Topic: Spurs vs Liverpool 2-1 Post Match Reaction

[paranoidmike]

I've watched all the big 4 play this weekend and none of them not even Arsenal had me worried. Chelsea got lucky with Drogbas cross or that would have finished 1-1. Utd laboured against Birmingham and also got lucky with the ball coming back off the post straight to Rooney or that may have finished 0-0. Arsenal scored 6 and some of the goals were excellent,but I thought Everton made them look good.

[Red_Isle_Chap]

only 11 pages 4 hours after the final whistle? is RAWK growing up?

Nope, just all the shit is condensed more, by the look of it.

So how we doing kids? Anyone reckon that we're going to get relegated yet? Let's get out there and batter the fuck out of stoke.

Shit day at the office today, but it happens, we fucked up there last year and without pepe this would be a lot, lot worse. But, despite being crap (and that applies to pretty much every outfield player) we dropped points from a bottling of a decision from Dowd. A lot of you might not like it, but that's the real crux of the matter. Out of all the teams in the prem, i've only been impressed by arsenal yesterday, and that's only because the bitters were so utterly fucking shit my mum's WI collective could have thrashed them.

We'll be right, and we'll win the league. We're just giving the other c*nts a chance...

[Crackerjack Sam]

From what I gathered from the posts on here. Our season depends getting a back up striker for Torres, moving Stevie back in the middle next to Masch, buy another winger, let Lucas warm the bench and we play this team and formation.
       

                                                               REINA

JOHNSON                        CARRA                           AGGER/SKRTEL            FABIO (WHEN FIT)



KUYT                            STEVIE                                MASCH                            ALBERT

                     
                                                     YOSSI


                                                                 NANDO


That's everything I've got from this thread put together.

Oh yeah and Babel's crap. That's all I've heard!

[OLDIE]

Just been onto the official site, motm vote and 2 people voted for Babel......Cmon own up who was it 

[redway101]

Well at least we've got the unbeaten in the league  thing out of the way.

[Notayesman]

not being a doom merchant. but if lucas is going to be our link between defence and attack we are in trouble. his play is very slow and predictable. the solution is obovious. bring stevie back to central midfield and play yossi behind torres. if rafa persists with lucas i can only see a year of failure

Probably why we spent near £20m on Aquilani. Personally I wasn't sure about how ready Lucas was to step into the breech but to propose shifting Gerrard back on the basis of one game against a very good Spurs side is a touch extreme. Lucas is a good player and we ought to show a bit of faith in the lad, if its like this in a months time then maybe but he's shown in big games against big sides that he can do it.

[Dr Cornwallis]

if rafa persists with lucas i can only see a year of failure

Alonso going doesn't mean that everything is now Lucas' fault.  I'm sure Lucas would have preferred Xabi stayed as well and it's not fair that people look to him to be doing the same job.  They're different players, you may as well get annoyed with Johnson for not performing like Alonso if that's your reasoning.

[booty]

From what I gathered from the posts on here. Our season depends getting a back up striker for Torres, moving Stevie back in the middle next to Masch, buy another winger, let Lucas warm the bench and we play this team and formation.
       

                                                               REINA

JOHNSON                        CARRA                           AGGER/SKRTEL            FABIO (WHEN FIT)



KUYT                            STEVIE                                MASCH                            ALBERT

                     
                                                     YOSSI


                                                                 NANDO


That's everything I've got from this thread put together.

Oh yeah and Babel's crap. That's all I've heard!

Does it for me - I'll sleep well now.

[paranoidmike]

Just been onto the official site, motm vote and 2 people voted for Babel......Cmon own up who was it 

Mr & Mrs Babel

[waittillmay]

Well at least we've got the unbeaten in the league  thing out of the way.

weirdly i thought of that too.


Cant get too upset about today, well we could but whats the point. Glad we've got game on wednesday now, just hope the crowd is up to it and not getting on the back of players after 5minutes like last season.

[The Bill Hicks Appreciation Society]

first game of the season and to stand any chance Lucas must be dropped and Stevie moved back into midfield breaking up the best strike partnership in Europe.

[Simon-1973]

Let the comedy begin...

It began on the pitch mate.

Not good enough and a long season ahead i think if we dont sign at least 2 quality players before end of August. A striker is a MUST as is another midfielder. One look at our bench today scared the life out of me.

[JerseyKloppite]

I've watched all the big 4 play this weekend and none of them not even Arsenal had me worried. Chelsea got lucky with Drogbas cross or that would have finished 1-1. Utd laboured against Birmingham and also got lucky with the ball coming back off the post straight to Rooney or that may have finished 0-0. Arsenal scored 6 and some of the goals were excellent,but I thought Everton made them look good.

In fairness, I imagine if they watched us play they'd have been laughing...

