Re: Liverpool Thread
matthewsss, everton need 6 points to guarantee 4th as we can get 63 points if we win our remaining games and our goal difference is currently +5 better than theirs,apart from that i think you more or less got it spot on, i still think they'll struggle to get 4 points from their last games but the biggest problem obviously is our form, 3 games left and 2 of them follow cl games which we are normally poor after so there's a trend we need to buck as well
as for the starting lineup yesterday i can sort of understand why rafa picked that side, it was going to be a physical game against a team fighting against relegation, they'd kicked lumps out of baros and a couple of other players at anfield in november and did the same yesterday which ended up with baros limping off and it could easily have been more players which would have left us fucked for the chelsea game if not the rest of the season (or whats left of it), i also think the reason cisse played on the right was an attempt to exploit space down the right with his pace, palace played with a lot of men behind the ball so there wasn't much space down the middle also morientes (one of the best headers of the ball) isn't getting much service so i also think rafa was hoping cisse could get crosses in for him
one thing it has confirmed though is the squad left by houllier just isn't good enough, we have a good core of gerrard, alonso, carragher, hyypia, finnan, cisse, garcia, riise & morientes then some decent squad players in baros, hamann, pongolle & warnock, i'm not too sure about the 'keepers as dudek is prone to errors, kirkland is injury prone and really needs to play a full season to prove he's good enough and carson has the potential to become a great player but at the moment he's young and inexperienced, the rest to me are just average which has shown with the inconsistent performances over recent seasons, this season we'll have played 59 games (60 if we get to cl final) and there's no way you can play that ammount of games with a squad that only contains 13 or 14 players who can be considered great/good and the rest just average
for the past 2 seasons we've been involved in a scramble for 4th place, 2 seasons ago we threw it away (losing 2-1 to man city at anfield) which left us needing to beat chelsea at stamford bridge, last season we finished 4th down to newcastles incompetence as much as our own form, i for one never expected this season to be anything different, rafa only had a couple of months to get to know the players and assess the squad, to have a big clear out before the start of the season would have been rash and could have done more harm than good, add to that the transfer window closing in september means you can't go out and buy players whenever you want so he was basically stuck with the same squad that has struggled for the past 2 seasons apart from the 4 players he brought in and the players that were sold/loaned out
rafa will have had a good idea for a few months now about who he wants to keep, who no longer has a future at the club and who he wants to bring in for next season (as i've already said the transfer window means you can't go out and replace players whenever you want) and i expect to see big changes over the next 2 seasons, if we don't qualify for the cl next season then i don't think it will be the big disaster that some people think it will be financially (although i will miss the great european nights at anfield) as reaching the semis this season will more or less have covered what we would have earned playing in the group stages next season plus add to that any money from a decent run in the uefa cup (newcastle have played 12 games this season up to the qf's so a similar run would provide us with funds from 6 home games plus tv money)
i just think it's unfair for people (whether they are fans or the media) to criticise the manager, he's taken over an average squad, had little time to work with them before the transfer window closed, when we have played well the footballs been good to watch and we've proven that we are capable of doing well in europe, there's no way we'd have beaten juventus with houllier in charge, those who are complaining about the failure to finish 4th (presuming we don't overtake everton) need to stand back and take a look at whats happened over the past 15 years or so, we've been erratic in the league for a long time now (except 2001/02) anyone who thought it was going to be an instant fix this season was wrong but one things for sure, rafa knows what he wants and how he wants the team to play, he just needs time to mould the squad into his own