Emmo’s Blog

Posted by Emmo on February 19, 2009

Well it was good while it lasted. We were top for a while and then Utd predictably stole the trophy and prised off the one hand we had on it. How sick were LFC fans when 2 weeks later Utd added their 2nd Champions League trophy in 2 seasons? I still feel sick. What a season for Utd. 4 trophies in one season, 5 if you include the World Club Championship. It’s a feat that will never be matched.

Hold on…..

What I posted above sounds like what every manager (and media) wants to happen. I don’t know why we don’t just stop the season now and give Utd the trophies. Every team in the Premier League can then fold apart from Utd and they can play themselves winning trophy after trophy, year after year.

You may think that sounds stupid but it was an idea that I was seriously going to ring up talksport with the other day. In my opinion Utd will always find it easier to win the league as teams don’t want to play them. They write the game off before its even began and play their weaker teams. Take Fulham who came to Anfield and defended for their lives to grind out a 0-0 draw. Before their 3-0 defeat at Old Toilet last night their pointy faced manager was telling everyone his team had no chance. He then went on to say Utd will win 5 trophies this year and Slur Fergiscum is the best yada yada yada.

If he felt his team had no chance what do you think the players feel? Hodgson has cleverly told his players to not even bother and to save themselves for the games they think they can win. The Wigan’s, Hulls, Stokes etc.

It’s not only Fulham who do this but in truth Utd only face about 10 hard games in the Premier League each season. Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea normally provide 6 hard games. West Ham and Spurs away are tricky for Utd and then you have about 2 teams who might surprise Utd on the day. The rest? They don’t even bother. They reel out the “Well we don’t expect to get anything against Utd” rubbish. Why not? its 22 men at the start of the match and correct me if I am wrong but its 0-0 when you kick off. It’s not as if Utd start 2 goals up.

If you play and get hammered then at least you had a go and you are being fair to the other teams chasing the title.
Fulham always try and give Chelsea a game home and away but for Utd is 6 points before the season even starts.

Someone rang up Talksport the other day and said he had given up his Utd season ticket and swapped it for a Blackpool one. The reason? Teams were coming to Utd laying down and rolling over. He said that in the Championship the team that wins the title loses 10+ games and concedes nearly as many as they score. Why? or how? Every team is capable of beating each other. When the team in 22nd face the leaders they will go for it. They don’t write the game off and think they lost before its begun.

The truth is that Utd probably will win the title. They can go 8 points clear if they win against Blackburn at the weekend.
For us to win the league we have to hope Utd lose 2 and but we can’t drop any points at all. I just can’t see that happening.
But what if Liverpool do win the league? Then Utd will flex their financial muscle and spend £100m on an already good squad to “knock of us of our f*cking perch” again. Liverpool can’t compete with that.

If LFC are crowned champions then it will be a football miracle. Not only would they have beaten a team to the title for which everyone lies down for but they would have done it on a shoestring budget compared to that of Utd.

Let’s hope Benitez and the boys can pull of that miracle for as much as us LFC fans crave the title I think football needs us to win it to save people getting bored of watching the mega-rich Utd stroll to the title year after year.

YNWA

Posted under Football, LFC

Posted by Emmo on February 9, 2009

If you believed the panel on Setanta Sports after the weekends game with Portsmouth, Liverpool were lucky. Rafa got lucky. The goals, Torres’s aside, were lucky. Lucky Lucky Lucky.

The panel consisted of former red Steve Mcmanaman and Tim Sherwood. Sherwood must have told anyone that was listening the Reds were not going to win the league……and were lucky. The rubbish continued to fall from his mouth “Leaving Reira, Torres, Alonso and Kuyt on the bench backfired and three had to come on which defeated the object of resting them” he continued. Blah Blah Blah. I’d lost interest by this point. We had 3 points and were back at the top of the table. That’s all us LFC fans cared about.

I think Tim (nice but dim) Sherwood was missing the point. I think everyone bar intelligent football people were missing the point.

Don’t these people realize that Rafa studies his opposition 24/7 in the weeks leading up to the match?
If he felt that that the 4 “super subs” were needed or fit enough to start he would have started them. He knew that Portsmouth hadn’t won in 8 games before this one and had defensive frailties. He put out a team that would do well until the replacements were needed. If we had taken our (few) chances we could have played the 90 minutes and possibly not made any subs at all. But N’gog and Babel have only played bit parts this season so they were never going to last a full match.

But what annoys me is that how many times in the past has Fergie done the same and been labelled a tactical genius? There has been many games where Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney have been “rested” only to be called into action as Utd found  the game harder than they first thought. Yet Fergie will get all the credits for making the subs at the right time. Yet Rafa? Lucky.

But people have questioned Rafa’s judgement saying that he should have started Torres for the pompey game, get the job done then sub him. I agree with this but only if the player is 100% fit. Last season Rafa made a mistake in resting Torres & Gerrard in the same fixture. That decision was mad as there was nothing wrong with either of them. It was a big mistake as we drew 0-0 thanks to Pepe’s penalty save. This season Rafa got it spot on. Torres isn’t 100% fit so it was right to rest him after he had started the last 5 games.

I seem to remember Ronaldo given the softly softly approach by Utd after his operation in the summer but I didn’t hear anyone question the Utd boss?

Rafa got it spot on this weekend. He knew he would more than likely have to use 3 of the 4 subs but 30 minutes playing time is surely better than 90 minutes? I’m not saying that Rafa is always correct and he has made some errors in his time at LFC (that beard for example!) But this what Rafa is paid millions of pounds a year for. It his job to decide who to rest and who to play plus who to buy and who to sell and until someone tells us that Rafa is no longer the leader of our fantastic club then he gets my backing 100%.