[Crackerjack Sam]

Probably why we spent near £20m on Aquilani. Personally I wasn't sure about how ready Lucas was to step into the breech but to propose shifting Gerrard back on the basis of one game against a very good Spurs side is a touch extreme. Lucas is a good player and we ought to show a bit of faith in the lad, if its like this in a months time then maybe but he's shown in big games against big sides that he can do it.

Ok.
Define faith?

[Captain Wolf Biscuit]

We've just allowed the 3 other contenders for the title a 3pt start on us.  The only way to pull that back is hope they all lose in weeks when Liverpool win (rare), or take 3 pts more off each of them than they can take off Liverpool (did better last season, but can't bank on it this seaon).

It's a 3pt head start for the rest of the 'big 4'.

So you think that we won't make up 3 points? Throughout the whole of the season, you don't think Man Utd, Arsenal or Chelsea will lose a game? You're wrong.

[Portland1]

Tough loss, but they were definitely the better team today.

Some positives though, Johnson's run to get the pen was impressive, he looked good crossing the ball too. Also Benayoun was also good when he came on, giving us that creativity and spark that we lacked.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Mr & Mrs Babel

or danni lloyd

[desikasanova]

Babel was awful.

[Zelnaga]

The team must have thought they were still in pre-season because the first half was awful. Simple as ...

Second half was slightly better but then again we couldnt get worse then first half. Yossi, Johnson, Insua had something good to say about them. The rest was average at best. Babel? Was he even playing? I also thinl Carra had a shit game then again i think hes showing his age. I hope Skrtl and Agger partner up for most of the season.

[buchigo!]

don't understand the criticism of lucas here. lucas did ok as the rest of the team aside maybe, that's a big maybe-

1. carra who as in another thread someone pointed out is returning to his hoof form- albeit now two footed- maybe a loss of speed perhaps. i don't know hopefully temporary.
2. ryan. again freaking great athlete but he has abandoned his preseason hunger and regressed to last year's head down i'll beat you on speed form. as i said in the match thread keeps on waiting balls to bounce and come to him. which doesn't suit our play because we need our wingers to hold the ball ala dirk on the right for our wingbacks to overlap or lucas or masch or stevie to cut through the middle. on the occasions (i counted two), he interacted with insua (who did well)- 1. he waited for the ball to bounce to him which meant emilio couldn't overlap as he might get dispossessed and spurs would counter (which happened) and 2. he tried to outrun three players with insua waiting for the through ball. which never came.

disjointed in the first half, a bit tentative, xabi's absence noticeable truly but a glimpse of what we can be and what rafa wants us to be in the second half, more overlapping, more weaves and exchanges between players. we'll get there. it's
still too early on the season. aside from l'arse and maybe Manchester City, the other two weren't that convincing in their victories and were truly get out of there with points. and they playing home. to those fretting about being three points behind, ffs, we're gonna face other big three or big four or big sam for that matter. glad we got out our semi bogey team spurs. remember when we got our first defeat last season, that's when we got up again and started our run. might as well get it out of the way now.

ps. love the way lucas stood up to that fat turd. lucas will be immense this season.

[lfcmaster]

positives from today reina has started on top form best keeper in the league

glen johnson will be our best player this season

Ayala did ok when he came on

all out attack against stoke on wednesday

if i was rafa i would go for someone like vdv we need another creative passer in midfield

[Gnurglan]

Would be nice to have another quality attacking player available. It was my prefered signing this season, but it seems it's not gonna happen.

[paranoidmike]

In fairness, I imagine if they watched us play they'd have been laughing...

maybe, but, if they had been playing spurs today they would probably have lost aswell.

[killer-heels]

first game of the season and to stand any chance Lucas must be dropped and Stevie moved back into midfield breaking up the best strike partnership in Europe.

Its not that though. The team played much better as a whole when Gerrard went back into midfield simply because he took control and he isnt going to let little shits like Palacios and Huddlestone over run him.

We controlled the game much better and Yossi was fantastic in supporting Torres. In some games where we are against high tempo teams, Gerrard should play there because Insua, Johnson, Yossi all supported the forward line well and so would Kuyt and Riera.

Until we get into some sort of groove and/or Aquilani gets fit, I think its the way to go. Only the tougher away games that is. Midfield will be fine in other games.

[BazC]

first game of the season and to stand any chance Lucas must be dropped and Stevie moved back into midfield breaking up the best strike partnership in Europe.

Valid points though I think. It doesn't matter how good the front 2 are if they're going to be so isolated for most of the match.

Our best football came when Gerrard dropped deeper and Yossi was the one in the support role for the striker. We actually started keeping the ball pretty well in the middle and final thirds.

