Rafa Benitez’s mistakes start to pile up
Liverpool’s meek performance away to United this weekend has raised some serious concerns, for me anyway, about the validity of Liverpool’s status as a top four club. It is clear that our squad isn’t up to much when it comes to depth but with the manager also employing questionable tactics throughout; Liverpool became their own worst enemy and gave United the initiative.
The full backs on show for the away side were quite simply awful. Glen Johnson for all his positive points is just not a good enough defender at this level and gets exposed time and time again. He’d be a fine right midfielder and his forward play, which has become limited as the season has progressed it has to be said, is clearly of a higher quality than his defending. He can get caught too side on at times trying to mark a winger which in turn means he loses a yard if a player gets past him negating the entire point of his exceptional pace. I don’t buy into the feeling that we overpaid for him, he’s English and you pay a premium for that alone and his arrival has to be seen as an investment rather than a short term piece of business. It’s clear he’ll be at Anfield for some years to come, but whether it should be in the right back position, I’m not so sure.
Emiliano Insua is often overlooked for criticism, with blame rather disproportionally heaped unfairly onto Lucas in the middle, but after today’s performance there will be no hiding place for him. Slow, poor in the air and positionally inept, it’s difficult to see quite what he adds to the side. Constantly caught out of position by a routine long ball and at fault for being too far apart from centre half Daniel Agger that allowed the room for Valencia to surge into the Liverpool box for the penalty, it was his non-tackle on Darren Fletcher on the right hand flank for the cross that led to Park’s superbly headed winner that gripes the most. He seemed far too preoccupied keeping an eye on a surging Gary Neville (yes I’m aware how funny that sounds); when realistically the threat was far greater from Fletcher as it showed by the excellent cross coming in. He is young and will make mistakes, and positioning is something that comes with games and age, but in a very basic way, he didn’t tackle Fletcher when he should have done, and for me, that’s just the sign of a stupid footballer. I may yet turn out to be wrong about him, but if rumours are to be believed and Fabio Aurelio departs in the summer, Benitez seriously needs to look at investing in a new left back.
What was clear for all to see for those that watched the game was the fact that Liverpool’s defensive line was just way too deep. The gap between midfield and attack should not be that big, and it all stems from the fact that the pairing of Carragher and Agger lack pace and drop deep so as to not be caught out on the break by the lightning fast triumvirate of Valencia, Rooney and Nani. By dropping so deep it negated the reason for playing two holding men as they were nowhere near either Carrick, Fletcher or Park and they couldn’t cut off the supply line to the front. There was no pressure on the ball from Liverpool and Michael Carrick will have few easier days than this.
Liverpool played a much higher line at the beginning of the season and Carragher’s form fell away as room was made to accommodate the attacking flair of Glen Johnson down the right, but since then, Carragher’s rise in form has coincided with Liverpool playing a far deeper line. Sometimes it works a treat, but on other such as today, it can heap pressure on the rest of the side. Saying that I did feel Carragher was excellent in shackling Rooney for long spells in what has been one of the England talisman’s quieter games for some time.
Pressure starts from the front and by pressing further up the field, Vidic and Rio would have had less time to knock the ball around at their leisure and Torres would have been less isolated. I don’t personally blame the players, I just feel the team shape was terrible throughout and horribly exposed at times. Aquilani’s introduction along with Babel and Benayoun proved pivotal in placing Utd on the back foot late on. For all of Babel’s faults, he is undoubtedly fast, and will constantly require monitoring and close attention, something that cannot be said for the woeful Maxi Rodriguez. Aquilani’s movement further up the pitch is first class and off the ball he is brilliant at dragging players across the pitch. The confusion the three created by their lack of positional discipline provided a headache for Utd’s defensive shape late on – but as usual, the subs were too little too late.
A win today and this article wouldn’t have been written, we’d be celebrating another Benitez masterclass and praising the form of certain individuals, but Benitez simply got it wrong today on two fronts – team selection and team shape, and on both counts Utd took advantage.
Dirk Kuyt and Lucas remain two of Benitez’s favourites, and they both have their merits and are key to Liverpool’s squad, but the threat of Babel and Aquilani, two players that have both played well the last few games or so when given the chance, would have been much more fitting to this contest. They can both be frustrating at times, more so with Babel than Aquilani, but they offer a threat that Lucas and Kuyt simply do not provide. They are solid and ‘do a job’ but no more. Kuyt did set up the goal for Torres with a great cross, granted, but over the course of 90mins their battling style of play wasn’t needed as much as some creative spark would have been.
