Papasmurf

Angelic nostalgia? Where did you see that? As for the vilification of the Kewell signing, do you not remember the words of Houllier himself when he said he'd be "the missing link between midfield and attack" ? My point was; it was naive to expect a single player to provide the support we'd been lacking, as oppose to a change in approach. If, at the time, you didn't have your doubts when you heard him say it, maybe you hoped Kewell would provide the impossible also.

Like the midget Keane? Or would you have him marking Vidic?

This is like saying: Having your testicles ripped off in a mechanical meat grinder is ten times better than having the rest of you dragged in behind them. Or being baldy.

Exactly. On a serious note, there is no way you can look back over the European championships and come to the conclusion that Spain played better/Looked more effective with Torres on his own than they did when Villa was playing. Unless you're Carrafan. By the way, Lucas had a stinker against Marseille too.

Yes, they struggled badly, scoring only more goals than any other team. Do you share brains with Liz Hurley?

One thing you couldn't fault diouf for was his ability to produce huge amounts of thick mucus from his respiratory passages and launch it at great speed towards Celtic fans.

Exactly. But if they were as bad as danny murphy, their baldness would have led to their exclusion from society, with their pictures being burned during dancing rituals whilst signed danny murphy shirts were held aloft burning in the midnight air... As would regularly happen outside Anfield.

This is like saying, having violent diarrhea is better than being slapped in the mouth with a moldy fish, scratched in the eyeball by a cat, or having a grenade explode on your calf.

You were bald though. It means a lot.

Ask Rex Makin

I did initially think so, until junior smurf popped out with an afro.

Don't think those players are in the same mould as each other to be honest. Unless the mould is a universal one size fits all one. In which case they'd be in it. Besides, didn't you say Leiva played a blinder against Marseille? Sort of have to take your words with a pinch of salt after that buddy.

It's hard not to disagree with none of that. I apologise.

Listen Mr "t1971" do you know who I am? I'm member number 9'138 ! You better show some f***ing respect boy!

Anyone who says it's wrong to doubt somebody who doesn't think Lucas won't be one of the world's best players in due time, is having a laugh. In my opinion.

Erm, excuse me? Did I just see someone highlighting a stat which makes it look like Luca Leiva playing enhances our chances of winning? Or does it just look like I'm reading the post of someone from the planet donut?

He floats like a Kuyt in that interview. I can barely kuyt on one hand the number of big ups he gives us. He expends kuytless energy in every game he plays for us, and you can kuyt on him to stay true to us, which is more than you can say for most in the modern day game. Dirk...dirk dirk dirk dirk diggler!! You can kuyt on him to put a smile on your kuyt. .

