Liverpool have the players to win the Premiership
The mood is upbeat at Anfield, as it has been for the last 3 seasons. Rafa Benitez plus a raft of new players mean that Liverpool are again put in as firm title contenders this season.
The additional attacking options give Liverpool’s squad more balance, and with Gerrard returning to the center of midfield and Torres and Babel up front, Liverpool have, after a long time, the right players to challenge for the title.
The only question I’d ask would be on the width in the squad - I feel that Liverpool could have banked on a better player than Benayoun for the wings (that could happen in the next 3 weeks, but I doubt it).
Overall, expect Liverpool to be in the thick of things and if Liverpool can avoid their traditional early jitters they will be certain to challenge for the title this season.
Manager Status: Rafa Benitez is God in the eyes of the Pool fans, and while people may criticise his tactics he is, for all intents and purposes, untouchable.
Transfer Analysis: Torres, Babel and Benayoun are good buys, the rest are either unknown quantities or brought in as backups. Torres has been unfairly criticised, I think, and will do great at Liverpool.
Players to watch: Torres, obviously, but my money is on Kuyt to score 20+ goals this season.
August Fixtures: Villa away, Chelsea at home and Sunderland away, with a 2-legged Champions League qualifying tie against Toulouse squeezed in between. Pool are slow starters, but I’d back them to beat Chelsea at Anfield at least.
Expectations: The title, although another top-4 finish will keep fans happy and Benitez in the driving seat.
Predictions: Top 4, and a crack at top 2 if they start well.
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Hmm, according to Ahmed, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal (and presumably Man Utd) are all going to finish Top 2
Fair enough, it does seem to be rather difficult to predict the top this season. I guess whoever accomplishes most of their “ifs” will win it (my money is on Chelsea, though).
Would this preveiw have been much different last year with Torres switched with Bellamy and Babel switched with world beater at the time Mark Gonzalez.
I don’t know what to say Bilal, I actually agree with much of what you said and it has the balance that was so lacking in your other offers regarding the mighty reds. Well done lad.
I do have to pick you up on the accusation that Rafa is lacking at time tactically. I think he is the best tactical manager around and it’s his tools that have let him down thus far. Don’t get me wrong, no one is perfect, but his weakness is not his tactics.
In fact, its Alex who lacks in tactical knowledge at times while Rafa lacks the motivational prowess of Alex.
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I agree alot with what ur saying but id just like to add my own points to it might i add uve put in great articles for each team.
1.Babel is most likely going to be used as a winger.
2.Kuyt was my main man for 2008 but his lack of going forward hasent convinced me
but as they say it is only pre season.
3.Benitez has been a bit harshly critisized he has never had a team nearly as strong as Arsenal Man u And Chelsea but still plays well in the CL.
If Liverpool rely too much on Babel, they’ll be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong… he’s a huge talent. But like any other young foreigner coming to England, it’s very difficult to be consistently good, and Babel probably won’t be either. To me Kewell must be fit, if Liverpool want to get anywhere near the top 2 this season.
I don’t see their squad as being that much stronger than last season… Fowler, Bellamy, Zenden, Gonzales, Garcia have all left, remember.
Their starting line-up may be stronger with Torres, but their wide players are still not good enough, plus the back-ups will struggle to make a difference as well.
I think Liverpool’s problem last season was while Benitez can mastermind victories against good teams when they play weaker teams the goals dry up. Part of this is because their style of football is too cagey, the other problem was the personnel.
But I think Benitez has made some good additions. Torres could be the 20+ goals striker they haven’t had since Owen. Kuyt will get better and benefit from playing with Torres. Voronin looks quality.
The wingers still look very weak compared to Chelsea and Man U. None of their wingers come even close to Ronaldo, Giggs, Malouda or Cole.
For me, Liverpool have had the players to win the premiership for a number of years. No, they may not have been ‘big names’, but they could certainly do the job on the field.
I think Liverpool’s problem is, they have the team, but they don’t have the ’squad’.
