with Charlton which doess'nt mean he has to be a one-season-wonder.It's for Rafa to decide if indeed he can maintainhis promise and go on to be top class..and why should'nt he? If were to discard every striker for fear he was a flash in the pan we'd never sign anybody decent.

Duncan Ferguson..bringing him out of retirement !

The thing is though that we NEED Defoe ..or some other ..even more now there is a gap where Cisse once was! I'm gutted for the lad AND I'm gutted for Rafa and his plans,though I just hope we can still piecen things together.