What if …

After watching the highlights of yesterday’s clash against Sunderland I had to think. Loads of questions in my head … Why can we always play like we did on Sunday? Our lads played such a good football. Chance after chance after chance … Even Ryan Babbel managend to impress me with his footwork, which I have to admit, do not happen that often. 

 It should have been more than this 3:0, we should have been score more goals. Imagine all the chances turned into goals? There would be 7:0 probably! What a sweet thought that is!  Though … Well …  “The Bad Luck Issue” again … Bad luck seems to love Liverpool, especially Fernando Torres (which isn’t a big surprise, is it? Who doesn’t love this guy?) Watching this lad playing is a complete delight. He scored seven goals in four matches. It’s utterly, utterly brilliant! He’s brilliant! Imagine he wouldn’t be injured during the major part of the season … Imagine Stevie and Johnson wouldn’t be injured for so long as well … We’d be invincible! We didn’t have to struggle that much and we didn’t have to play in Europe League where we, quite honestly, do not belong. (No offence, please) Nevertheless, now we do play in the Europe League and we have to make the best out of it. If weplay against Benfica like we did on Sunday, we do not have to worry. I hope good luck will be on our side this time.

I hope Glen Johnson will play as good as he played yesterday. I hope Stevie will play as good as played yesterday. I really don’t understand what the pundits want from Stevie’s performance? His did an absolutely great job. With commitment and many chances created. Where’s the problem? If someone wants to fuss, he’ll find something to fuss about anyway.

I wish we’d keep playing like that. I wish we could turn back time and play like that the whole season! I wish … No, I want answers! And I want the to be made on the pitch!

Walk on lads! YNWA

-Amanda

amanda@empireofthekop.com

IS RAFA TO BLAME FOR ALL THIS?

So as these results play out throughout this torrid season, we – the fans, want answers.
WHY are we doing so badly?
WHY when we had the league in our grasp last season have we failed so badly?
The team hasnt changed apart from Alonso
It must be Rafa’s fault.

Well let’s take a look past what Sky and tabloid “news”papers feed us and think for ourselves a second about what could be the cause for this slump.

We havent lost one player for a start since the end of last season – we’ve lost 7:

Alonso, Arbeloa, Keane, Dossena, Voronin, Pennant and Hyypia.
Between them they made 169 appearances last season scoring 17 goals.

Their sales netted us £57.8m.
Now they may not all be world beaters but they all chipped in when required and they were all extra bodies to rotate.
Have a think what an extra 17 goals could do to our current points tally in the league or Champions League status?

We’ve replaced those 7 this season with 4:

Johnson, Aquilani, Kyrgiakos and Rodriguez.
Between them they’ve made 44 starts this season, scoring 4 goals.

The latter 2 cost us £1.5m TOGETHER, the first 2 can be argued about but about £33m MAX in total (minus money owed for Crouch) and Aquilani on the drip.
Total £34.5m

A POSITIVE TRANSFER BALANCE of £23.3m (that means Benitez has actually MADE the club TWENTY THREE AND A HALF MILLION POUNDS) and somehow to replace those who have left we have to find an extra 125 appearances and 13 goals to make up from elsewhere in the existing squad.

A right back was needed to replace Arbeloa and we got an England International right back for £13m due to the monies owed to us for Crouch.
That’s pretty much a bargain, and GOOD business.

Aquilani was of course, a gamble, which has not yet paid off.

Injuries dont help matters either because the other players (who arent good enough) in a smaller squad have to work even harder, and if THEY get injured, then we’re really scraping the barrel.

Having a smaller squad could be thought of as playing every game with 10 men.
Not literally but over the course of the season, more players having to play more games will take its toll.

The other people filling in for the missing bodies and lack of top class players have been Lucas, Insua and Ngog who although may not be good enough have worked tirelessly.

Ngog and Insua started 16 games between them last season and didnt even make the top 18 appearing players.
This season already they’ve had to make 75 appearances between them and have worked damn hard, even though they’re already condemned to be not good enough.
I’m not saying they are or aren’t good enough.
I’m arguing that Rafa’s hand has been forced into playing them.

Have they been brought in too soon?
Do people think Rafa thinks they are his first choice replacements?
Or forced to bring them in too soon cos there’s no-one else?

It must be so demoralising to have the league in your hands last season and with a little extra push this season to go all the way. Look at the results in the top 4 this season – some shockers.
It was ours for the taking, yet it was taken away.

