Liverpool Have A Point To Prove
A lot of people will be talking about Liverpool’s poor pre-season form, and for all the wrong reasons. The team is gelling and with the new players it will take time to come together and start performing at the same level we saw them at towards the end of last season.
Having said that, I’m not too convinced that Liverpool are so much on the upward track as everyone else is making them to be. Part of this has to do with being a United fan, but part of this is just me being skeptical.
Regardless of all the hype and the talk, what it comes down to is this: Liverpool need to improve on their 3rd place in the Premiership last season. The assumption in the minds of most people is that Liverpool are best placed to challenge Chelsea for the title this year, considering that Arsenal are losing players and United have been written off (surprisingly) because they havent strengthened their squad as much as Chelsea and Liverpool.
I think Liverpool, under Benitez, are a fantastic team. Of course I don’t think they will win the Premiership this season - I’m a United fan, remember? Plus, I still think you guys have some way to go before you can challenge Chelsea at the top of the pile.
Liverpool’s main rivals this year will still be United and Arsenal. You may not like it, you may not expect it, but only one of these three teams (Liverpool, United and Arsenal) will be able to challenge Chelsea this year, and Liverpool are still an year away from become a true ‘title-winning’ force.
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Discussion - 10 Responses
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From a Liverpool fan to a United fan, I have the same thoughts as you.
However I do hope that all these 3 teams will give Chelsea a run for their money…which is bottomless at the moment.
From a Liverpool fan perspective, I really feel good about the signings. But after 180 minutes without a goal, there’s still some gelling required.
Nevertheless, there still some players having their 1st game so I hope that’s an excuse to play bad. Also the 5-0 drubbing, the last 3 was just our lads giving up on the game. I saw Garcia, Gerrrard, Crouch and etc pull out of a tackle. I only saw Sissoko, Diao and Zenden getting sucked into tackles. Enough of excuse, but losing 5-0 than 2-0 will give our lads a kick on their backside.
Hopefully we can do it with our fans at Anfield.
But great view from you.
i’m not so sure of liverpool even qualifying for the champions league. the problem with benitez is that he dosen’t think ambitiously when it comes to buying most of his players. he just looks for consistency. Some of his new players - pennant, crouch, josemi/kromkamp, morientes, fowler and agger don’t look like future world class players to me.
and that’s 25m+ wasted on ok-ok timepass players.
sissoko looks good but how many games will he play? Benitez dosen’t rotate his palyers too much, especially their CMs’.
look at spurs. they buy players who will improve over time.
these players will have a great resale value, if they want to leave.
even if manutd and arsenal hadn’t had any new signings this season they still would have had a stronger squad compared to last year cause they have youngsters who’ll keep improving.
that’s not the case with liverpool.
Congratulations - A very sensible assessment from a united fan. I agree with most points and as LFC fan I am not happy with the signing made this season - In the words of Patrick Viera few years ago we have not been shopping at Harrods this year have we?. Nevertheless with a good manager we could be up there challenging but the preseason preparations do worry me. I do not remember in my lifetime being beaten 5-0 by anyone. does this mean our second string team (who were mainly fielded in the second half and got the drubbing) are so bad? what about strength in depth? What about the humilliation and dissapointment for all those fans who went all the way to Germany to whatch their team play football. I am also very unhappy with the rein of Parry and Moores. Parry for being so useless in the transfer market and not being able to put any deals together. Examples of his failure are loosing Siamo on the last minute last year and Alves this summer - We are nowhere near getting Kuyt and all the talk of getting an investor is gone dead. Moores will not relinquish power and nobody is prepared to put in big money and become a minor shareholder. He will not spend any money either - even Newcastle can spend more than us every year!. Solution would in my humble oppinion be to get rid of Parry and moores and get some money to buy 2-3 decent players then we may be challenging Chelsea - without it we will be fighting with Man United and Arsenal for the 2nd place.
