Don't know why, but my post during the match thread was erased - I was remarking that right around the time we scored, we still were not looking convincing.
To be perfectly honest - we have played rather "efficient" football all year - and now, at the beginning of the business end of the season, that "efficiency" is coming back to bite us. Rafa wants to control the game, which is fine when you are two up in a game - but we play this maddening style of football where the back 8 pass the ball back and forth, working the ball up the field slowly. No real creativity, just a ruthless efficiency, which is meant to create half chances, and hopes on the brilliance of one or two players (Torres, Gerrard) to take advantage of those half chances. It doesn't matter if we are facing Chelsea or West Brom - It always the same style.
I've been a huge fan of Kuyt - but it is this ruthless efficiency and plodding determination which is now plaguing our team. The League is full of teams looking to plod on with determination - Especially the lower league teams - who would just as soon not step foot in the attacking end of the field as long as they take a point from the top of the table sides in order to stay up in Premiership. In individual players, this dogged determination is appreciated and applaudible, but does nothing to set our team apart from our competitors. Instead we get this efficient football, with no real life behind the team. And right now, our results reflect that rather lifeless approach to the game.
I support Rafa - Under his reign we have become a factor in world football, we have won things, and we will continue to be relevant under his lead- but something has to change. It is stick or twist time. And it goes like this. We either stick with Rafa and give him control over the team that he wants (finding players he feels will fit his "efficient" style of play, but whose efficiency truly sets them apart) as he has stated in his contract request . . . or we twist - and find a manager who can now motivate the spine of this team to set themselves apart.
I think there is still something to be said for fielding a ruthlessly efficient side. Its a big "what if" but I think we very well could still be at the top of the table had Rafa landed his number one target over the summer in Gareth Barry, instead of getting what now looks like a square peg for a round hole in Robbie Keane. Surely Rafa would have had, in Barry, some one with efficiency to control the center of the field that Lucas just isn't able to give us (yet?). Someone who is truly box to box while allowing Gerrard to attack, and allow Alonso and/or Mascherano to lay back.
I can accept maddening football, as long as there is an end product - And right now - There is no end product. There is only, what if.