Mike S

we did not need a holding midfielder, we were playing marseille at home... anyway I think we should rotate more seeing as the three worst players tonight (Carra, Hyypia, Finnan) have been three of the least rotated.

we destroyed them in midfield last season with alonso and mascherano, and gerrard pushed further forward to support crouch. I could see us lining up the same way (except for the crouch part).

Why not. I thought it was the wrong decision at the time but our performance improved, we created several chances and won the game, so it turned out the decision was correct. I can't imagine there are many people who agreed with Gerrard being subbed off at the time.

not really. the motivation for the players on the pitch will (and should) be to win the game, not to impress the manager in the hope of getting picked for the next game. In fact for crouch we've seen how trying hard to impress has led to him playing selfishly at the expense of the team.

yeah. it's got to the point (for some people) where we draw and no matter the circumstance it's rafa's fault. And then we win but people don't agree with or understand rafa's decisions so we only won in spite of rafa.

why would the ref think that was a yellow card anyway, gerrard was straight through on goal

er... The simple fact is that Rafa made the substitution, we started playing better and we won the game. We DID get real width when Lucas came on, not because of the formation, but because we had a player in midfield who was calm enough to spread the play and be patient.

Kuyt Mascherano Lucas

we did play better as a team once he went off, we created at least 4 chances in the next 10 minutes that I can think of - two misses from voronin, one from sissoko, one from babel. so, I disagreed with the desicion at the time, but rafa

how was it not a red card?

I agree but who cares for now

you can't have it both ways, if you're going to attack rafa when we draw, blaming everything on his decisions, then he deserves praise when his decisions help to win the game.

the gamble paid off, proved to be the correct decision in the end. we created plenty of chances after gerrard's sub, and it was lucas' shot that won the penalty. the ony 'luck' we had was the non-penalty right at the end. reaina would have saved it anyway

hahaha take that bluenose c***s, and you whinging b*****ds on this thread, f***ing disgrace awesome celebrations from carra

really find it hard to se how people will blame rafa for today's result (of course plenty will and have done already). Two stupid goals, Rafa practises this s*** in training with them time after time but they just dozed off.

being unfit doesn't mean you get caught ball-watching

if our defenders, particularly carra, could defend to better than pub team standard at the moment then we'd be taking about a decent if unspectacular home win. I'n not A fan of Riise (who is?) but he wasn't the major problem today.

how do you work that out? didn't they change their whole team for the carling cup (assuming that's included in your '62 changes in 12 games' stat), and then change it back again for their next league game? which is 22 changes in itself

yep. and it's all the more strange since in the villa and chelsea games he was excellent, just playing as a proper central midfielder - tracking runs and putting pressure on the ball, using it sensibly when in possession with the occasional burst forward from deep. Some people have blamed injury or tiredness for his loss of form but I think the problem is in his head.

So do people believe rafa was telling the truth on why Torres didn't start against birmingham? That Torres didn't play because Rafa thought Kuyt and Voronin would do a better job than Torres, in other words Torres wasn't rested or rotated, he was simply left out on merit. Or do you think that Rafa's just bulls***ting to cover up a failed gamble in resting Torres? I believe Rafa, but what that leads to is the conclusion that Rafa seems to be underrating Torres' capabilities. Which is a worry in itself, but kind of a separate issue to rotation.

I agree, you can't be one-dimensional. if as a winger your only threat is going past on the outside and crossing, then the full back will just show you inside every time, which nullifies your only strength.

got 10 right, I think that's my best score so far

of course he'll bloody play

maybe agree don't agree with any of this. quick forards are generally ineffective against deep , compact defences because they rely on through balls or passes over the top to run onto. When we're sitting deep (which we rarely do) then a fast striker becomes much more useful as there's plenty of space to play the ball into. Also, Crouch and Kuyt were a good partnership at home last season. However, as you and others say, torres offers a lot more than just pace so you'd think he'd be effective against packed defences too,