YNWA

Posted under Football, LFC

Posted by Emmo on February 4, 2009

Well it must be strange being Robbie Keane. It must also been strange being a Spurs fan. As a presenter on the radio said the other day, if Rip Van Winkle was a Spurs fan he would have woke up after a long sleep, looked at the Spurs squad, seen Keane, Defoe and Chimbonda in the squad and thought “phew, we kept hold of our 3 best players in the end!” He would be none the wiser of Tottenham’s bizarre last 6 months!

Keane will have woke up yesterday morning and seen a Spurs training kit on the bedroom floor. Had he dreamt the last 6 months? His dream of playing for his boyhood team had been turned into a nightmare.

So why did Robbie Keane’s time at Liverpool go horribly wrong?

I’ve read a few reports that Keane didn’t like being a big fish in a massive pond and that he is suited to being the big fish in a small pond. I don’t think that’s true at all. I do think that’s true of Keane’s new teammate David Bentley. I’ve also read that Ferguson was right and that Keane isn’t good enough to play for a team like Liverpool. Again, I don’t think that’s true either. On another website it’s been said that whenever LFC sign a boyhood fan it never works out. You have to go back a long way to 1987 when we signed a successful Liverpool fan in John Aldridge. I can see why that be a good theory as our best players of recent times (Carragher, Owen & Rush to name a few) have been Everton fans. Maybe you try to hard when you are playing for your boyhood team. Although it’s never affected Gerrard. In most games I saw with Keane he was trying too hard. Missing sitters that he would put away with both legs tied behind his back playing for Spurs.

When LFC signed Keane in the summer I was pleased as I’ve always liked him but also confused as I couldn’t see where he was going to fit in. And that in a nutshell is it.

At LFC we have two of the best players in the world in Torres and Gerrard. In playing Gerrard just behind Torres last season the two scored over 50 goals between them. So if the food tastes good then why change the recipe? If both players were fit then it’s obvious that they would start a huge percentage of games. So where would that leave Keane?

Another factor is that Benitez wanted to buy both Keane and Gareth Barry but Barry had to be bought first so that Benitez could stick to his tactical plan. If Barry had arrived then he would have slotted on the left, Gerrard dropped back into the middle, Alonso sold and Keane could go up top with Torres. But as we know Barry never arrived at Liverpool but Keane still did even though he wasn’t going to fit in. I’ve heard that Benitez then told the board he didn’t want Keane as his plan wasn’t going well but Rick Parry went ahead with it. From that moment it’s as if Benitez has made a stance by not playing Keane as much. Even with Torres injured.
Liverpool then bought Riera for the left but it meant the left side would be weaker as Dossena wasn’t looking as good as everyone thought he would be and Aurellio is injury prone. Therefore Alonso had to stay as Benitez likes 2 holding midfielders thus giving Liverpool a better balance and Gerrard went back up top with Torres. No place for Keane.

When Keane did get his chance he snatched at easy chances. In games against Madrid, Bolton, Preston, Wigan and Newcastle he was guilty of some misses from 3 yards. He knew that when Torres was back from his injuries he would be the one on the bench so it must have played on his mind. Also it can’t help knowing that when that board went up on the 70 minutes mark he would see the number 7.

I don’t think it’s all Keanes fault. No matter what he did he knew he was a square peg in a round hole as far as Rafa was concerned. When Keane did start to look like he had found form (3 goals in 2 games) he would then not only find himself out of the team but out of the squad. On Boxing Day he scored 2 Vs Bolton and then was dropped from the 16 that stuffed Newcastle 5-1 at St James Park just 2 days later. Benitez said he wanted to rest a few players but why rest Keane who was finding his form and in the absence of Torres? He didn’t rest Gerrard who had played pretty much in every game so why “rest” Keane. Then in other games when Liverpool really needed a goal Keane wouldn’t get onto the pitch with the likes of Benyoun, N’gog, El Zahir & Lucas all coming on instead of him. Only the French N’gog is a striker of out that list and at 19 a striker with no experience. When the game had finished 0-0 and Benitez was questioned why Keane wasn’t brought on he would make up some rubbish about using different players for different games. But not to put on someone with over a 100 Premier League goals when you are looking for just 1 was madness. But Benitez was silently making his point to the board he was telling them without speaking “I didn’t want him so he won’t play”

Even after the Chelsea game when Keane had been omitted from the squad again, Rafa told Sky that Keane would be at LFC after 5pm on the deadline. By 11am the next day Keane was in London having a medical with Spurs. By 5pm Keane’s nightmare was over and he was back at “home.”

No transfer is guaranteed to be a success. Liverpool could sign Messi and he might flop then go to Madrid and be a success. I just feel that Robbie Keane had a lot to offer Liverpool. His clever play is just what we need to break down defences that park the bus at Anfield. Robbie Keane hardly figured in those 0-0s. If he had maybe we would be clear of Utd instead of playing catch up. People will say Keane failed but I don’t see it that way. If he had been here 2 years and still not broke into the team then that would be failure but after 6 months? Never.
I have no doubt that Keane will start scoring for Spurs again and good luck to him. Sadly for him he misses out on a Carling Cup place because he played just 3 minutes against Crewe for LFC.

In a bizarre ending to a bizarre season for Keane he visits Anfield on the last day of the season with Spurs. If Liverpool are crowned champions then due to the games he played Keane will pick up a league winners medal. Keane will pinch surely himself again to see if it’s another dream.

Good luck Robbie YNWA.

Posted under Football, LFC