The season so far

Well here we are at the half way point, perhaps a good moment to take stock.

Certain questions pose themselves at this stage of the season.

Are we a better team than last season? Are we making progress towards that holy grail of the title? Where do you think we will realistically finish this season?

I believe we are without doubt a better team than last season. I think the fact that the 2 Manchester teams tactics against us prove this point. In the case of Man U we are the only team so far this season that Ferguson has sent out a line up looking for a draw, quite a compliment really. As for the other Manchester they paid us the same compliment but the big difference was they were the home side! The question now is given that teams are employing such negative tactics against us do we have the means to cope with this and get the 3 points. Personally I don't think we are quite there yet. Whilst Torres is a fantastic striker who other teams genuinely fear he is not yet the finished article. What do I mean by this? He can still improve, whilst he has scored some fantastic goals for us he does not seem capable of the scoring the simple ones. He has missed far too many from six yards out and if he can add this skill to his other talents then he will be the finished article. I believe this is what Rafa refers to when he says he can improve. And sadly none of other strikers are scoring enough goals.

Are we making progress? Undoubtedly in my opinion I believe we are getting better with every season and this season we are still in with a chance albeit a slight one. Under Rafa' reign we have so far normally lost the season in the first 2 months. Not so this time and there is still a long way to go whilst it is optimistic to expect all 3 of our rivals to collectively drop points we do still have the opportunity of going to each of them and making it happen.

So where will we finish? I think here we have to balance optimism and blind faith with reality. Yes we are a more dangerous team than last season with Torres and Babel who I believe we have yet to see the best of. And yes we have key players coming back from injury Agger, Pennant, Alonso, Aurelia, Kewell who can all get better the second half of the season. Plus Rafa does have the possibility of strenghthening the side during the transfer window. If he can bring in some badly needed defensive cover in the centre and IMO a pure stick it in the net merchant to score those scrappy chances that we are missing. Then yes we do have an outside chance of winning the title.

Happy New Year to all our fans

good post.
happy new year to you.

After drawing v Wigan, it will be very hard to win the title. At the moment the team is strange, players behaviour is special. We have to get a centre back to compensate for players injuries. Rafa changes tactics everytime. We don't need that.
In my opinion, this team needs to be the same until the end of the season.
Look at Arsenal, Wenger kept the same squad at the first part of the championship. So Gooners will probably win the premiership.
If Rafa leave the 7 or 8 more important players on the pitch for the rest of the season and they are confident and give us the show we want, I say OK.
Don't try anything else, tell players they can play as they like and let's go to the title conquest.

come on the Reds

Désolé si je fais des fautes

llaniliverpudlian wrote:

After drawing v Wigan, it will be very hard to win the title. At the moment the team is strange, players behaviour is special. We have to get a centre back to compensate for players injuries. Rafa changes tactics everytime. We don't need that.
In my opinion, this team needs to be the same until the end of the season.
Look at Arsenal, Wenger kept the same squad at the first part of the championship. So Gooners will probably win the premiership.
If Rafa leave the 7 or 8 more important players on the pitch for the rest of the season and they are confident and give us the show we want, I say OK.
Don't try anything else, tell players they can play as they like and let's go to the title conquest.

come on the Reds

Désolé si je fais des fautes

You make a very good point here and after last night many would agree with you.

I think Rafa has a real uphill task on his hands convincing his players now that we can win the title.

rafas idea with rotation is that we will be stronger than the other teams in the last third of the season, especially with the cup and cl games comming in fast and thick !!!

if this idea works out then it could make all the difference to grinding out results or floating throgh games and winning comfortable in the end ?

time will tell but time is prescious as we saw last night against wigan, rafa would of killed for 6 minutes extra time

the players need to motivate themselves if rafa cant do it, get the dvd's on and get clued up on your HISTORY !!!

Ant wrote:

rafas idea with rotation is that we will be stronger than the other teams in the last third of the season, especially with the cup and cl games comming in fast and thick !!!

if this idea works out then it could make all the difference to grinding out results or floating throgh games and winning comfortable in the end ?

time will tell but time is prescious as we saw last night against wigan, rafa would of killed for 6 minutes extra time

the players need to motivate themselves if rafa cant do it, get the dvd's on and get clued up on your HISTORY !!!

The problem is Ant we may well be the freshhest team in the Prem come the last third of the season but so far behind it will make no difference.

For me this attitude by Rafa is just another sign of his intransigence. he has to change his approach as even he must surely recognise the oen he is applying is not suited to the Prem.

I couldn't agree more with your comment on him showing our team our history. Because this is the level of acheivement we expect from our team. I have heard certian people comment we are putting to much pressure on the team by saying we are going to win the titel this year.

Sorry but I firmly belive the higher you aim the higher you acheive.

" First is first and second is nowhere" Bill Shankly

reach for the apple, reach for the clouds, then reach for the stars

ant