RAWK Goes Into Meltdown | 2013/14

If the absolute crazy thing happens, I'll just divert my laughter towards City.

It will be mildly weaker laughter, but still a heartily good one! Win win situation.
 
Mrs Smoker said:
If the absolute crazy thing happens, I'll just divert my laughter towards City.

It will be mildly weaker laughter, but still a heartily good one! Win win situation.
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I have abused all my Liverpool friends and really taken advantage of the past few days. There is no going back. If City were to throw now, i might have to hibernate for a week or two
 
Mrs Smoker said:
If the absolute crazy thing happens, I'll just divert my laughter towards City.

It will be mildly weaker laughter, but still a heartily good one! Win win situation.
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I was thinking exactly the same thing. :lol:

Liverpool would be funnier though, a lot funnier!
 
Shark22 said:
You could easily say the same thing about the scousers balling their eyes out too soon, including the players. So they can't exactly say anything if they do by some miracle win it.
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:lol:

You wish. They will be insufferable bastards if they win. *shudders*
 
Brightonian said:
No, of course not, but I wouldn't consider the fourth place finish an achievement. I certainly don't consider it 'essentially a trophy'. I'd be happy with it because I have faith that our team might be able to take the opportunities it presented, but it's valueless in and of itself. It's a means to an end. I could never take Wenger's view, that staying in the CL each season but winning nothing somehow constitutes a successful club. Silverware is success.

Try this one - if you offered Hull the choice between beating Arsenal in the FA Cup final or swapping the opportunity for a fourth place finish, what do you think they'd do? The CL spot doesn't mean much to them - they'll never get out of the group stages, and they're not going to maintain that top four place next season. They won't attract players just by merit of begin in the CL - players are attracted to quality teams - CL football is an indicator of that, but only when the team obviously has the quality to match it. Any sensible Hull fan will take the chance to go and watch their team win the FA Cup, and those who didn't would certainly do it in hindsight after seeing their team get battered by some CL minnows and then slip right back to where they were before.

As for 'glamour' and 'prestige'... I don't give two tosses about them. Prestige is just what other people think about your club. I'm proud to be a United fan, and what other people think of the club has little impact on that.
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I suppose it is all relative, it depends on the situation / Club in question... Considering Liverpool finished 8th two years ago, then 7th last year and now 2nd or 3rd (at worst) its a great achievement so far for them, if they qualify from the group stages next season again its further progress, again this could be considered an achievement.... Utd done the same to some degree under Fergie when he first signed, from 21st to 12th in 6months, 2nd place finish the year after... took another 2 years before he won his first trophy, but it was all considered to be improvements which ultimately led to success. Maybe Liverpool are going in the same direction?

Of course Hull would take the FA Cup in your scenario, no disrespect to Hull but they are a small time club compared to Liverpool and Utd... They've had little to no success at all in their history so given an FA Cup success they'd bite your hand off for it I'm sure! :)

But as we're taking Liverpool here as the example, they've essentially over achieved if you will this year...the goal by all reports was CL qualification, they've done that so its a success... Just because they don't have a physical trophy to show for it doesn't mean their season is not a success....
 
Empire said:
Possibly.

I felt however as the playmaker for Liverpool, Gerrard could have looked to find Suarez more often in that crowded penalty area rather than shooting. Jamie and Gary pointed out instances where Liverpool's attackers were in enough space to receive the ball into their feet and I think those passes combined with a good first touch by somebody like Suarez could have been more threatening than shots, and very well led to a goal.

Rodgers did get his preparation wrong however his tactics don't rely on Gerrard taking shots, that was down to him. His tactics tend to result in Gerrard getting the ball to the danger men in front of him and I do think he could have done that at the edge of the penalty area.

I might be over-rating Suarez a little but I just feel more passes into his feet would have led to something, and when at the edge of the area, that patience was important. Gerrard wasn't just the captain but playmaker also therefore his decision to take 8 shots in the second half as opposed to passing it around the penalty area patiently probing, looking for one of his attackers to find a little bit of space before the pass into their feet was costly.

