The season so far

cfloo

December 7 th 2008 Liverpool are top of the league, if anyone would of offered me that back in early August I would of returned them the offer of, one of me Kidneys.
Idont know what I'd offer them for the same position come May perhapsthe Misses. But there is a long way to go yet but I'd like peoplesthoughts on our season so far.

For me our best performances havecome away from Chelsea this season with three points. The outstandingrecord they had at home has gone, now they look a little vulnrable athome and I cant help but think we are the catalysts of theirindifferent form at home. Our other great performance came at home tothe Mancs, and we had another good performance at Goodison. While forthe rest of the games we've looked as though we've been stuck in secondgear, while our performances overall havent been great we've grindedon, with a little luck here and their. But we have missed out twice nowon what was a gifthorse to put some daylight between ourselves and ourchallengers. On current form I think our gearbox needs to be overhauledso we can go through the gears better.

Without Torres we havebeen found out a little, and looked pretty toothless. With him fit healmost single handley commands Rafa to play the 4-2-3-1 formation.Thats not taking away anything from Rafa, merely talking up how goodthis young Spainard is. He plays this role brilliantly and I honestlydont think there are many other strikers in the league who can producethe goods in this role, Drogba being a fair shout. But certainly notKeane and certainly not Kuyt and for me this is where are weakness hasbeen shown very recently without Torres in the side. The goals up untilyesterday had dried up a little, although in saying that I still dontsee a genuine goal threat apart from Stevie G maybe, for the forseeablefuture.
This problem IMO (Torres' injury) has led us into a slightbliip somewhat. Without him our 4-2-3-1 formation hasnt been aseffective due to the lack of form and ability from both Kuyt and Keanerespectively. Yesterday against Blackburn I didnt really see thisformation working to well having the Dutchman upfront, although therewas a positive taken from this. That was to see Alonso find himself inthe Oppo's box on more than one occasion testing the keeper. By andlarge though it didnt look good with Kuyt leading the line, and TBPH itwouldnt of faired any better with Keane leading the line. Rafa revertedback to this formation after playing Keane and Kuyt upfront againstWest Ham, another method he tried, yet still a method that died on itsa.rse.

This is the catch 22 at the moment, what system do youplay, what striker(s) do you play and if you do play strikers whatmidfielder do you drop and who plays on the right if Kuyts upfront ?
Anywaythats been our main problem so far and although the form of Riera andGerrard IMO has dipped somewhat that also doesnt help matters.

Anywaythe general feeling amongst Liverpool fans still seems to be mixed.FWIW I'm loving the fact we're sitting ontop of the table, but I cansee there is room for improvement. But I can not honestly see why Rafahas been given so much stick from some fans on here and in general.Yes, I gave him loads of stick myself for numerous things, I more orlessed moaned my way through last season because I firmly believed andstill do of course that had the bloke cut down on some of his seemingly'willy nilly' rotating. We'd stand a hell of a lot more of a chance ofsustaining some sort of title challenge. He has cut that outconsiderabley and we're sitting top of the tree, I'm not saying its alldown to picking a stable and settled side but its certainly played itspart IMO.

So after the "seeing of the light" I dont reallyhave any other quarels with the manager (well okay some of hissignings, possibly his man-management and a few other things ) But I can't be greedy and expect it all to change over night, so I'mat least happy to see the toneing down of rotation. He's changed theone thing I was desperate to see him do (rotating), of course I cannotalways fathom some of the decisions he makes, in substitutions and theodd selection or two. But on the whole I'm happy with him and the teamsposition at the moment, how could you not be ? But Rafa still gets hisfair share of critisim at times now when I feel its not neccerserilywarranted. Especially over the Keane saga where many people havecritisised the fact Keane had been taken off almost every 60 minutesinto a match. Hmm Fair enough I suppose, but I dont agree with them,Robbie Keane has had his fair share of minutes on the pitch this seasonand still hasnt hit any kind of form atall, apart from the two goalsagainst West Brom. Thats simply not good enough ! I agree with Rafa100% on subbing him at certain times aswell as benching him yesterday.

Butits  is definately a mixed feeling from my point of view so far intothis season. The fact that we're top has counter-balanced our problemsand potential problems. Again, I'm glad we're top ... Delighted infactbut I do have reservations about our confidence, form and goal threat.Its weird, we know our team can play much better yet we're still upthere in the mix and for that I'm grateful.