I don't hold any grudges against Houllier. He seems like a nice enough fella. I talk about him in footballing terms, not trying to demonise the bloke. He did set in place some good things, however, I think some of what he did is remembered so fondly because it came as the only glimpse of professionalism we'd had in a long period of abject underachievement. Souness ripped us apart, simple as. He wasted countless millions on s****, and, to be honest, it'd be a mission trying to explain the countless bad things that went on during his time her. He was just an absolute disaster, and arrogant and horrible with it. Lost all respect for that man. Couldn't care less that he played for us, he's a top grade a$$hole. Evans tried his best to stabilise the ship but didn't have anywhere near the tactical nouse or the authority to get the best out of the players he had, didn't have the required knowledge to set in place the things we needed long term, and was basically more of a coaching staff than a manager. I think maybe he'd admit that himself. Houllier, in hindsight, was merely a competent European manager. That, compared to what had gone before, meant that Liverpool fans were introduced to things we hadn't seen. I remember the stories about his time with France as manager. The fact that he'd failed to gain qualification for the next major tournament, then went upstairs to become director of football and overseen the development of the next crop of french superstars who would eventually go on to dominate the world, got us all excited about what he could do for us. He structured things differently to anyone who'd gone before him. He brought us into the modern era if you like. unfortunately for both parties, although the new way of thinking was in line with the rest of Europe, in practice it wasn't on a par with those European counterparts who had perfected it, or at least got to a high level, of which there are quite a few. This meant we were only ever going to reach a certain standard, that much became clear long before Gerard left. This is where most of his problems stemmed from. His blatant refusal to listen to any of the criticism directed at him, or acnowledge his own fans, brushing them off almost arrogantly as if they knew nothing, alienated him from a large section of the fanbase. This was probably the saddest part of the relationship we'd had with a man who, until that point, was well liked and respected for what he'd at least tried to achieve. If Houllier had told us openly "look, I love this club, and I feel I've taken us as far as we can go"..... He would, regardless of the fact he didn't hit the heights of the great managers of our time, have been remebered with similar fondness as the likes of Paisley, Shankly, Fagan and Dalglish: A man who achieved success, restored our pride, and passed on the baton to someone who could take us further. Someone humble, who'd picked us up out of the dirt, brushed us down, and showed his love of the club by sacraficing his own desire for success for the benefit of something more important. Sadly, he got sucked under. Drawn into the pursuit of vindication. His desire to be proven right, to poke one in the eye of his detractors, and to chase his own selfish aims regardless of the very respectful request of those who still held him in high regard, to move on, ultimately took him over, and stained the character of a man who should never have been remembered with any ill feeling.