Pre-season games shouldn’t be used as a platform to see how the season goes (cisse was scoring for fun in pre-season). Last year we failed to challenge because of 3 things. We had a terrible start to the season - if the season had started in October we would’ve won it. We failed to beat the big teams which we’ll have to do if we want to win it. Lastly, we failed to score many goals which probably led to the first two problems in the first place.
We’ve got Bellamy now though who can score goals and we’ve got Fowler for a whole season and when Fowler came he scored consistently and we played very well for the second half of the season. We still need another attacker, probably Kuyt, but if we can get one then we should be ready to challenge. We have a huge squad, lots of competition, 3 foreigners who are still getting used to the English style but the problem was last year that we had no attacker who scored more than 10 premiership goals. Hopefully we can have 3 this year in Fowler, Bellamy and the new striker and we’ll be ready to challenge.
I hate it when LFC “fans” go on and on about BUYING great players. Our club is more than that. Our club is about fighting together, getting into a style of play that is football. We have a great team. We HAVE a great team. Come on. Losing is bad but it’s not the end of the world. Pre season friendlies are just that, to be used to find out where we can get players to function… and players would NOT go all out unnecessarily.
Still 5-0 is a scary scoreline but let’s not jump the gun yet.
Really… enough about this BUYING of GOOD players talk. We are doing very well with our buyings… and YES, Parry needs to be given the boot. He has not done his job. LFC is a very very very marketable club and though FOOTBALL is what we focus on, meaning success on the field comes first, not being able to generate funds from such a great club is a shame!!!. They are many many who would be willing to invest in LFC brand. Rick Parry has not done his job.
satyromaniaman - You are right about our great team etc. However look at our rivals and what they are spending. Good players have a high price tag and the not so good have limitations - This year we have players which are not proven yet and if they are to become very good they need time which also means all the talk of challenging Ch**sea is very premature. Our palyers are mainly very good but we have already identified at least 2 areas where we need to strengthen such as up front and right of midfield. The players we have in this year are here because they love LFC or they are here because of Rafa. They need settling in and for their love of the club they can bust their guts on the pitch in some matches but not consistently. Loosing any match 5-0 is a great shame and that shows how bad our 2nd string team were which also means we have no strength in depth. There is something not right here about the finances at our club when all the other big clubs can affor to spend and get who they want and we consistently loose out on our targets and all this is down to useless Parry. Lets hope this was just a nightmare and we will be back to normal next week.
My final point is that if do not have the best team yet at least we have the best fans in the world and we deserve only the best.
How the squad looks on paper and before the season starts is all bull - it’s how they perform on the field that matters, and history is not on Liverpool’s side just yet (DESPITE their sterling form at the end of last season).
At last someone who can support one team and actually talk sense about another team without resorting to cheap jibes and mindless rants. As a Liverpool fan I think your remarks are valid and un-and while I don’t agree with all your comments its refreshing to have a fair sided argument…good on ya!
Liverpool have a manager in his prime while Utd have a guy clearly past his prime. Arsenal will play nice football but when the pressure comes on they will buckle. Their defence is weak looking and Senderos and Djourou are hardly a great combination if Toure is injured.
I think Liverpool would have come 2nd last year if Morientes or Cisse had not been such jokes. Bellamy is a great signing for the attack and maybe Kuyt will score goals. In any case, we are the 2nd best team in England and if the pressure is put on Mourinho in a title race come April who knows how he might react? He showed in last year’s FA Cup semi against ‘Pool that under pressure he makes odd decisions in team selection.
I think Rafa is a canny manager who had been a great man for Liverpool so far. However, I can’t see how he won’t sign Roberto Ayala as if Hyppia gets injured we look weak in centre defence. Agger and Paletta have little experience and chasing a title isn’t a good time to make rookie mistakes. This could be our ruination. Also the fact sometimes we aren’t creative enough in attack may cause us problems against Premier teams who just want a draw against us. We look like a team that struggles to score lots of goals and that might cost us the title.