Liverpool 2010/11 Season Thread

[Adrock]

Maxi is gonna save us!!

Hopefully he'll play behind the main striker, which is a position he is reportedly good at. Maybe better than on the wing in that role too. Gonna be an interesting game tomorrow, he'll be as fit/fresh as the rest of the team considering they played a 120 minute game a little over 60 hours before the Saturday morning kickoff.

[SharkSkin-Man]

Until Gerrard and Torres are glued back together I imagine he'll play wide right with Kuyt and Ngog up top.

[Adrock]

Yeah thats more than likely. Which is a shame, because I think a more creative player needs to be in that position.

That is one of the most annoying things for me as a Benitez fan. Whenever Gerrard isn't available he decides to use Kuyt in that space when in reality Benayoun plays there for his country and is exactly the kind of player I think that place deserves.

Now that Benayoun is injured and Maxi has arrived its an obvious decision to stick him behind the main striker, imo. Especially considering Rafa rates his finishing ability. But it wont happen, he'll go with a work horse in Kuyt who cant create anything because he lacks the basic craft a player in that role needs.

Ah well, there aint much that can be done when your 2 best players are out injured and one of the players of this (very poor) season is also out.

[Adrock]

Sorry for a double post.

But this has really pissed me off http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8462199.stm

I've looked for a way of commenting on that article by 'expert' Jonathan Pearce but I havent found one, so I'll vent here.

I've not got much time to get down to all the inaccuracies but I'll start with a couple. Alonso wasn't sold out of choice, like indicated in that article. He chose to leave, yes Benitez tried to sell him the season before but he wasn't exactly setting the world alight then.

Lucas was NOT a big money buy. He cost around 6mil.

Robbie Keane was given more than enough chances. He was just utter dross whenever he played. As shown by the fact he cant regualrly get into the Spurs team at the moment. Robbie Keane's transfer back to Spurs did NOT make Liverpool a profit.

Benitez has only just got full control of the academy. Considering it takes many years to build a crop of players I wouldn't say he has failed on that just yet. 3 FA Youth Cup finals in 4 years aint bad.

Aquilani's 'opening' 10 appearances have included, I think, 2 starts. He is unfit, thats obvious. But I wouldn't go as far to decide he has been poor value on that. Its generally accepted foreign players take a bit of time to get used to another style of football.

Sami Hyypia WAS offered a new 1 year deal but he wanted to move one more time and get a longer deal, which is what he got when he signed a 2 year contract for Leverkusen.

A net spend of 85mil over 5 1/2 years really isn't massive money. At under 17mil per season to get Liverpool to where they were last season was a very good achievement.

Ok, I did go through nearly the entire article

I'm not in any way sticking up for Benitez this season, the team has been atrocious. I just get very frustrated when there are tons of factual errors by supposed experts. Somebody needs to find a way to get this to Jonathan Pearce so he can realise the stupid mistakes he made.

It seems that once the media decide on the villain they just make things up to make their cases sound better than they actually do.

Very lazy journalism, I suppose I shouldn't expect very much else from the kind of "expert" pundits in the media nowadays.

[abigsmurf]

The article is borderline trolling (although it's quite mild compared to the venom spewed at Chelsea recently by that Tosser Ian Wright) Aquilani isn't looking too hot but it's a bit unfair to say he's a turkey at this stage. Only drastic overspend I'd consider is Glen Johnson but that's based on his rubbishness at Chelsea.

I've always thought Benetez is a cup winning manager but not a league winner. He doesn't seem to be able to balance fitness with the need to play a near full strength squad for 90% of games. Not fair to use this season as an example but how many times in previous seasons has he taken key players off on a 1 goal lead? He hasn't quite mastered organising the defence in the way that Wenger and Mourinho were able to that let them relax on slender leads.

Nowadays, you don't lose the league by a loss at Old Trafford. You lose the league when a relegation-level club gets a lucky goal and holds you to a draw/loss by sticking 10 men in the box for 90 minutes.

[Super Grover]

It's not all bad news though folks, Babel has been dropped from the squad. Hopefully that means Maxi is fit enough to go straight in.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why Babel's been dropped. Considering the injuries we have at the mo, I thought he may at least have been in the squad.

I can only think that Rafa is going to cash in on him so does not want him picking up an injury. If thats the case, I presume he will been given the cash from the sale to buy a replacement in January rather than at the end of the season. There's no point, given our current predicament, to sell a player who has (arguably) a lot of potential and not bring someone else in.

[Adrock]

He has had a long time to show his potential.

Did you watch the game on Wednesday? He was atrocious, more so than usual. He is a terrible terrible player. I would much rather have Pacheco in the squad. Recall Nemeth even, just get Babel out.

I do hope that one day he become a good player, even at Liverpool if Benitez leaves before him. Babel needs to be loved, he wont get that at Liverpool under Benitez and maybe even after Rafa leave.

[Super Grover]

I'm not defending Babel, merely pointing out that he has got potential. I reached the conclusion that he, for whatever reason, won't fulfill his ability playing for us quite a while ago.

He'll probably go somewhere else and do rather well I imagine.

Irrespective, if he goes, hopefully Rafa has got someone in his sights who he can get within the next couple of weeks.

[saif]

Babel seems to be a ****ter version of Djibril Cisse. All of the frustrating things but Cisse scored plenty for us and worked off the ball. Never stopped trying but just didn't think much.

[Nu-Eclipse]

All of the frustrating things but Cisse scored plenty for us and worked off the ball. Never stopped trying but just didn't think much.

Also, Djib genuinely loved the club, didn't want to leave, made every effort to settle on Merseyside and has since never said anything but nice things about the club and Rafa even though he was forced out very unfairly to pave the way for Craig Bellamy who was a total flop anyway.

Some of the bad press that Djib got from some Liverpool fans was a disgrace. Not a world-beater, but never the crap-fest that people were trying to make him out to be. If Rafa had shown a fraction of the faith in him that he has shown in the likes of Kuyt, Lucas, Riera, etc., he could've done very well for us.

[mr_sockochris]

Another blatent penalty denied earlier. Seems to happen every game these days

[hudson]

haha. Someone has the ultimate bad luck huju mange at our club this season. I reckon it's Lucas. The poor lad can't seem to get anything right. Nothing goes his way and once a beach ball followed him onto the pitch and scored. I wish he'd learn to stop fouling in our third of the pitch too. I remember when he gave away a free kick and he then scored the goal with his arm whilst in the wall.

Now he's had the penalty decision go against him, he's on a yellow for diving. He'll probably get another for his usual clumsy fouls.

I know the guy has been picked on a lot, but beside all the bad luck, I still don't think he is fit enough to wear any football shirt. Harsh I know.

[nakamura]

1-0 Liverpool now and I knew it. All my punters were in backing Stoke at 7/2 but I just had that feeling. Ok still time left but I cannot see Liverpool losing.
Sorry lads I spoke too soon!

[hudson]

I thought the team fought well. Stoke are a team, when at home, who force you to scrap around playing even shoddier looking football that we've done all season. They pressed brilliantly.

Bad luck for us with the stonewall pen not being given and at the end there, the usual story of doom and gloom showing their heads just as we were getting hopes up

I guess Wednesday will have to be the night when "our season starts" lol.

[mr_sockochris]

*bangs head against brick wall*