Another season, another own goal for Rafa...
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Another season, another own goal for Rafa
Alonso's significant influence as Liverpool won 67 per cent of matches with him and 46 per cent without him.
It could have been worse. It could have been Steven Gerrard or Fernando Torres. Even so, for Liverpool, the addition of Alberto Aquilani and the residue of a £30million transfer fee may still not add up to the sale of Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid.
If it is the week before the season starts, it must be Liverpool putting a stick of dynamite under their title aspirations again. This time last season it was the failure to secure Gareth Barry, with the resulting fall-out between Rafael Benitez and the board, that dogged the club for much of the season.
Now it is the loss of the player who made perfect use of what would have been Barry's place in the team. Gerrard and Torres are still Liverpool's crown jewels, but Alonso was the pedestal on which they sat. Aquilani is a fine player, too, when he is fit, but for all their technique, foreign imports often take one season to adapt to English football. That was the beauty of Alonso: he played Spanish, thought English. He was already there, ready-made.
This should be Liverpool's year. Yet, whereas a month ago that statement would have been delivered with some confidence, now there is doubt. Liverpool may have lacked the depth of Manchester United last season, but their best XI, and particularly the spine of the team from front to back, was more than sound. Alonso was a huge part of that. His partner, Javier Mascherano, was the destroyer but Alonso was the brains of the operation, a different class to his stand-in, Lucas Leiva.
Alonso's passing meant that Gerrard had the confidence to stay high up the field, knowing the ball would reach him, and the repositioning of the captain as a second striker changed the way Liverpool played for the better.
Even when Aquilani is fit, which may be two months from now, Gerrard will have to get used to his style and rhythms. And it is hard to imagine any stop-gap replacement inspiring the same trust he had in Alonso. The worry is that Gerrard then comes deeper in search of the simpler ball, and Liverpool's game-plan is affected. When everything was balanced so impeccably, why gamble with it?
What is true of Cristiano Ronaldo's departure from Manchester United also applies to Liverpool: whatever the money, it is never good to lose one of your best players. Benitez may have driven a hard bargain at £30m, but in cold financial terms the first title win of the modern era would have been worth that and more to Liverpool, and to feed the soul of the club it would be priceless.
That is what is at stake here. Another year of nearly; a fresh round of what might have beens. In his final two seasons at Anfield, Liverpool won 67 per cent of matches with Alonso and 46 per cent without him. That is significant influence gone.
There are more pressing worries this week, with injuries in defence. Liverpool are expected to bid for Michael Turner of Hull City and money from Alonso's sale will support that. It really does not matter how wisely Benitez spends, or if he is allowed to use any of the remainder at all. Liverpool's campaign may already be holed below the waterline before a ball has been kicked. X marks the spot.
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what logic is this?
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alonso has an actor's looks.
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He looks like the most handsome player not just at Pool probably in the whole EPL... lol
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Originally posted by limpper:
what logic is this?
Logic ah, errr... I think it is saying every year Rafa create trouble for himself... Like the year before went all out and created so much trouble with Villa and O'Neill to get Barry only not to pay the amount Villa wants... To make it worse, isolated Alonso and made him feel unwanted at the club... Then now that Alonso proved to be the star man for their best showing in almost 20 yrs, He decides to leave the club all because of how he felt he was treated by Rafa in his pursuit of Barry... Thats why they say score own goal... Troubles that were created by himself for the club... lolAlso chased Robbie Keane until Spurs's Levy wanted to report him and Liverpool to the FA for tapping up, but ended up having to pay so much for him only to sell him back at a big loss barely 6 months later... All these are troubles self created want mah right?
And his that rant last Jan... Well, i guess we will never know how much it contributed to Pool dropping 8 points that period... But it is a fact it happen right after his rant... So... another own goal?
Well, Gerrard and Torres are good players on their own... But some also belief Alonso help make them look great as a team last season...
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Originally posted by zocoss:
He looks like the most handsome player not just at Pool probably in the whole EPL... lol
Spanish in general are quite hawt.
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Originally posted by Patrik:
Spanish in general are quite hawt.
torres...fabregas... -
Cannot blame ah Ben la. Before that Barry saga, he is very injury prone and is understandable to sell him. Suddenly he fit for whol;e season and very good. Too bad the damage is done.
Now his heart is set on R.M. Keeping the man and not his soul is not very wise. Might as well sell him.
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rafa should manage lower tier teams and bring them to fa cup glory. he cant manage teams in the long run imo
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Originally posted by zocoss:
Logic ah, errr... I think it is saying every year Rafa create trouble for himself... Like the year before went all out and created so much trouble with Villa and O'Neill to get Barry only not to pay the amount Villa wants... To make it worse, isolated Alonso and made him feel unwanted at the club... Then now that Alonso proved to be the star man for their best showing in almost 20 yrs, He decides to leave the club all because of how he felt he was treated by Rafa in his pursuit of Barry... Thats why they say score own goal... Troubles that were created by himself for the club... lolAlso chased Robbie Keane until Spurs's Levy wanted to report him and Liverpool to the FA for tapping up, but ended up having to pay so much for him only to sell him back at a big loss barely 6 months later... All these are troubles self created want mah right?