In my humble opinion, you do not beat this Utd side by containing them, they are too good going forward for that, and it’s placing too much emphasis on defensive solidity, you beat them by getting at them, as proven by our 4-1 victory here last season. By starting with what most would see as a conservative line-up, the initiative was already handed to Ferguson, and although several good chances were spurned which does show some form of creativity, they were few and far between and Utd’s dominance was obvious. In this case, attack would have been the best form of defence.
The contest was changed by a contentious penalty decision, and referee Howard Webb’s performance was poor in general, but we simply cannot rely on others to dictate our results all the time, we should be responsible for our performances and excuses should not be as common place as they have been this season, and offered as reasons for why it’s been a disappointing campaign. Man Utd today were comfortably the better side and Liverpool’s regression is palpable. Utd will play worse than that and still win comfortably and they fully deserved their win.
Pepe Reina hit the nail on the head the other day by simply putting our season down to underachievement. This is not a bad team, and one bad performance such as today’s is not the end of the world, but the only player who’s form has been better this season than last’s is goalkeeper Reina, and within that is the evidence of Liverpool’s dreadful season, if any was needed at all. Rant over.
Apologies for all the doo mongering, but what are everyone else’s thoughts on the game – am I being too critical of Benitez and the team, was it just an off day, or were Utd simply too good?
Written By James McManus
Football News 24/7
Oh so easy to say what should have happened and who should of played after the fact. It’s a given that you have a poor manager and poor squad – 10 defeats don’t lie….. and to answer your question, yes Man U (in fact others in the top 7) are better than Liverpool.
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Contentious penalty? It was simply stupid from Masch to hold the opponents arm and you can’t really blame Valencia for hauling himself to the ground in such a situation. It was hardly a dive and Masch was very luck indeed to stay on the pitch.
On the other end, Torres should quit moaning all of the time and getting himself booked. Put that effort into creating something positive.
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Solid 1st hast half but has the candle burnt out for Rafa.
This week has seen an improved level of performance for Liverpool and I think it will be close for the 4th place.
I don’t see Liverpool winning all of their remaining fixtures. At best 4 wins, two draws and a probable loss to CFC will be the final results for us this season. I have a strong feeling Liverpool will also finish a min total of 21pts+ behind the league winners. Yes 21pts behind the league winners. For this statistic alone is a bad pill to swallow and is enough to see him handed his P45.
Even if we scrape through and take the 4th place and win the EUROPA league we still need to play a qualifier for the Champions league and with our level of inconsistency there is no guarantee we would even win this. Should a club of Liverpool’s pedigree accept that fighting for 4th place be enough. It was a bad decision to give Benitez the 5 year deal in the results based business of football.
The min requirement for Benitez this season should have been 3rd place in the league + a cup. Given he has had 5+ years I don’t accept his excuses or some of the fans blind loyalty. For Liverpool to get back to winning a change of mentality and expectation and desire levels needs to change.
I don’t think he had done enough to gain such a contract and control of the club. A tough business decision will need to be made as to what’s in the best interest of the club. If we take the line that it will cost us £15 million pounds to replace him so let’s not replace him. We have to face facts that it’s probably 70% likely right now that we will not finish 4th. I think a brutal decision should have been made a Christmas time. Liverpool now face losing out on Champions league revenue next season and also a massive reduction on our 20 million a season sponsorship deal with standard charter next season.
I have to be honest I have not seen any major progression points this season. Our football has been dour. Low progress has been made with youth players coming through and there has been no progression with the development of the 2nd tier players to suggest that he has the ability to get these to put enough pressure on our first 11.
This is what pushes the team to win titles when you have two players fighting for each place pushing each other to levels which are beyond the player’s standard performance levels.
Liverpool have to face the fact that our level of performances this season barely rank us in overall top 30 teams in Europe. Manchester United are in the top four bracket in the world. For this reason we should not feel disgraced or bad about the game today. It’s the other 30 games this season against the teams the bread and butter which are the most important.
When you see the success of the Premier league in the champions league it makes you realise how difficult it is to win or make a challenge in the premiership. We have possibly 3 to 4 teams that have the budgets and squads to rank in the world’s top 15 teams. I have to be brutally honest based on our performances this season we have no right to consider ourselves worthy of a top 4 place. We have lost 10 times in the EPL this season and this really hurts us.
Despite all of the challenges that Rafa has faced with the boards uncertainty and changing the bar regarding transfer funds. I feel he as the manager has to take the ultimate responsibility and with the team and the resources he had over the summer we had enough in the tank to finish (3rd to 4th) comfortably. I think that Rafa has done a solid job however has taken the club as far as we can go. We will always be a good cup team able to keep it tight and contain the opposition over two legs. But he doesn’t have the players or the mentality to consistently get the team playing to a high level and get the team to win 4 to 5 wins on the trot regularly enough.
