Guz

Thats how I see it too (including Eskimo's post quoted). Rafa has only been able to spend big on individual players in one year and I think those signed (Torres and Babel) have been good investments, especially Fernando. He has been shouting from the rooftops for 3 years that he wants/needs that kind of money so why not continue to give it to him and see what he can do?! Thinking about it, the idea that Rafa is a manager that can work miracles on a tight budget was overplayed to be honest. We should've viewed Rafa as someone who can take us back to the top and off the field the finances would match that at equal pace. If the manager (Rafa, or whoever) is given a drib drab budget that we've had for the past 3 of 4 summers then I do not see us getting where we want to be anytime soon.

I'm not really gonna have a go at anyone for voicing their displeasure after paying £30 to watch us drop more points. Nor do I think the anger and frustration is out of place either. I think there's been a lot of conservative and reasoned debate about the current state of play recently and I think everyone is frustrated and pulling their hair out. But it's a bit weird that we boo the team (the manager?) off just a month after there was such incredible uproar throughout the fanbase about the treatment of the manager by our new owners. Maybe it was the circumstances of the perceived treatment rather than the fanbase in general actually still having total faith in Rafa?

I think our squad is better now and we need less than we did 3 years ago, yes. We've been saying it's 2 or 3 players for years and years and years, long before Benitez came but i genuinely believe that the core of the side is better than we've had for a long time and the back up players are better also. It just so happens we've got ourselves into a situation where we are relying too heavily on these squad players but it's not a situation we can't get out of - if the manager is given serious money to buy players who are of the same sort of quality as the likes of Fernando Torres and maybe Ryan Babel. If the owners are not prepared to give him that sort of money and expect him to work on his past budget then they may aswell dismiss him before he walks. If we're going down that route then it'll be very bumpy and very tiresome indeed. Wenger is doing well by working on a small budget but thats partly due to a huge scouting network set up 10 years ago and has bags and bags more experience (in success and failure) than Benitez.

He could've been top of the charts by now if he didn't have a finishing mare at Newcastle. f***ing brilliant player. He scores a lot of different style goals and thats important. Bit like Robbie in that respect.

Back him or sack him. No more fannying about. I hope it's the former. And I mean over the next 12 months with the sort of money we have spent on Torres and Babel.

We have 8 players (Reina, Carra, Agger, Finnan, Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard, Torres) who IMO are good enough to start almost all our games. 9 if you include Arbeloa and another in Sami who is a very reliable back up. Babel will hopefully break into that group by the end of the season. Other than that, we're asking too much of Pennant, Yossi, Kewell, Kuyt and Riise (+Voronin, Crouch) IMO. They're good enough to come in every now and then and play a role but in terms of a 38 game league season we need another 3 players in the class of the first bunch of players. Personally, I hope Rafa is given the money to splash big cash on individual players like he has on Torres and Babel. Mascherano too hopefully.

We have the makings of an excellent team (Pepe, Agger, Carra, Finnan, Masch, Xabi, Gerrard, Torres, hopefully Babel). We also have some potentially good squad players, as long as they are not asked to play big roles (Kuyt, Yossi, Crouch if he wants to, Kewell, Riise, Aurelio maybe, Pennant). We don't need to start from scratch, that is a definite in my mind. However we need to fill some gaps that are in the TEAM. The mancs and Arsenal were in the same boat not long ago (maybe arsenal still will be - who knows) but they acted quickly and ruthlessly. We need to do the exact same thing over the next 8 months.

I cannot muster enough energy to analyse our performance tonight to be honest. What a chance we had in the middle of December to prove to people what we're made of. Carry on our good form away from home at Reading, finally beat the mancs, win a tough away game (City), regain our home form (Pompey, Wigan) and keep beating the teams we're supposed to. Have we proved anything? Blip after blip after blip. We have no consistency. We started well, then turned in turd performances after the first international break; almost self destructing in the champions league. Our away form is still excellent yet our home form has taken a hit. We've dropped silly points against Brum, Wigan and Spurs - three s*** teams who are struggling. It'd be fine if we could've taken maximum points against Chelsea, Arsenal and/or the mancs but we couldn't. We were camped in our own half for parts against Arsenal, a side we have BATTERED at home on 3 occasions under Rafa and didnt muster a single decent shot on target in open play against the munsters. WHy does it feel like one step forwards, one step back. I love Rafa, f*** me I really do. I'm desperate for him and the club to succeed and I'm not gonna start calling for his head but f***ing hell it's getting frustrating. We're making progress, I think we definitley are but then in other areas we're stagnating. One forward, one back, one sideways, one forwards, one back. We didn't need to win the title this year, I dont think that many people were calling for it and I certainly wasn't. But I do want to see a Liverpool side playing with the belief and ability to challenge for the league. We want a manager who has shown he has the ability to galvanise a team week after week after week in the league. It's never going to be perfect, it may not even be good enough to stay in with a shout in the last week in May but we need to be doing better that what we are. This level of performance in the league is unacceptable. Bloody hell it's frustrating.