Gerrard scored 24 goals last season – this season? 8.

Some players arent good enough but are trying their hardest to do their job, some players ARE good enough but might have just given up.

I know one man who hasnt given up though.
The same man who didnt give up on Liverpool Football Club in Tokyo when his own father back home in Spain had just died.
He stayed with US when his father had just died.
Some people wont even give him the time of day only 10 months after getting us within a whisker of the league.

You may say its he who should instill morale into the team and should take the blame for the bad times.
If he is responsible for bad morale then it goes hand in hand that it is he who should take the credit for the good morale.
Look at the morale last season and the season before.
Look at the morale when winning European Cups, FA Cups, going to European Finals, getting SO CLOSE to winning the league.
The same people blaming him for this seasons low morale, conveniently ignore and wont credit him for the morale he’s given the team, the fans and the city over the last 5 years.
When we used to sing his name over and over and over again in the match, in pubs, buses, trains and planes.
We were the envy of the footballing world for having him and what he’d brought back to Liverpool.
Yet people now want him gone.

The man would do anything for this club and for us and he’s stuck with us through having his job offered away from under his feet, from being forced to sell players he needed.
You may question his decisions, you may question his man management, you may be baffled as to what is unfolding right before our eyes.
But dont question his devotion to this club, the fans and the people of the city.
The exact same people who have their daggers readily poised behind the man’s back.

He’s fighting our corner.
He’s on our side.
He wants them out as much as we do and god knows they could be on their way out by the end of the year.

It baffles me how some people can be so fickle, short sighted and have such short memories to conveniently pin the lion’s share of the blame on Rafa.
All for a few months of poor performances, with the depleted squad being the most obvious cause, and who do you think is to blame for that?
Do you really think he wants this?
Do you really think he’s the major factor behind all of this?
Do you really think he’s that apathetic about us?

He could have walked long ago but he gave it time.
Time he has spent under constant pressure, scrutiny, mocking, animosity.
He gave us his time.
We cant even give him a season.

YANKS OUT NOW

http://www.yanksout.com

Source:

http://www.lfcreds.com/reds/index.php?topic=4416.msg603553#msg603553

(Murph-Forum Ronny Rosenthal)

Duo Named in World XI

Liverpool duo Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have been named in the FIFA/FIFPro World XI for 2009.

The Reds pair were included in the line-up after more than 50,000 professional footballers from across the globe voted for the best player in each position.

Gerrard and Torres’ inclusion was announced at the FIFA World Player Gala 2009 in Zurich.

The XI in full:

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), John Terry (Chelsea), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester Utd), Patrice Evra (Manchester Utd), Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Xavi (Barcelona), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Fernando Torres (Liverpool).

Rate the 15 Most Expensive Players in Our History

Taken from the http://www.lfchistory.net/stats_transfers_top10_in.asp website, below are the 15 most expensive players bought in our illustrious history.  While i’m aware that other great players were purchased at times were monetry values were different eg Kenny Dalglish, maybe you’d like to rank the players named in a new list based on value for money, what they gave to the team while they were at LFC and of the ones whom have left who you miss the most and the least. For me, the player i miss the most is Peter Crouch closely followed by Alonso and Dietmar Hamman, the one i miss the least is Diouf. In order of who gave (gives) most value for money and to the team (alt=hough judged only on what he gave to the team Heskey would be higher) it would be 1 Torres, 2 Alonso, 3 Hamman, 4 Kuyt, 5 Crouch, 6 Mascherano, 7 Johnson, 8 Cisse, 9 Aquilani, 10 Heskey, 11 Keane, 12 Riera, 13 Babel, 14 Collymore, 15 Diouf

