Guz

I've been buzzing about Inter for a few weeks now. I absolutely love the champions league to bits. I can't fathom being knocked back into the UEFA cup again next season or beyond and feel so much pride in how we are considered a giant of the european game. There is something special about it for sure. Grew up watching the likes of Robbie, Macca, Redders, James etc. then the closest we got to the CL was Leverkusen under Ged in 2002. Never thought for a minute we'd be in 2 finals in 3 years. Crazy stuff.

What was the comment in relation to? Carragher and Gerrard's footballing abilities OR their dressing room influence? Because the two things are very different. I do remember a lot of talk in Ged's final season about how much influence Gerrard, Carragher, Owen and Murphy had around the time we beat the mancs 1-0 at their place including persuading the manager not to pick certain players

Looks that way doesn't it

Our league results were hardly title winning material last year. We have always played long balls, Carragher has never been able to pass, Xabi has been off form for more than this season (for which he has been injured), Kuyt has preogressively been getting worse, Kewell has been s**** for a long time, Riise the same..........

It's never a one way street is it? The players are not blameless The manager is not blameless The owners are not blameless Something rotten has been setting into this club for the last 12 months. So much s*** has gone on (Takeover x 2, Athens fiasco, stadium, Rafa vs owners, SOS....) it's untrue.

Torres will rip them a new a****** on tuesday night

Why is it always someone else's fault? It's Gerrards fault that Xabi is playing s*** Sami's fault that Carra has been a liability It's Rafa's fault that Crouch cant be arsed to run Forget it. Everyone at the football club, from the board to the manager to the players need to grow a pair of f***ing balls andtake some responsibility for whats going on. In ged's last year when everyone lost hope and faith one man stood up and took the club by the scruff of the neck (Gerrard). Now he's struggling and the likes of Masch, Torres and Sami are trying to do the same. Shame the rest of the overpaid, overhyped w*****s are soft as s**** to do the same. We were conned by the yanks 12 months ago and now a section of the support is taking responsibility and action to rectify that - brilliant. The idea that some people are opposed to this beggars belief for me. This club has been passive for the last 20 years and watched the league go by. Lets f***ing sort it out reds

What has happened to Carragher this season. Been s***. One man who has shone above all and confirmed his place as a legend (for me) is Sami. Peter Crouch? Booed and mocked by the whole country when Rafa stuck by him and is playing like a s***house c***.

If any of our strikers should be out of the door it should be Peter Crouch IMO. For someone who was booed and ridiculed by the majority of supporters in England, one manager stuck his neck on the line and backed Crouch for 2 solid seasons. PC hasn't played regularly this season but recently when he has I think his attitude has been f***ing awful. He was dire yesterday. At least Kuyt works his b******s off and is showing some (small) signs of improvement.

I'm sorry but Barnlsey at home for me does not constitute a rotation policy. He doesn't rotate his best players because they perform for him most of the time. He rotates the rest of the c**** because they can't be trusted against certain teams. If he buys players of the calibre of Torres he plays them, end of. No player will play everygame of the season. We have a squad for a reason and it's for games like yesterday. Pompey away he had just recovered from a knock and didn't want to be risked - IMO fair enough. Brum at home I didn't understand however. I agree we overcomplicate things too much, too often but I dont think rotation is the root evil cause of this and I dont think he has some cunning rotation plan. Everything has been discussed and done to absolute death. No one is going to convince anyone of their side of the argument because we've gone round in several circles debating it.

Pray tell why? Except there are probably more shock results in Spain where the better teams drop points? You need more points in England because there is such a gap in technical quality of the best teams and the rest of the rabble.

Publically at least, the situation has been the same for the past few weeks. Everyone knows DIC are looking to swoop but no one has a clue how this will turn out. Given the way the stadium and new loan package was announced a few weeks ago I can see this running till the summer.

