cet article de james lawton est très bon.
il parle de la saison dernière .qq semaines avant la finale de la CL,on fait un match catastrophique et alan hansen déclare que cette équipe de LFC est la pire jamais vue.
aujourd'hui ,on est un peu dans la même position,rafa construit péniblement l'équipe ,ça prend du temps.
il n' a pas le budget de gerard houllier qui a dépensé £100m en joueurs.
bref,on a attendu beaucoup trop de rafa beaucoup trop tôt.
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Liverpool improving too quickly for their own good
MAYBE we expected too much, too soon from Liverpool but that really isn't any excuse for the scorn currently being heaped upon the head of Rafa Benitez and his players.
At no time have they declared themselves anything other than a team in the making. Admittedly winning the Champions' League was a touch showy but, even then, the reaction of Benitez and his boys was a model of decorum and modest rationality in the Istanbul dawn.
Steven Gerrard's winners' medal hung from his neck but his expression was more that of a kid on Christmas morning than a conqueror of Europe.
That in itself was something of an achievement given the distance Gerrard and his team-mates had covered in such a short time. It's hard to know quite what his counterpart at Manchester United, Gary Neville, would have made of the occasion, but the best guess is that a potential bonfire of vanity would have been built so high it would have dwarfed the Blue Mosque.
Performance
No, there were no triumphant speeches beyond a certain legitimate wonder at having come back from three goals down against the likes of Maldini, Kaka and Shevchenko.
Interestingly, just a few weeks earlier Liverpool had signally failed to haul themselves back into a game against the doomed Southampton, a shortfall of excellence which persuaded Alan Hansen, of all people, to declare that it was the worst Liverpool performance he had ever seen.
That, given the relentless decline of the team's creativity in previous years, despite the spending of more than a £100m by Benitez's predecessor Gerard Houllier, was a damning statement of shattering impact. But, again, Benitez said that he was involved in a work in progress. He had the good sense to recognise that what Hansen said was essentially correct; Liverpool were wretched at Southampton, and in quite a few other Premiership places. So there was no petulant urge to dress old wounds.
Houllier sneered at criticism from old players who had made a wonderful tradition; Benitez absorbs their barbs.
Now Liverpool are enduring their worst run under Benitez - one win in six matches, three defeats - and the result, already, is a picture being painted not of a stumble in impressive progress but outright decline.
This is absurd. Liverpool have successfully negotiated a vast tract of difficult terrain in the coach's first 18 months, lifted the horizon to an extraordinary degree, and the reluctance of some critics to recognise this is a fact which does not require much psychological probing.
The greatest charge against Liverpool, apart from an endemic failure to convert anything like a respectable number of chances in front of goal, is that they have failed to deliver on their promise to bring competitive football back to the Premiership.
Wigan will, no doubt, be hell-bent today on compounding Liverpool's current woes. Then, on Tuesday, Arsenal will arrive at Anfield optimistic about making an important stride towards Champions' League qualification.
Realistic
More than anything, this is a time for Liverpool to hold their nerve - and maybe take a realistic look at the development of a team which is plainly in need of four of five replacements before it can genuinely believe in its ability to challenge not just Chelsea but also Manchester United.
The core of Liverpool's team is impressive enough. Reina, Finnan, Riise, Carragher, Gerrard and Alonso have all, to varying degrees, established their quality.
Peter Crouch remains an act of faith with some clear possibilities, but none that can be completely detached from the status of a football man's hunch.
Fernando Morientes and Djbril Cisse are, respectively, not fast enough or good enough, Robbie Fowler has to rehabilitate himself in the most dramatic and dedicated way, and Garcia is, no more or no less, a football trinket, something that glitters from time to time but simply lacks the necessary weight.
Sami Hyypia has stretched the string of his career in the top flight almost certainly as far as it will go, and Harry Kewell is nothing so much as a taunting enigma, too good too discard, too irresolute to inspire more than long-shot optimism.
Those are the realities that must inform any realistic assessment of Liverpool's effort to draw closer to Chelsea. Plainly Benitez has the nous to remain competitive in Europe, as he has proved four times against Chelsea, but his Premiership touch remains less sure.
He needs a Michael Owen, beyond question; the certainty of goals will always be the greatest psychological asset of any team and, whatever the reason for the failure to move for the former Anfield favourite, his absence becomes week by week less a regret than a raging rebuke.
Ambivalent
On Merseyside, the word on Benitez is ambivalent. The Champions' League debt is freely acknowledged but there is growing exasperation in the current stall. It is what can happen when hopes are raised too high, too quickly.
Liverpool have made some halting strides, no doubt, but they are still filled with the highest ambition. That, in such a short time, remains a stunning achievement.
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