And his that rant last Jan... Well, i guess we will never know how much it contributed to Pool dropping 8 points that period... But it is a fact it happen right after his rant... So... another own goal?
Well, Gerrard and Torres are good players on their own... But some also belief Alonso help make them look great as a team last season...
no no, saf did a better job in isolating tevez, afterall, xabi played a major part in the last season. can see rafa did want him to stay on, and did his best to ask xabi not to go.
whereas for tevez, saf just couldnt care much, when he bought bbt, he told tevez that his slot will be assured and he will play as regular as before bbt came, but things did not turn out that way. and unlike liverpool, who sign mascherano first yr into his two yrs loan contract, saf doesnt care much whether will he lose tevez at the end of the loan period.
alot of managers had kana this kind of things before, just like roman wanting sheva to join chelsea but jose doesnt fancy the idea at all, that explains why sheva did not make any major impact during his days with the blues.
sheva case is almost alike to keane's, rafa did not and had nvr wanted keane at anfield, it's rick parry who wanted keane, i thought it had been clear till now, but i guess not. this explain why keane, like sheva, did not make any impact during his time at anfield at all.
i dont see a linkage between ranting and dropping point in the mid of the season, how does somene not playing on e field talking to the media will affect those 11 ppl who are on the field? those rantings rafa made are directed to saf, not the kop players. so, rafa loses concentration on his doings because he spend most of his time ranting? i dont really get the point here.
failure to keep xabi at anfield, meaning own goal for rafa? i find that a joke, a real bad joke.
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Originally posted by limpper:
no no, saf did a better job in isolating tevez, afterall, xabi played a major part in the last season. can see rafa did want him to stay on, and did his best to ask xabi not to go.
whereas for tevez, saf just couldnt care much, when he bought bbt, he told tevez that his slot will be assured and he will play as regular as before bbt came, but things did not turn out that way. and unlike liverpool, who sign mascherano first yr into his two yrs loan contract, saf doesnt care much whether will he lose tevez at the end of the loan period.
alot of managers had kana this kind of things before, just like roman wanting sheva to join chelsea but jose doesnt fancy the idea at all, that explains why sheva did not make any major impact during his days with the blues.
sheva case is almost alike to keane's, rafa did not and had nvr wanted keane at anfield, it's rick parry who wanted keane, i thought it had been clear till now, but i guess not. this explain why keane, like sheva, did not make any impact during his time at anfield at all.
i dont see a linkage between ranting and dropping point in the mid of the season, how does somene not playing on e field talking to the media will affect those 11 ppl who are on the field? those rantings rafa made are directed to saf, not the kop players. so, rafa loses concentration on his doings because he spend most of his time ranting? i dont really get the point here.
failure to keep xabi at anfield, meaning own goal for rafa? i find that a joke, a real bad joke.
Err... Tevez and Alonso are totally different... And like you said, they didn't offer Tevez a contract until the end. Alonso had an existing contract which wasn't at its end unlike Tevez... I think he just renewed it 2 yrs ago and probably still had 2 to 3 yrs left to run... On Rafa trying to keep him, honestly I don't know is it just acting or otherwise as he knows Alonso is a very popular player to the fans... But I think most of us knew Rafa was trying to offload him last season right cos of Barry...
To say Shevchenko and Keane was alike I feel is also wrong. Shevchenko was reaching 30, Keane wasn't, he was in his prime... AC Milan was getting a new Premiership transfer record fee for a 30 yrs old... They were more than happy to grab it with both hands after rejecting the offer for 3 yrs...
To say Rafa wasn't the least keen on Keane it even more hard to belief... Maybe Barry was his first choice, we will never know if it's true or not but I believe Keane wasn't too far behind. If we just stop and think for a moment logically... Who was the one that made Spurs CEO Levy all work up and upset? It wasn't Parry, it was Rafa.
On July 10, Liverpool manager publicly admitted his interest in signing Robbie Keane. The offer of Champions League football and a pay rise was too good for Keane to refuse... 9 days after Rafa's comments, Keane inform Levy he wanted to join Liverpool... Spurs cried foul over the way Pool made known their interest in Keane...
So do we really belief Rafa wasn't the least interested on Robbie Keane? Not at all? A lot of politics goes on behind the scene, probably Parry was just made the "fall guy" for it which explains his outing as CEO... If we just stop and think hard for a moment, had Rafa really didn't wanted him at all or view him as a Parry's choice, he could have just kept quiet couldn't he? But instead he was the one leading the chase... and it all started right after his comments.
