Just get 3 points by hook or by crook and go away for the internationals. The international breaks have not been kind to us in the last couple of years so heres hoping...............
Until we have the players to fit the system....Change the system. A flat 4-4-2 for me Saturday, with Gerrard and Mascherano or Lucas (Neither of whom have outshone each other so far) in Centre. Get Kuyt up front Yossi one side and Rieira the other if fit. Back four cannot be changed as simply we have no options. Come on Lads we need this one.
3 points is a must, we cannot afford to fall 9 points behind. I'd certainly look at bringing some freshness into the team for this one. An improvement is needed in all departments.
How bad is it that we are praying for 3 points from bolton, we should be destroying these teams. not the start i have been thinking about all summer
3 points away is a must now... just saw the below on a blog- something to consider once we get going on a run of wins. Liverpool are already one point up on last season. Spurs 2008-2009, lost 2009-2010, lost even Stoke 2008-2009, drew 2009-2010, won +2 Villa 2008-2009, drew 2009-2010, lost -1 The glass is half-full!
I think its important for the team and for Rafa that there isn't too much shuffling of the pack for this one, we all know that we're good enough to beat bolton so lets not hit the panic buttons and look for wholesale changes. If Riera is fit i'd go with him on the left and Kuyt on the right, if we're struggling to break them down after about 60 minutes i'd either bring Benni in for Kuyt or push Diggler upfront and put Stevie out on the right.
based off those 3 games are we not one point down - we beat villa at home 5-0 last season and drew with stoke so 4 pts last season 3 this one??
he's probably mixing up the away villa game last season with the home one,it was 0-0 at villa park wasn't it?
Excuse me lads- bit of a blinkered trying to be optimistic view there. We did play Villa away first last season. 3 points here is critical, I hope Torres, Gerrard, Carra, Skittles, Reina and Kuyt step up after Rafa's comments yesterday.
Right all rants aside from the Villa debarcle and onto the Bolton game. As Rafa said we have much the same team as we had last season bar Alonso so should be able to challenge. What we need is some consistent performances from the team and we should get ourselves a result. I think bar Glen Johnson everyone has been below par for the opening 3 games and we need to turn that round. For some reason we seem to let things affect our performances on the pitch. Torres has been off the boil even though he has scored twice and if he stopped letting things affect him on the pitch he could get his season going. He really does get drawn into fracas on the park with opposing defenders and I feel they have seen this as a weakness in his game, highlighted of course by Rafa to the media! I'm not quite sure why Reina and Gerrard lost their composure last night and that lead to the 2nd and 3rd goals. I suppose when you look at the game after the dust settles we were to a degree unlucky. Everything that could possible go wrong in a game did and with luck we used it all up in one game. My real concerns lie in the midfield, we just don't seem to have the craft to open teams up consistently, although last night if we had taken a few early chances it could have been so different. I know it's unfair to target Lucas, bearing in mind he has replaced Alonso but he just doesn't get us going enough. Too many square balls and not enough drive and creativity from him. We just don't seem to have too many options at the moment but I'd like to see us play a 4-4-2 and give Torres some support? Bolton will fancy their chances after watching the Villa game and they will try to rough us up. They will target us from set pieces and if we don't get on it they will cause no end of problems. they don't have a creative edge so they will try to bully us. We need to play football and play with a tempo and if we send out the right team we be okay. Kuyt had a bit of a nightmare against Villa and we can forgive him for that. He is a tireless worker and he would be well suited up front with Torres. We need to press them at the back and don't let them send measured long passes to Davies. He will cause no end of trouble in that role and leave room for Torres. the team needs some blance on the flanks and as such I would bring Riera in on the left and put Benayoun on the right. Gerrard needs to drop back alongside Mascherano and that can get us going. There were many things said last night and that is only to be expected after such a disappointing result. The truth of the matter was we had enough chances to open the scoring and had we done so we could well have gone on to win. This was last years problem, when we failed to get early goals we let it affect us and we drew far too many. rafa needs to get us playing at a tempo and not panic when we fail to score early. I think we are feeling sorry for ourselves at the moment and a wounded animal is a dangerous thing. This could be a good time to travel to a team like Bolton who will think by roughing us up we'll roll over. Lets be positive andget the season back on track. Lets not put too much pressure on Lucas and hopefully Aquilani will be fit soon and we can see what you get for £20mill in Italy. A fresh day, a fresh outlook. But I do expect more from babel and Voronin.
This time last season we had 7 points going into the manc game at home. Im not gonna look at this start comparing the games v the teams we've already played, We're already 4 pts down on last seasons start. But we've got a run of games now ahead that we should be winning. Starting with Bolton, they're a poor team and we hould be burying them, as I think we will. After the Boro game last season, the players got an almighty rocket from the gafer that stirred us, and we were magnificent from that point on... I think we're gonna bounce of Bolton this weekend. 0-6 If anything other than that, Ill settle for a scrappy 0-1..
I'll take any score, i'll even take a poor performance one we come away with the 3 points. I am confident that we will win and kick start our season.
Given that the Reebok has not always been the happiest hunting ground I'll take any score too. The last 2 visits there were wins so here's hoping it will be a hat-trick.