Very disappointed with the Arsenal game, whether they outplayed us or we decided to just sit back it was a complete turnaround from some of the performances we've had against them at home under Rafa where we've gone and (succesfully) tried to blitz them and denied them space/time to play with a high tempo game. Maybe it's a sign of Arsenal's improvement rather than anything else, I dunno.

We could play it during the week everyone else's CL fixtures takes place. Between Chelsea away and Inter at home.

It's frustrating. Our away form this season is excellent but our home form, which has been for the large part exceptional under Rafa, has taken a hit. Thankfully something as good as our home form doesn't just disappear overnight and I'm confident with any team that comes to Anfield and am getting more and more confident with our away trips (Arsenal, Chelsea, Mancs aside).

I don't think his movement is better than Kuyt and if we intend to play with our widemen + Gerrard with a bit of roaming lisence it's important that the striker off Torres is comfortable with that and is able to move around himself. Dont think Crouch gives us that. I'm pretty sure he'll play tommorow though.

Why is it best for us? It leaves us with just Voronin and Kuyt as out and out partners for Torres. Babel and Kewell aswell but they have other roles to play as well. He'll only go if we've got someone lined up as a replacement. Not necesarilly like for like but numbers wise. We should still get a fairly decent fee for him in the summer, as will probably Momo and Carson who are our other sellable assets that we don't really need.

West Ham and Chelsea away are our toughest games (in the league) between now and then. We SHOULD pick up a lot of wins between now and then and get some consistency back.

I'm not saying he isn't am I? Rafa is asking to play a specific way in the centre of a 442, some of the time he's free and bosses the game. Sometimes he's having to play deep and be very selective in his runs. Why he would prefer to play like that in the middle instead of roam from the right is beyond me but at least he's capable of doing it.

Given how contained and defensive Gerrard has often been, yet been pretty sensational for parts of this season, it beggars belief for me how this lack of discipline thing is still being thrown about.

He did alright yesterday, his movement was ok and touch not worth moaning about. But he played too deep and he wasn't much of a threat on the ball. It means Dunne and Richards could concentrate on Torres for much of the game. The few times Kuyt was supporting near and around him, Torres got more space and tried to isolate Dunne. Long term I just don't see him being good enough to hold down a regular place though. We need more consistent wide men to get more out of Kuyt I think.

Sums it up for me. I'm quite confident we will generally match the other 3 in terms of results against the rest of the league. We dropped silly points earlier in the year but our home form under rafa is nothing short of excellent and that doesn't disappear overnight. Our away form is much improved too. We'll all drop points here and there but on the whole I think we'll keep up with them for the whole season. But it's the 3 aways against them that deflates my confidence.

After playing 90 minutes against Derby I dont think there was much chance of Xabi starting.

Very frustrating game in general for a few reasons. Obviously gutted that once again we fail to take advantage of the leaders. But we did play WELL and were more than comfortable for most of the game. On top of a couple of long shots we also had enough chances to win the game - Yossi, Kuyt, Kewell (i think?) and Torres all had very decent chances. It was the perfect game to show some of the stuff we can be excellent at, in terms of keeping the ball and creating chances patiently but at the same time it highlighted the lack of players in our side who are threatening with the ball.

I was hoping that Redders would go one step further and remind the hairy beast that if the c*** that was sat next to him, and his team-mates hadn't turned in such a s***house 2nd half performance and defended like schoolgirls against Arsenal then the Gunners probably wouldn't be top tonight.

Yes. And that's fine for most teams we play against I think, especially at home but when we've got the exact same type of player on the opposite wing (Yossi) and Gerrard and Kuyt are playing so deep then unless he produces something magical I dont think he's going to be anywhere near enough of a consistent threat. He did well in 05/06 because he was probably sharper and also because on the other wing we had a completely different kind of player in Gerrard who was allowed to roam and take up different positions. Being decent and neat in posession capable of the occasional good moment on both wings isn't enough.

We kept a clean sheet. We kept the ball very well. We hoofed it less. I thought he did alright.

The bottom line is we don't have enough players who are a big enough, consistent, threat on the ball bar Gerrard and Torres. Hopefully Babel will develop into a regular in the side but he's not there yet. We needed more from Benayoun, Kuyt and Gerrard today. It just so happens that the latter on that list has been playing very well recently and often has a goal or the ability to produce something in him. The rest are hit and miss and that includes Kuyt (+ Crouch, Voronin, Pennant, Kewell, Yossi).

Recent history suggests we'll blow it tommorow. Hopefully not.