You know the way you're supposed to remember exactly where you are when certain events happen? Well you sometimes remember exactly where you are when you realise something point blank, and it sticks. Say you had a mate who you were never quite sure about, and you saw him eying up a tenner on your kitchen table in a dead shifty way, your mind would be made up. He wouldn't have to steal it for you to know that's what he was thinking. Some things die, instantly, just like that. When the gut feeling you had suddenly has foundation, it takes a fool to ignore it. You may hope to be proven wrong, but it seldom happens. I've seen loads of comparisons being made between Gerrard Houllier and Rafael Benitez lately. I wonder to myself how, and why? How is it that people can see one thing, and relate it to something completely different, simply because certain situations are the same? When you've had one cheeky f***** rob a few squid out of your jacket pocket, you're a few quid down. When you're with a good mate who you should know would never rob you, and you find your jacket a few quids short, you may automatically think the only conclusion is that your mate's a cheeky f***** too. Go and accuse him if you want. Then maybe realise you just bought a chippy on the way home, lent your ma a tenner, or bought the new boyzone cd. Then it's you that's f***ed up. It's not your mate in the picture no more, it's you for being a paranoid t***, and a s*** mate. Oops. The good fellas will forgive you, but not forget it. No matter how sorry you say you are, there's always going to be that bitter taste in the mouth that you thought like that in the first place about someone who should have earned your respect, if for little other than being nothing like the other little scumbags who'd do that. Things are cool. Just not as cool as they were, and you both know it. This feeling is true amongst certain sections of Liverpool fans. People don't quite understand the long term effects of their actions it seems. Those who find every angle to throw accusations towards Benitez now, will, no doubt, highlight the dour displays of football as justifiable reason for their previous rantings. They will probably have little shame if they find themselves jumping round celebrating a cup or league title win. Mr.Benitez is not exempt from criticism. Nor should he be. Some of his decisions can rightly be questioned. It's our right as fans to do that, if we blindly followed there wouldn't be much debate. But some accusations go well over and beyond the usual sceptical analysis of those who question him, but remain aware that he has constructed a very good team that can play good football and gained us the status as maybe the worst draw for any of Europe's elite teams. Some digs are way below the belt. I was working in bootle a few years ago. It was around the time we were looking to sign Harry Kewell. Liverpool fans were going mad with excitement. He was about to announce his decision on Australian TV later that night if I remember correctly. Everyone waited with baited breath. He chose us, everyone went mad, and the rest....you know. He was one of the "Edge of the seat" signings we were promised. Remember them? Gerard Houllier and his sidekick had made a promise to uplift the fans who'd watched their team defend their way to any suiccess it'd had during his tenure. His promise of star quality was surely born out of the fact that we'd failed miserably to deliver any suatained attacking quality over the course of a season. Initially I thought he was on the money. He knew what we needed at least. His statement of intent proved this. Hope was still alive man, still breathing. No sooner had it been revived, than it carped it in the leccy cupboard. There's me, City FM blurring away in the kitchen, leaning into the cubbyhole to stick a fiver in the meter, struggling to see if it's gone in. Sport bit is on after the news and I hear it.........."Gerard Houllier has said there will be no more spending following the capture of Former Leeds star Harry Kewell."...... I'll never forget that moment in time, because it's when I knew for a fact that our coming season would be a failure and would spell the end of Houllier's Liverpool career. I hoped to god he was playing games. That this was a trick, a transfer policy to get an edge in the race for some signing he really did have lined up. The season drew closer and it became clear that wasn't the case. He really did think Harry Kewell would be the "missing link" we needed to turn a bunch of abject failure into title challengers. Every bit of respect I had left for him evaporated at that point. He knew sweet fa about our problems if he thought one man could change a whole team. His ideas and principles would need a major revamp, as would the team itself. The fact he thought Kewell would provide us with every single thing we lacked, simply beggared belief. Besides, what if Kewell was injured? Would that mean we no longer had that missing link, and would be staved of creativity?If I can pose these obvious questions, why can't a proffesional football manager? The flat, streile, unimaginative, narrow, defensive, one dimensional brand of football we had been playing until that point could never be rectified by the signing of one man. It proved beyond question that Houllier's ideas, his philosophy, was just plain wrong. Just bad. He'd never make it, and neither would we while he was in charge. The squad was a shambles, and by the end of that season, true enough, the fans were phoning Radio city by the jundreds stating their refusal to go to another game while he was in charge, results and performances had fallen to the point where inconsistent would represent an improvement. We were terribly bad. Awful even. His tenure was brought to a respectful end and a new era dawned when the Echo reported the Valencia manager to be our new supremo. I didn't know his name, but when the list of potential managers was drawn up the Valencia coach was my choice. I wondered whether anyone out there woudl have even thought of this. It was, obviously, based on the two games we played against them in which we were completely and utterly outclassed by a team who's defensive solidity and controlled attacking was something light years beyond anything we'd seen in years. Humiliation wasn't close. It'd be the perfect choice. A top manager who wasn't yet at one of the Elite clubs in Europe. When the Echo broke the news that he was going to be the new boss, I was over the fecking moon. Five years later, I still am. His dispute with the Valencia board and the famous sofa and lamp statement was well documented as the main reason for his departure, yet he has endured similar things here, and stuck by us, despite interest from clubs like Madrid and Inter Milan. He has constructed a team that defends well, but has quality in all the attacking areas. He's had little financial backing compared to the people he's expected to challenge, and yet he has constructed a squad which can cope with the demands of all competitions and beat the very best Europe has to offer. Our football may suffer as a result of the constant changing, but I firmly believe that this is a result of constant tweaking and changing needed because of the inability to make large scale changes all at once. Our transfer policy has been one of steady transition. Yet this is something people overlook in their eagerness to see superstar names brought in every year. We had to fill gaping holes with players who could at least provide a temporary measure. Year after year the standard of the signings has improved, to the point where now Benitez may venture into the transfer market aiming for a very high level of player once or twice per season. Our football has been balanced, good quality stuff, played at a high tempo with good organisation. That we haven't entered into every season playing as such does not detract from the fact that, when we get it together, usually mid season, we are playing very good quality football, outplaying the majority of teams we face, and getting results. A lack of quality in vital areas has let the team down on such occasions, but even that has been rectified to a large degree, and the process is ongoing. The man utd match is an example. Once again we battered them. Once again we deserved the three points. But this time we actually got it. Does that mean our mentality was better this time round? Maybe our tactics were better? Does it mean we adopted an over cautious approach to the games before this? Or does it mean some people only see the result, and draw every conclusion from there? Like Rafa said before the game, some people only seee results, not performances. How true he was. But maybe he could have gone further. Some people only see the here and now. The stale drab showing against boro was reminicent of the Houllier days... Maybe it was, but maybe there's also more to it than the fact our manager and his predecessor are the same. Maybe many many more factors are at work here, rather than the one that is our manager's ideas are crap, and his philosophy is so badly flawed that any idiot can see it will never work. Any comparison between the two men is disrespectful. Any fan comparing this team, this manager, this atmosphere, this potential, with that of it's 2004 counterpart, maybe shares more in the way of warped one dimensional flawed ideas with Houllier than anyone. Gerard Houllier seemed a nice man, but he is not Benitez. Not even similar. To those able to see this, it is with a degree of resentment they view the thought of the thought of the current crop of fickle accusers and hasty critics jumping round celebrating the triumph of a Rafael Benitez team. Knowing full well that when they do it, they should be ashamed of themselves.

