An interesting read/analysis.. http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/NG156624070808-1304.htm Looses interest a bit towards the end when he starts to mention how much the teams cost (who cares ?) but overall it's interesting to read.
really enjoy his articles. usually well balanced, makes a change from the crap rte/sky/other transmit.
Shows up the facts that ACTIM and OPTA supply to the pundits on SKY, Setanta and the BBC are a load of crap. McManaman, Trevor Francis and even Gary Mac said he rotated too much. The fact was easy to see there wasn't quality replacing quality when Rafa rotated. Look at the state of the team he inherited, a want-away I want to play regularly for England sold us short asshole, a 14 million headless chicken and a stevie gerrard not too sure why he was playing with the likes of diao, diouf, traore of the like. Great to be pundit but until the stats come to bite you in the ass
Its a good article and he has certainly done his research but it still doesnt account for our a disappointing title challenge last season where Rafas selections definitely cost us points. The ones that spring to mind are Arsenal where Hyypia was chosen ahead of Agger (I know he had a broken hand but he was fit) and they killed us with their pace. Zenden also started this match ahead of pacey players like Bellamy and Pennant. It was a similar story against Sheffield United - no Agger,Pennant,Gonzalez and the a red hot Crouch left on the bench for Fowler. Against Everton there was no pace at all in the starting 11 and we got stuffed. We changed that against Chelsea and put in a great performance but lost to one of the goals of the season. An inform Crouch was dropped for the awful performance against the Mancs and so on. I know I sound anal above but Rafa gave these pundits ammunition last season especially when it came to Crouch. He was consistently dropped when in form and always came back to score goals only to get dropped again. Pako has already said that we will continue to rotate this season and Im quite happy about it as I think it will work this time round. We have 22 quality players many of whom can play in numerous positions. Its going to be a long season and everyone of them will play a big part. As 5ForKeeps said the quality wasnt there in the past but its here now and theres no excuses.
Just read an article today on Footie 365 after reading Tompkins. Made me chuckle to see the 99 rotations emphasised and also Torres's price is biggeed up. Then saw Andy Gray's one "Reds to be out of race in August" in which I thought it was very lazy to ignore the fact that us missing the midweek league match (vs the Hammers) because of the CL qualifier would have no baring over the length of a league campaign.....in fact it could be argued with our new players and recent bad starts that its a good thing its been postponed so we'll be playing it with a more settled team hopefully with momentum.
From what i and a few mates have seen during pre-season not much going on, team looks no different, muddled and confused, hope the team wins first couple of games, if not. We will be crying again by end september!.
What has pre-season ever shown us though ? If we had a great one that wouldn't make any difference in my mind to our league chances. The two things I bring from it is one that Gerrard could have an amazing season after being finally rested and with the purchase of wingers to relieve him of some of that burden. He'll be playing in the middle, has his shooting boots on early doors and should be flanked by some improvement in quality. Secondly Voronin, who's record I've justifiably slagged I have to admit, looks a much better player than I expected and very hungry. I think he should be a good squad player and make Rafa's rotation and bench stronger. Besides that I have said before rather than concentrating on the new boys its more important that incumbants like Pennant and Kewell do their stuff and score an awful lot more and Kuyt probably needs to be getting nearer 20 a season which hopefully Torres will help him achieve (I don't think Torres himself will score as much as Kuyt). Also hopefully Benayoun will fill Garcia's boots. I don't expect too much from Babel or Levia this season though.
No Doubt! the players that have come in have looked ok, but the way they are playing in pre-season games just doesnt give me confidence. Hope i'm wrong. As i've said many times last season (and got slated for it) Gerrard is a central midfield player and will show his worth there this season. He proved on more than one occasion last season,that he would play anywhere for the team, but only now will he show why he should have been in the middle all games. Voronin, think he will be a good player for us from what he has shown so far in pre-season. It just looks same old! same old! no gelling together, just don't know what it is. Maybe its all these Wags!! and fine some are too!!