Matt | 
11 3rd, 2007| 
Just back from the Park Bar where I was watching ‘pool vs Blackburn. I was on my own as JC and Miguel are off down south, and none of the others can be bothered. It was, as any Red who saw it can affirm, a dismal performance. After Arse-Scum 2-2 earlier in the day, it was a golden opportunity to get back into contention. This is not meant to be a criticism of Blackburn, who played well, and have obviously been playing good football recently under Hughes, and fully deserve their place in the league at the moment. However, this was a game that we should have won, and have to win if we are to challenge for the title. The post is title ‘Sissoko. why’? And other despair’, which I think has to sum up the tactical confusion that all Liverpool fans feel at the moment. Momo showed himself in the first year and a half of his career with Liverpool to be a promising young defensive midfielder, whose energy and amazing extending legs, broke up opposition play and set up many successful Liverpool attacks. However, since his eye injury in the Champions League, this promise has been unfulfilled. The timing of his tackles has been poor, his positional play nowhere, and his already weak passing has become a non-existent liability. In many of the games that he has played in this season, it has seemed as though we were playing with 10 players, or maybe even 9, the loss to Marseille being the prime example. Today, we saw both Mascherano and Sissoko playing. Why? What does Sissoko offer that Mascherano isn’t already doing? What is the point of Mascherano winning the ball, and breaking up Blackburn’s attacks if Sissoko is going to give it straight back to them?
The Reds in the Burgh all liked ‘Sergio’ Garcia as a player, despite his frequent habit of giving the ball away in dangerous areas, because he played with passion, and was capable of the unexpected and delivered on the big occasion. Nevertheless, Miguel named him ‘the nephew’, as his undroppability (is that a real word? who knows, it is now) suggested to us that he had to be closely related to Rafa. Since Garcia’s sale we have had to look for another nephew, and Momo seems to be filling that role…
I know that I am in many (indeed almost all ways) not qualified to criticise Rafa for tactical decisions. After all, he is the manager for good reasons, and has demonstrated again and again that he knows what he is doing. However, yesterday evening I was bored (and pished) enough to be watching ‘The 100 greatest Champions League Goals’ on ITV3004, when a goal by Rafa’s Valenica against ‘pool in 2001 appeared. I immediately wondered why we aren’t scoring that sort of goal, neat passing pulling the opposition out of position, with the final player having a simple finish. One of the fundamental things that you need to do as a team if you want to manoeuvre the opposition into a weak position is to use the full width of the field. Goals are normally scored when a forward player can get the wrong side of a defender in the box. To do that you need to pull defenders wide, get behind them and deliver a decent cross. Even if you don’t actually use this to score, the knowledge that width can be used will keep the defence spread out, giving room to pass through or beyond them. The team, on paper, for this evening looked as though it might have that ability, playing two nominal (and supposedly skillfull) wingers in Benayoun and Babel. In practice, they played inside at every opportunity, never once looking to go outside the last defender and stretch the play. The result was a congested central midfield, with ‘pool being held up in pointless sideways passes just short of the box. Only when we were desperately pushing forwards in the last few minutes, with Kewell (a real left winger) actually playing wide, and attempting and succeeding in beating players, did we look like scoring. Where did Rafa think that the goal was going to come from before he put Crouchigol on? Kuyt works really hard, but he spends so much time dropping off to pick up the ball from midfield that there is no chance of him ever being in the box, even if there was a chance of someone putting the ball in there. With Momo playing, SG spent far too much of the game coming back into central midfield to cover his mistakes and pick up the ball, so that Kuyt was completely isolated. This was obvious in the first 20 minutes, but there was no attempt to change the system, and in the end, although we had some excellent chances in the final minutes, we were very, very lucky to get away with a draw.
The only good thing to come out of the last few games is that SG looks to be getting his form back, and he was unlucky not to make it 4 in 4 games. However, this does mean that at the moment we are once again relying on SG to pull us out of the shit, and great player though he is, that is not the sort of position that Liverpool Football Club should be in. I know that this looks a bit like a single long whinge, and that in many ways given that our actual number of points at this stage in the season is not bad, especially given recent years, it may seem a bit excessive. However, it is the way that the team is playing that is the issue, and the feeling that the results are more luck than anything else (note that Blackburn had the ball off the bar and post tonight, just like the Arse last week). Our luck cannot hold, better play is required, and for that we need a different team to be selected (a strange thing to be saying, given Rafa’s prediliction for rotation).