Back to Tevez and Alonso... Are they really the same? If we think Tevez move to City with an almost double your salary package... Give almost any player out of contract or even with on a contract, they will also be tempted... Alonso move to Real and it was reported he would get $70k per week about the same as what he got at Liverpool... And he being a Spaniard, he don't get the same benefits as foreigners who are tax only 23% from the tax man... But you may be correct that saf did isolated tevez last season, he didn't play much or the important matches... so he leave, can understand... Alonso played in all the important matches, and yet he still wanted to leave for the same salary... That's more unusual...
And ranting... sometimes it may mean angry, under pressure or getting nervous or losing control or just plain old simple mind games... It is not simply just between two managers, players also listen and gets involvo... Some get angry, some use it to motivate themselves, and some just get nervous... Like I said earlier, we will never know how much it contributed to Pool dropping 8 points during that period... But it is a fact it happen right after his rant.
And failure to keep Alonso at anfield is seen like an own goal for rafa is just a reporters view. Though I think a few others may also see it that way.
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is liverpool title challenge dissipated after alonso left for RM?
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Originally posted by marcteng:
is liverpool title challenge dissipated after alonso left for RM?
Dont worry, it is none of your business. -
Originally posted by chrisbenoit:
Dont worry, it is none of your business.sure not my business, but why is it you make it your business to comment lol. self pawned yet again
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so ...... so what ? Stop gossiping for someone who has left us .
Can talk about Aquilani instead ?
Eh , sorry sorry , i thot this is YNWA , hahahahah. *log-out*
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cos saw the last 2 messages from Chris and Marc .... *log-out* again .
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I guess if Rafa dun get his act right for this season, stevie and torres are the next one to go.
Liverpool have not bought any one that can help to score goal up front and they are losing key reserves to other teams.
I dun blame Alonso for leaving cos Ah Ben did not treat him well the season before.
With the lousy pre season results, the reds have a lot to struggle with this year if ah ben dun pull off any good buy by end of august.
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I won't say Liverpool have thrown it away, only hurt themselves for what was their best showing in almost 2 decades... All I am saying is, I feel they have not done their title hopes any favours by releasing Alonso... Make no mistake, I have not change my position on who I think has the best chance of winning this season... I still have Chelsea at 30%, United and Pool on 25% each... So I am saying United and Pool have an equal chance of winning it... United will be far weaker his season after the sale of Ronaldo and I personally don't expect them to retain the title...
I think had Rafa treated Alonso better, like he treats Torres, perhaps Alonso would still be there for next season... Alonso doesn't seem like to have a poor character, cos after how Rafa treated him, like getting upset that he wanted to be by his wife side when she was about to give birth and touting him last season, he still did his best for the club all of last season and when he decided to leave, he kept quiet and let Liverpool negotiate for the best possible deal for the club...
Aquilani may come highly rated and at $20m, he better be for an Italian who normally don't cost that much... But I don't think he will be enough to replace Alonso who already has the benefit of having played with the team and the league for a number of years... Even if he is good, will he bring balance to the squad? Let's just hope he is not another slow-mo italian...
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The press seems always target Rafa more than any other managers.
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Originally posted by sg_forum:
The press seems always target Rafa more than any other managers.
:)
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Originally posted by Medicated Oil:
I guess if Rafa dun get his act right for this season, stevie and torres are the next one to go.
Liverpool have not bought any one that can help to score goal up front and they are losing key reserves to other teams.
I dun blame Alonso for leaving cos Ah Ben did not treat him well the season before.
With the lousy pre season results, the reds have a lot to struggle with this year if ah ben dun pull off any good buy by end of august.
Aiya..Torres MAYBE only will leave..but not so soon la. Gerrard will NEVER leave liverpool de la.. He is like the giggs of Man U. He will commit to liverpool his whole career and retire there.
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Originally posted by United4Life:
Aiya..Torres MAYBE only will leave..but not so soon la. Gerrard will NEVER leave liverpool de la.. He is like the giggs of Man U. He will commit to liverpool his whole career and retire there.
Agree with what you said...There are only a few players that money can't buy...one of them is Gerrard. -
Originally posted by United4Life:
Aiya..Torres MAYBE only will leave..but not so soon la. Gerrard will NEVER leave liverpool de la.. He is like the giggs of Man U. He will commit to liverpool his whole career and retire there.
never say never.
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Originally posted by United4Life:
Aiya..Torres MAYBE only will leave..but not so soon la. Gerrard will NEVER leave liverpool de la.. He is like the giggs of Man U. He will commit to liverpool his whole career and retire there.
gerrard almost left liverpool for chelsea few yrs back...heng is almost