Rodgers should have prepared them better so they were drilled for this however the captain and playmaker still needs to be adaptable and find ways to create chances. I suppose what I'm saying is that if that were Pirlo, Xavi or Xabi Alonso, they would be less likely to shoot and more likely to get the ball into the feet of one of their attackers, for this reason Gerrard's decisions decreased their chances to get that goal. To me, it seemed apparent he tried to force the goal however with the function he serves in the team, he should not have tried to force anything.
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But Suarez was getting passes to his feet. All Liverpool's forwards were getting loads of touches of the ball, and weren't managing to do much with it. I don't see anything that Gerrard could have done in those instances where he took shots that he hadn't already tried plenty of times with no useful outcome. All those things that you're mentioning that are part of Rodgers' approach had been tried and failed, because Mourinho had seen them all coming and set up to thwart them.

Again, I'm not saying Gerrard was right to take all those shots, but I see no evidence that Liverpool would have done any better in the game if he hadn't.

And 'trying to force a goal', in some shape or form, was exactly what they needed to do. He took those shots because he could see that plan A wasn't making any headway, and plugging doggedly away at it for another half hour wasn't going to change anything. The problem was that Gerrard didn't have any effective way of doing so, so he kept trying the aimless shots. Possibly a better player might have been able to conjure up a better 'plan B', but the blame still has to fall largely at Rodgers' feet for such a one-dimensional, inflexible approach to the game.
 
Lowkey said:
I have abused all my Liverpool friends and really taken advantage of the past few days. There is no going back. If City were to throw now, i might have to hibernate for a week or two
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Snap, I will need to find a new job.
 
Truedevil said:
The Time to Believe thread is open again so here's few gems:


My plan for this evening is to simply go into my son's bedroom, touch our 'This is Anfield' poster (same as I always do before our games), say a little prayer and then find something (anything) to do the next couple of hours as I sure as hell won't be watching. Will check the result at 10pm.

Did the same for their game vs Sunderland recently but made the mistake of checking the score and getting all excited that Sunderland were 2-1 up with mins to go only for them to go and equalise.
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They're weird.
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:lol:
 
Brightonian said:
Wait... why? For some moral high-ground consolation or something? Or to stop Madrid trying to nick him?
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Suarez will be here next season, I think he will go after next season when he realises how awful Liverpool have been when trying to fight for 4 trophies with 14 players
 
Just think, there is a female out there who deemed this f*cking fruitcake worthy.
 
So.. What would the RAWKbola sufferers have to say about that? LoL
The Uruguay and Liverpool striker has vowed to return to Ajax one day:
....
And the 27-year-old, who has enjoyed a double award-winning campaign on Merseyside this season, says he is still "crazy" about the Dutch giants and keen to play for the Godenzonen again in the future.

"I've always said on one day I will return at Ajax," Suarez told Helden magazine. “Even if the manager doesn't want me, I'll go. For sure!

"Ajax was a very important step in my life. My wife Sofia and I are crazy about Amsterdam and the lifestyle, the respect from and for everyone.

"We had a happy life and could live there in peace. We walked a lot through Amsterdam."
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2892...-return-to-ajax?CMPID=140507_EN-GB_SuarezAjax
 
Empire said:
It wasn't Gerrard's slip that cost the game, it was his mentality afterwards. Moments like the slip occur, however they needed only to draw and so only one goal.

Steven Gerrard panicked. He is the captain and leader on the pitch, when Liverpool needed calm and patience, he gave them panic and impatience. Instead of willing his team to unlock the Chelsea defence, he demanded they smash through them like a bettering ram. And he took the lead in this, prior to that game he averaged less than 2 shots per game but in the second half alone he took 8.

Liverpool went behind and the pressure got to him hence the inability to execute the required strategy, the inability to do what he has all season and get the ball to the goal scorers. The pressure caused him to revert back to what he knows, his old habits, to try to be the saviour of Liverpool.
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Football intelligence, you can't deny his talent but a veteran like him. It was a shocking performance.
 
Brightonian said:
But Suarez was getting passes to his feet. All Liverpool's forwards were getting loads of touches of the ball, and weren't managing to do much with it. I don't see anything that Gerrard could have done in those instances where he took shots that he hadn't already tried plenty of times with no useful outcome. All those things that you're mentioning that are part of Rodgers' approach had been tried and failed, because Mourinho had seen them all coming and set up to thwart them.