If I said I don't doubt for one second tha there's nothing wrong with me I'd be kidding nobody.

Just have to add that the performance of Lucas made Marseille look slightly better than they would have otherwise. He really did nothing for us, and helped aid the french resistance by handing over possession, giving away fouls, rushing into tackles, and generally looking like a fish out of water. It put an added burden on Mascherano, who also then looked less settled, like an experienced defender who's having to cover for a new colleague and has a hard time doing his own job in the process.

Marseille looked excellent last night. Individually the controlled their space very well indeed and as a team they broke forward at pace and made well timed runs from midfield that caught us out on a couple of occasions. For me, the landmark last night was the fact that, for the first time, we had one quality team on the pitch, and had more quality on the bench. You could have rotated any number of positions last night and had no loss in quality. Last night, or the first time in years, well over a decade infact, I looked at the team as I look at the other big clubs in Europe. Teams with real quality all over the park and quality on the bench. While we can't quite match the extravagance of having two full teams to put out and a sub bench with 700 Million pound worth of "talent", we look in really good shape, with a safety net of substantial quality.

People are fickle. Doesn't mean you're right in saying something that's clearly wrong. Go and find out how many times, if any, we came back from behyind during Houllier's time here. The stat's no fluke. Houllier's Liverpool found it difficult to play football, let's be honest and keep it simple at the same time. Might as well, it's easier to follow then. We play good football under Benitez, even if, because of the seasonal changes we need to keep making, we start slowly and look somewhat disjointed sometimes. Houllier's team didn't have a clue. Like the lad above says, any team looking to shut us out very rarely had a hard time doing so. We play to increase the tempo in games also, and maybe due to the fact that we've had a thin squad in recent years (in terms of quality) we've had to be conservative in our approach. There's only a certain amount of energy you can expend without it taking it's toll in the next game. Look at Mascherano and Kuyt last night, Kuyt didn't even have the energy to play a through ball in the second half, his legs failed him, and that's dirk Nuclear-Powered Kuyt. It's a very real possibility that now we've got a team with quality in depth, we will see fatigue play less of a part, and that could be a factor in our approach to games. Having players that make you able to replace like for like also makes a big difference. It's been what's separated the very top teams from those around them. All these things make a difference, although they seem to be overlooked in the quest to label our manager a defensive over cautious fraggle face.

Why talk b******s if you're not even going to make a joke out of doing it? And what's with the word `revisionism` ? Has everyone just discovered it recently? Has Dictionary.com been putting on a promotion? Every time someone points out the obvious, whether or not they've got their own ideas as to why that is, and regardless of the act that they may just have come to the conclusion themselves, it's "revisionism"..... Using the word revisionism has actually become revisionist. If you fail to have no idea what that doesn't mean.

I think you'd be kidding yourself if you don't think you'd be right not to underrate him to be honest. In a nutshell.