I dont think one year will sort it out either because a lot of damage has been done but my point is that if Rafa gets another summer of financial backing and then no s*** from the owners and still finds us fighting for 4th place then everyone can hold their hands up and say it wasn't to be. Not sacking him in the summer doesn't mean we have to wait for him to dismantle this squad and build a totally new one. If DIC did actually come in I can see them doing exactly that, throwing money at him and then bascially letting him know that the next 9 months are one big f*** off job interview and if it doesn't pay off then he goes. Looking at some of the players we have, what Rafa has achieved in Europe and at Valencia - if he is sacked Monday morning (which wont happen) there would be a huge niggling feeling about "what if" with him. When Houllier left I don't think anyone had that feeling and almost everyone realised a change of management was needed. I still think there is something that is bursting to get out at Liverpool but it won't come out until everything has settled and the crazy s*** that has gone on in the last 12 months is thrown out of the window. Maybe it's just me.

He bought Crouch the summer before Kuyt and Bellamy, and Nando 6 months before that. Don't understand that argument at all. But of course, if you just want to say something solely to get in a bitch about rotation then it makes perfect sense.

What? How the hell do you say that?? What's with all these daft predictions people are making. The one summer Mourinho wasn't backed with incredible money at Chelsea he finished 2nd and stuttered at the start of this season. I'm not saying he wouldn't be high up on a shortlist if we found a new manager but he's not some kind of magician who will just whip up a league title out of nowhere. As a club we need to calm down and get some stability back. What with the takeover, Athens, new stadium, new signings, Porto protest, new stadium again, SOS etc. the last 12 months have been f***ing weird and surreal. Part of me cannot wait for the summer; Yanks or no yanks, Rafa or no rafa, Parry or no Parry, this club needs some f***ing stability because at the moment we are a shambles on and off the pitch and all over the place.

Why is it so polarised? If he is backed with more money next season, buys another Torres or two, yet we are still in the same boat then he can still be sacked and most probably will be. I dont understand why sticking with him and backing him this summer means he has to stick around for 4 more years.

Reina Finnan Carra Sami Arbeloa Gerrard masch Xabi Babel Torres Kuyt

Well we are playing s*** footy and fighting for 4th so yeah I suppose. But I do remember us losing a lot of games that season, 9 or 10 in the league I think? Can't really remember

My general feeling is that if a manager has a bad season then he should always be given another one straight after to set things straight. That's why I was happy to see Ged still in a job after he finished 5th. I also hold the CL very, very highly and think reaching the final is a top achievment which saved our season last year from freefall to very credible. We bossed our group, went toe to toe and then some (winning 2-1 at the nou camp!!) with Barca, brushed aside PSV with ease and then fought hard with Chelsea and Milan. The way we matured in Europe last season compared to our 2005 win was very encouraging to see. We may well do the same this year, god i hope so, but assuming we don't I'd consider it as Rafa's real first failure. I know we were average in the league last year too but I personally think we're devaluing the CL if we don't consider it as part of our goals every season. That's why at this stage I'd still be in favour of giving him another season. But the way things are going he may well dig his own grave...

I hope anyone contemplating wanting the reds to lose to Inter does it from the comfort of their own homes and stays away from Anfield on Tuesday night, on any night. Christ on a bike. I hope we rip the f*****s a new a****** and then some. Yup. Stopping the rot using a man sacked by Bolton and another who has not been a manager for however many years is definitley the way to go. Makes absolutely, perfect sense.

erm, ok?

I have some sympathy tonight because we didnt see the lacklustre, half arsed s*** that we did against Havant or the first game against luton. But managers ultimately live by their results and our results have been mediocre for too long. Our style and quality of football is very poor, there seems to be no hunger or enthusiasm about the players (except Torres and Masch), our defenders look nervous, we play too many long balls and other than last year's run to Athens (which btw was brilliant and saved our season) our results in the league for the past 1 and a half seasons have just not been good enough. In 4 years we have produced one championship winning season or run of results. It's not good enough.

If the first defeat of the season ruined player's morale then they are bigger g*******s and s***houses then I first gave them credit for. I agree I think Rafa has lost a lot of support from the players though.

Though I agree with the gist of your post in hindsight I thought we played better when Babel went off. Not saying it was DUE to Babel going off but we certainly had more than enough chances to win it in the last 20 minutes.

Forgive me if this is such a daft question but isn't that what all teams have to do to win games regularly? Keep the ball, pressure the opposition and make chances? We aimlessly hoof the ball too much, our movement is crap, we don't have enough width and too often our play is too slow. Our form in the league over the last 18 months has just been s*** with some good performance scattered around.