I heard a stat of SKY which also indicates how the poor level of our performances this season that we have scored only 50 goals this season compared to Manchester’s 70+. It’s clear that we have missed Torres and Gerrard but any great manager always has a (plan a) and (plan b) or develops a system to still gain positive results. It’s for this reason that Rafa has really suffered. I can’t understand how has he let arise that we only have one true striker, any sensible manager ensures he has a decent second option with the ability to score one goal every three games.
Any Fan or Pundit could have told you last season that Kuyt and NGOG are not of the standard to lead the forward line.
I have to really take my hat off to Arsenal this season as the squad has really worked hard together to compensate for the loss of Van Persie. It makes me wonder how much more points they would of acquired if they had him in the team.
Liverpool need to drastically look at this situation because we have to face facts that Spurs and Aston Villa and Mancity are all on the fringes of catching us up. So to win the league next season will be even more difficult. We will need to play at a far higher level from the start of the season. So I feel we are faced with a situation where we have no option but to replace Benitez. I don’t think if he stayed next season that he would have enough to inspire this squad to win the Champions League or League.
Despite Benitez doing well last season we have to consider how bad CFC were for long periods. If they had Gus or Jose I would go as far as saying they probably would have won the league last season or at the very least finished 2nd. Last season will be remembered as Rafa’s best chance to ever win the league and will be his only chance.
I have really enjoyed the great moments that he has given us but as I have been saying for a while he lacks the X-Factor that little something which get the extra 10% out of average players which the best man managers such as Ferguson, Capello or Gus and Jose are able to get out of players.
We need a change of mentality based on winning and not one based on lets contain teams and try not to concede and win by one goal. This mentality is correct against the Barcelona’s one of the world or if you are playing two legged cup ties. This is not the attitude or mentality of a team with aspirations of being the best particularly when we play team in the bottom half. I have never seen Manu have this attitude. The problem with a team that has this mentality is that when they go one behind or have to chase a result it’s very difficult to turn games around because they have set their stall to play in a defensive manner.
Some fans would suggest giving Rafa more time if we finish 4th and giving him more money but I take the view he is likely to squander this money again like he did with our summer transfer budget.
Thanks and Adios Benitez.
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Why does Benitez keep picking Maxi and take so long to sub him when other players he buys have come played well and then being dropped?If Lucas is the great player Benitez says he is why would he take him off with Masch on a yellow card?If Insua is not useless why did Kuyt have to change sides with Maxi to help him in the first half and this after Kuyt finaly put in a good cross for Torres for the goal from the right.These and other similar questions i have asked myself for years everything seems wrong from training to the scouting.I may be a bit harsh on the scouts because alot of the time we seem to get the next best thing but when he comes to Liverpool he disappears off the radar forever,Fowler and the asshole owen started when they were young but Pacheco who has more skill than most of the rest does not even make the bench because of Ngog crazy.It took too long to get the ball to Aquilani when he came on and Torres cannot be blamed for the miss at the end because of the lack of touches he had beforehand and Gerrard has never played that bad against the mancs,in my opinion not because he has lost the heart but because he has lost faith in what is around him plus the useless manager and coach (Pelligrino at least has to go).My last word is Benitez keeps saying the team worked hard but every team that get relegatd this season their players will have worked hard.They are in the premiership working hard is a given but Liverpool players are supposed too have more skill and talent than them.Bellamy Crouch Keane and even Riise with Alonso where would we be with them today fourth would not be a problem and probably still in Champions League.Rant over.
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just sell gerrard if he is interested to go..and never ever build a team on one player.. really his performance against man utd yesterday is well.. awful.One won’t even know whether gerrard was playing. kuyt performs better than him. i did not see gerrard contribute any decisive defending and attacking for liverpool..
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To be fair i think that’s a bit harsh on Gerrard, he did start the move that led to the goal by releasing Kuyt down the right to cross the ball in and he did create the chance by drilling in a cross in the second half that Torres managed to bugger up with a bad first touch. He played high up the pitch and due to a lack of service and support it left him isolated as a result and made his performance look a lot worse than it really was…seems to be the flavour of the month to criticise Gerrard, he was very good in the Europa league match against Lille and also against Pompey so he’s not as woefully out of form as some people suggest.
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Dont sell Torres, sell gerrard. he has been awful this season like Zen said, we can start building a “team” instead of just focusing on the “gerrard, torres” partnership. aquaman has proven himself to be more than capable playing behind the striker and yet rafa is too stubborn to play him.
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