Again, I'm not saying Gerrard was right to take all those shots, but I see no evidence that Liverpool would have done any better in the game if he hadn't.

And 'trying to force a goal', in some shape or form, was exactly what they needed to do. He took those shots because he could see that plan A wasn't making any headway, and plugging doggedly away at it for another half hour wasn't going to change anything. The problem was that Gerrard didn't have any effective way of doing so, so he kept trying the aimless shots. Possibly a better player might have been able to conjure up a better 'plan B', but the blame still has to fall largely at Rodgers' feet for such a one-dimensional, inflexible approach to the game.
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Rodgers does not implement a patient attacking approach. His liverpool teams tend to be dynamic, aggressive and direct in attack, Mourinho created no opportunities for this therefore plan A failed.

Plan B they tried, as you said, for an hour and that was passing the ball around the box, looking for the movement of his forwards and using his vision and anticipation to spot the forward in a position where he could try and do something. As the playmaker it is his job to create chances and it is his job to set the tempo, a varying tempo around the box of patient passing followed by quick one touch passing would force Chelsea players to mentally switch between a slow tempo and quick tempo, thus increasing the likelihood of an error as they might not anticipate the pass and so decrease their chances of reacting in time.

I honestly do not believe resorting to the shots was the answer and it was in fact the mouse trap Mourinho set, this is what he wanted Gerrard to do. We have seen time again in football, you can take great players out of the game (Ronaldo + Messi) if you stop the playmaker from creating for them (Xabi Alonso + Xavi). It is one thing when the central midfield are dominant and superior but this wasn't the case here, it was a psychological trap, bait if you will and Gerrard fell for it.

Gerrard tried to create chances for an hour or whatever it was, this is important in football however after this point he abandoned this and went for shots. I refuse to accept all football games should be won in the first 60minutes and so if a play maker is unable to create chances in those first 60minutes he should then abandon this tactic and resort to long shots.

I feel as the game went on and the Chelsea defence grew mentally tired and physically fatigued the chances for error were greater therefore he should have carried on doing the very thing he stopped doing and getting that ball to his attackers because it would have taken only one Chelsea error for them to draw level.

I can't disagree that quite a bit of the blame has to fall on Rodgers because he should have prepared his team better. The playmaker however is not free of blame when he decides to abandon the tactic of creating chances in favour of long distance shooting just because he ran out of patience. Because of Gerrard, Liverpool played 60minutes of football and 30minutes of rolling the dice.

How often have we seen games won when a team persistently tried to patiently create chances? Games won nearer the end when the opposition defence is fatigued and more prone to error? Coutinho, Sterling and Suarez should have been the targets and when Sturridge came on him too. And Gerrard should have continually tried to create for them knowing one slip, one mistake, one second lapse in concentration is all that they needed.

If he did this and they lost then he cannot be blamed as he performed his role in the team, he tried to create as the playmaker should. As it is, he abandoned a tactic reliant on creating chances in favour of long range shots at a Keeper probably preparing all week to deal with such. A tactic now reliant on the luck of a deflection, the roll of a dice. This is not the function a playmaker should perform and so one must question Gerrard's decision.
 
Said it last week and I will say it again. Andy Carroll will win us the league.
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I sometimes wonder if this thread is a wishing well. I'll hope for the best I guess.
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Some are more optimistic than others...
 
redevil2 said:
So.. What would the RAWKbola sufferers have to say about that? LoL
The Uruguay and Liverpool striker has vowed to return to Ajax one day:
....
And the 27-year-old, who has enjoyed a double award-winning campaign on Merseyside this season, says he is still "crazy" about the Dutch giants and keen to play for the Godenzonen again in the future.

"I've always said on one day I will return at Ajax," Suarez told Helden magazine. “Even if the manager doesn't want me, I'll go. For sure!

"Ajax was a very important step in my life. My wife Sofia and I are crazy about Amsterdam and the lifestyle, the respect from and for everyone.

"We had a happy life and could live there in peace. We walked a lot through Amsterdam."
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2892...-return-to-ajax?CMPID=140507_EN-GB_SuarezAjax
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Lots of places to have a quick bite as well, I hear.
 
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