[Midekima]

Exactly right, Spurs are going to take points off most teams at WHL this season, depending on King being fit though.  Huddlestone and Palacios are a great couple of midfielders, and I'm also a fan of O'Hara and Jenas isn't a mug either.  They'll compete in the middle with any team.

I disagree mate, as much as I would like to have Everton lose 6:1 to all the top four teams we all know that they won't. Tottenham were good today, we were rubbish. End off. Tottenahm will play shit at home on a number of occasions, that's just football.

Our bench was a joke, we seriously lack squad depth (as most have been saying all pre-season) Voronin and Dossana both keeping it warm and both linked with moves! I know Agger, Reira, Aquilani, Aurellio and Ngog were not fit but if you look at the other top teams they all have 3-4 players out as well. i.e Man U have, Hargreeves, Vidic, Ferdinand, Neville,  Van der saar, Rafael. Chelsea have , Belletti, Alex, Cole, Zhirkov and Ferreira. Arsenal have, Nasri, Walcott, Fabianski, Diaby and Djourou. Add to that Man utd have lost Tevez and Ronaldo, Arsenal Toure and Ade. It is clear we have by far the weakest squad.

We need match winners off the bench, Yossi is one but after that we have nothing that will actually change a game.  It worries me when we look at a top ten team like Tottenham and actually admire their bench.

Two more creative midfielders and perhaps a central defender are needed IMO

[Dr Cornwallis]

first game of the season and to stand any chance Lucas must be dropped and Stevie moved back into midfield breaking up the best strike partnership in Europe.

No, that knee is moving way too slowly for it to be construed as a 'jerk'.  That's a flex, you want to speed it up.

[Southderryred]

and how many trophies have you won in your time managing top class sides?

so smart ass. do u think lucas can lead us to a league title? i tell u what mate wake up and smell the coffee.

[PETERC1992]

I am concerned  at ur  bench,compare  ours  to spurs we   got  fuck all back up.

Relax a little,we have a few injuries and the only difference with our bench from last year is Alonso replaced by Aquilani.If we play

REINA

JOHNSON AGGER CARRAGHER INSUA

          Macherano Lucas/Aquilani
Kuyt                                             Benny
                          Gerrard
                Torres

Bench: Cavalieri----skrtel-----aurelio/Dossena-----Riera------babel/El zhar-----Lucas/aquilani-----Ngog/Voronin

Thats more or less same as last year just without Hyypia who wasnt need untill we had agger and skrtel injured.The bench we have at the minute is just as strong as last year so im not too worried.

[The Bill Hicks Appreciation Society]

It's still first game of the season though and I think we should give it a few more games before suggesting anyone be dropped, except maybe Babel... the one thing I can't stand is people who don't show any hunger.

[garumn]

Dissapointed, we should have had a second penalty but not getting that decission didnt lose us the game,we managed to do that just fine ourselves.
I think what stood out for me was the total lack of movement up top, a real lack of diagonal runs from Torres and Gerrard  (both of whom I thought was dire today) to create space made us play the ball wide every time and we hardly have big strong men in the box to get on the end of crosses.
To me it looked like a preseason game in many respects and that isnt good enough.

Oh well, onwards and upwards. A lot of teams will lose points at WHL this season. Let's beat Stoke and get the season started for real.

[buchigo!]

so smart ass. do u think lucas can lead us to a league title? i tell u what mate wake up and smell the coffee.

since when did lucas become our manager?

[The Bill Hicks Appreciation Society]

so smart ass. do u think lucas can lead us to a league title? i tell u what mate wake up and smell the coffee.

No idea mate, and neither do you, and you especially don't know less than 100 minutes into the new season.

[stockdam]

Ayala did ok when he came on

Yes he played well. Hopefully he'll get even better.

[PETERC1992]

Yes he played well. Hopefully he'll get even better.

THOUGHT he was guna get roasted by defoe near the end but he did alright,got up in the air well and Cruch didnt do much

[LFC when it suits]

Babel and Gerrard were absolutley shocking today.

[Dr Cornwallis]

The best thing to come out of today is that our title odds will shoot up, which just means I'll get a better price by betting tomorrow.

[The Bill Hicks Appreciation Society]

to use a tired but very relevant cliché it's a



not a sprint!

[Gnurglan]

It's still first game of the season though and I think we should give it a few more games before suggesting anyone be dropped, except maybe Babel... the one thing I can't stand is people who don't show any hunger.

We should have a little faith in Lucas. He played well in important games last season, so he will most likely do the same this year.

Babel I agree with. We should start with Benayoun instead. He's the best option with Gerrard, Kuyt and Torres. At least at the moment (and ever since January).

[rednich85]

so smart ass. do u think lucas can lead us to a league title? i tell u what mate wake up and smell the coffee.

Go away would you.

I'm sure a town, somewhere in south derry is missing a person that I find irritating