1 Fernando Torres bought from Atletico Madrid for £20,200,000 by Rafael Benítez on 04.07.2007
2 Robbie Keane Tottenham £19,000,000 Rafael Benítez 28.07.2008
3 Javier Mascherano Media Sports Investment £18,600,000 Rafael Benítez 29.02.2008
4 Glen Johnson Portsmouth £17,500,000 Rafael Benítez 26.06.2009
5 Alberto Aquilani AS Roma £17,100,000 Rafael Benítez 07.08.2009
6 Djibril Cissé Auxerre £14,500,000 Gerard Houllier 01.07.2004
7 Ryan Babel Ajax £11,500,000 Rafael Benítez 13.07.2007
8 Emile Heskey Leicester £11,000,000 Gerard Houllier 10.03.2000
9 Xabi Alonso Real Sociedad £10,700,000 Rafael Benítez 20.08.2004
10 El Hadji Diouf Lens £10,000,000 Gerard Houllier 01.06.2002
11 Dirk Kuyt Feyenoord £9,000,000 Rafael Benítez 18.08.2006
12 Stan Collymore Nottm For £8,500,000 Roy Evans 01.07.1995
13 Dietmar Hamann Newcastle £8,000,000 Gerard Houllier 22.07.1999
14 Albert Riera Espanyol £8,000,000 Rafael Benítez 31.08.2008
15 Peter Crouch Southampton £7,000,000 Rafael Benítez 20.07.2005

(Source:RAWK)

Keep up the Faith

We need to address the problem which certainly isn’t the manager who has been trying his best in virtually impossible circumstances. The atmosphere and mood at the club changed in the summer when halfway through the window after promising key players that the team would be invested in the rug was pulled and we ended up losing Alonso and buying shite like Kyriagkos.

Have a look at the managers record pre the Yanks if you want to see where the problem is.

So let’s see Rafa won the Champions league and lost in the Carling cup Final in extra time in his first season.

In his second season we won the Community shield, The European super cup and the Fa Cup.

In his third season we were on the way to Athens for a second Champions league final in three seasons.

Up until then commercially the club may not of been run properly but we had a single owner with Liverpool’s best interests at heart. We had stability in the boardroom and a clear chain of command and most importantly everything stayed in house.

Since the Yanks have taken over the club has been a Circus with the manager seeing the owners a couple of times a year having to speak to them individually in transatlantic phone calls or worse still having to go through Parry. There has been no clear chain of command with the owners not talking to each other or one not talking to Parry and one not talking to Rafa.

The club has been an absolute shambles with basically no organization and things that should of stayed private splashed across the tabloids.
Every season when we have got in a good position the Yanks have opened their big mouths and things have gone tits up.

Two seasons ago we lost three League games all season, we were right in the mix at the top of the table when the ridiculous Klinnsman situation hit the papers and we lost two Legue games in a week in the aftermath.

Last season we were top of the table approaching Xmas and Hicks who wasn’t talking to Gillet at the the time tried to get the fans onside and went public offering Rafa a new contract through the press. What ensued was a behind the scenes power struggle between the Gillet and Parry camp and the Hicks Rafa camp on the other side.

Instead of concentrating on winning football matches and winning our first title in two decades the club was torn apart from within. People talk about the Rafa rant being the turning point last season if you watch the press conference again Rafa was asked one question before he ripped into Mr Alex Ferguson and guess what the question was.

That’s right Rafa was asked about his contract something that never should of been brought up during a season and certainly not just before Xmas games, probably the most crucial part of the season.

Already this season we have had Gillet sticking the knife into Rafa and the two of them coming out with complete bollocks about how much they have invested in the squad and that we have spent more than City.

Anyone with half a brain can see that the problem at Liverpool is Hicks and Gillet and not Rafa, we were doing really well and winning plenty of trophies until the pair of free loaders turned up and destroyed the club. Successfull clubs are stable clubs you only have to look down the road at United.

Since United won their first title United have had two unsuccessful periods one when Mr Alex Ferguson announced he was going to retire and the other when the Glazer versus the Irish mafia takover was happening. United went three seasons on the run without challenging for the title and won a single Cup competition.

If Mr Alex Ferguson with all the advantages he has over Rafa wasn’t successful when United were in turmoil behind the scenes how can we expect Rafa with a much smaller budget and a far worse situation behind the scenes to be successful now.

IF we get rid of Rafa now all we will do is let the Yanks off Scot free, we will end up with a Leeds or Newcastle situation were when things get tough the board blame the manager and sack him and then gain some respite. The problem at Liverpool like it was at Leeds and Newcastle is not the manager it is the Board.

Sacking the manager will be like sticking a plaster on a patient that has cancer. We need to root out the cancer that is Hicks and Gillet before they it is too late.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: “Always support the team, no matter how bad they are playing.
If the team is doing badly, cheer even louder as they need your support more.”

(SOURCE:RAWK)

VIDEO:Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres//Our Life Become Enjoyable By Them