Pre-season has been disappointing for me, not result-wise, but when I’ve seen them, the play wasn’t the standard I would expect from these big names. I think Rafa’s tactics could be at fault there, although I’m not criticising his tactics, anything but. For me, they just do too much passing at the back, waiting to lure players in, then THEN attack. I saw that a fair but against Feyenoord, and far too much last season. I would rather see them beating the lower teams 4 or 5 nil than waiting through 70 minutes of playing it safe, making sure they don’t score, then end up winning the game 2-0.
Rafa should just say, defence, that’s your job, stick to it, let nothing past you. Strikers, this is your job, when you get the ball, attack, run at defenders, scare them, intimidate them, look for gaps in their defence. And midfield, you and you, focus mainly on attacking, you and you, sit back just in front of the denfenders, but if you have to, defend/attack.
No, I’m obviously not a manager in any sense of the word, as you can tell, anything but. But this is coming from a fan’s perspective who wants to see more attacking play, and certainly more goals. Honestly, I’m not going to be happy if Gerrard’s top scorer, or even one of them. Crouch, Kuyt, Torres, and the rest should be before him, if not one or two behind due to Rafa’s rotation. And if all goes belly-up, revert back to the safety. This kind of thing should be tried and tested in pre-season, personally.
Let’s just hope Torres doesn’t follow the likes of Morientes, Cissé, Gonzalez, and the rest. Liverpool can’t afford him to. 20 goals has to be minimum, and a minimum of 10 or 15 for both Crouch and Kuyt.
Rafa Benitez did an interveiw on sky sports where he himself said he would be happy with Torres getting 10-15 goals this season. He must be letting Torres take the penalties then
. The way I see it Torres will struggle to to live up to his reputation but if/when he settles in he could be one of the best strikers in the world. I doubt however he will be the 20+ goals a year striker that L’pool need to make a real challenge this year. ‘Pool still lack good wingers and now are buying attacking midfielders and strikers and trying to adapt them into wingers which could be a mistake. This year depending on how quickly the new boys adapt they will be closer to Chelsea and United. My guess would be they will finish 10 points behind the champions and 6 behind second place. But then again I’ve been wrong before and may be wrong and I kind of hope ‘Pool are one of the teams in the title race until the end because I know more ‘Pool fans than Chelsea and Arsenal put together and it would make it more exciting if there were 3 teams instead of 2 in the race.
When I say that Rafa has tactical abilities, I’m talking about the season overall. He has yet to come to grips with the demand of a fast and perfect start, and hasn’t instilled the aggression in his team to win simple games.
In one-off games against big teams he gets it right, but when the situation demands aggression a la United, Chelsea or Arsenal, Pool are lacking. Whose responsibility is that? Rafa’s.
Plenty of time for him to get this right though.
Bilal, though its true Rafa has failed in a season long effort, as you said he managed to win more often than not in the one off games. This point to a lack of true quality and depth to our squad in past years. Should there had been at least 50% of what your lot and the chavs had over the last few seasons than I think he would have done far batter then he has done. Remember, he took on two of the world’s richest and most talented teams and still beat them with inferior tools, to do that in the EPL has proved far more difficult as LFC have only now started to spend like Valencia let alone seek to emulate the manures or chavs of this world. It will take a few seasons before LFC can truly be compared to the Manures and Chavs, and this must be with constant investment in top quality and no second choices, as we have been treated to for too long.
I agree that we have a great team but we’ve never had 2 internacionals for each position now we r really close hoping for Heinze to complete it.
I dont understand Why us liverpool fans have plenty of ambition but Arsenal are pulling for third. We both got to the CL final in the past 5 years (although liverpool got there twice
) which shows Arsenal and Liverpool can beat the big teams so i think the small teams are defeatable.
It is definately not impossible for us Arsenal or even Spurs to win the league next season is gonna be great!!!!
Liverpool will Win Premier League at last with 86 pts.
where going to win the league ferando torres and gerrard lift the premiership title