Rafa Benitez believes that if you do not concede you have the chance of winning many games. As for Brendan Rodgers, he believes that if you can outscore your opposition you are going to win many games. Attacking football is about scoring while defensive football is about not conceding. Please do not get me wrong Brendan Rodgers have not won anything yet, I strongly believe that he is doing it right. Liverpool have conceded more goals than Crystal Palace and scored more than any team in the premier league this season. Under Rafa we drew many games in a season we should win the title, and that cost us the title. Your comments:
rafa's goal scoring is VASTLY under rated. he had his way and frankly it did work up to a point. rodgers way is based on 3/4 players he has. its not that far off last year from jan to may and frankly its more about stability and two class forwards scoring than anything better than rafa. if rafa has a fit torres all year in 2009 he might well have romped it. he didn't and rafa isolated and abused keane and then lost torres in feb.... had torres been fit we'd not have fallen off the pace that year.... simple. suarez is rock solid... and scores and makes goals.
They were pretty much the same. Both these sides have benefitted from 2 great attackers. Torres and Gerrard Suarez and Sturridge. rafa was better defensively but he had defenders. Rodgers has thugs and idiots as defenders.
Yeah, Rafa at the time had to rely on Agger, Skrtel and Johnson at the back. It's a shame Rodgers doesn't have any of those players. Rafa was defensive- but we did score a bunch at times too. I think on a couple of occasions (definitely at least once) Rafa's Liverpool were top scoring English team (in all competitions). People overplayed Rafa's defensive stance... he was quite dynamic in players he used and formations he used. He didn't just have one plan and stick to it. I personally think the major difference between Rafa and Rodgers is motivation. I think Rafa was perhaps the master tactician- but rather than motivate his players he made them angry. Rodgers on the other hand is good at tactics, and also motivation. That's what Rodgers has that other recent managers have failed at- getting the players fired up in a good way.
One thing I don't want to see from Rodgers though, which he has resorted to a few times with no success this season... is sitting back and counterattacking from deep. Can't stand it when we do that.
oops.... uir puts his foot in it. skertl played 21 league games in 2009 and carragher played 38... if skertl is still playing.... and carragher cut nani in two but is not a thug.... well
I was debating this with Sky I think on the United forum. Personally, I think stability AND consistency comes from a good defence. Liverpool have had a great season, but they've had to rely on Suarez, Sturridge and your all round attack to compensate and outscore your leaky defence. THAT is possible one season, but much harder to maintain, especially with the commitments of the CL next season. Looking at the long term, give me team with a strike partnership that scores 40-50 goals over a full season and a defence that's rock solid, rather than one that gets the same number of points with a partnership scoring 49 in 28 games but concedes almost as many. Also on the point of motivation, it's all good for Rodgers but the real litmus test will be when Liverpool struggle, and events conspire against them. Especially with the CL commitments and the domestic cups as well. We'll see then how much of a tactician and motivator he is.
The attitude that you can consistently win with a gameplan of "clean sheet + 1 goal" is flawed. Wrong decisions will go against you. Opponents will smash in 1/1000 shots against you. Players will make mistakes that gift the opponents a goal. You often hear commentators say after a mistake that the manager couldn't plan for that. Well they could. The plan is to win games by 3 goals. Unfortunately that plan requires either vastly superior players which most clubs can't afford, or vastly superior management which most clubs can't find. If you score 3 goals then you can **** up twice and still not drop points. #maths
rodgers has sterling and coutinho as well as sas rafa has kuyt and reira wide... #genius to get anything out of that muck (his choice)
I agree. We're so much better when we fly out of the traps from the off. If you start slow it can be difficult to pick it up. However, we've shown marked improvement this season in rescuing a variety of situations (going behind, losing leads,etc), that in previous seasons I don't think we could have. We've kept 10 clean sheets in the Prem this season, and only failed to score twice, so not too bad going really.
rafa's issue is he'd let them go so far within a straight jacket and if it let us get 3 grand if two grand if one grand. he never let the straight jacket off. exmaples would be one full back attacking at a time 2 holding midfielders behind the ball at all times... one up. 4-5-1 when defending etc. if lfcs forwards could get 3 great but once it got anyway close to the end he'd shut it down. rodgers just wants the ball and the team to use it positively but you can bet your ass he doesn't send anyone out to be defensively poor or to just outscore. he wants them to defend right too.
I agree to some extent, but I also believe that a true champion club must know how to do both. Increase the lead AND protect it calmly for stretches. Something to be said about the mettle of a team which just doesn't seem to sweat out a 1-goal lead... I do unfortunately agree with Treble that in the long term we need to develop a more sure-footed defence. But because we're so good in attack, we only need to improve it a couple of notches.
You're not that far off tbf. Get Toure the fck out for starters. I rate Flanagan though. As for Rafa, it took him time to get the zonal marking thing right. But fair play, in the end he managed it although I'm not a fan of it myself.
It is strange that many look back on Rafa's tenure seeing him as a defensive manager but I can understand it to a degree.The sports media at the time were obsessed with Zonal marking and its supposed weaknesses and invariably used Rafa for analysis.The fact he mixed it up and used man-marking aswell was ignored. But take 08/09 as an example,we comfortably outscored the rest of the league by nine goals including Man.utd Arsenal and Chelsea who by coincidence all scored 68.We also had the third best defence only conceding 27. Rafa could play both attack and defence.
Sure but as a striker he was gash Rafael made him an effective if dull right side player Watching him was a joyless affair compared to watching today kitts goals and assists stats were enviable though
Most of the above reminds me of the Irish answer to a request for directions - "Well I wouldn't start from here" Well neither would have Rodgers if he had his way. He has moulded together a side from the players that he has and a style of play that best suits them. If he was honest he would consider it as abortion in comparison to what he would want to achieve. Just working from his Tiki Taka style prefernces then he would never have adopted formations that leave his defence exposed. Yet he has not only persisted with the style that Liverpool play, he has also used it to lull opponents into a false sense of security. It is commonly said that Liverpool have a leaky defence yet only 4 of the top 10 clubs have conceded less goals - and all of them are below Liverpool in the league! Leaky we may be but porous we are not. The just think about the attack (no visiting fans don't or it will be too frightening for you). Rodgers arrived talking about dominating possession and resting on the ball. To hell with that! HIS side now attack with pace and pasion. HIS captain sits deep and pings 40 yard passes to either feet or into space at will. HIS attacking midfielders press high and constantly when we haven't got the ball. In fact HIS plan has been built about maximising the resources that he has available. We and he know that we are far from being the finished article. It will be interesting to see how he wants the squad and style to evolve over the coming seasons.
That will be interesting, can we get better and can he eventually replace the likes of Gerrard and Suarez and keep this going? Many interesting years ahead.
