Loblaw

There's still time of course, and we're not out of it. But i just get that sense of Deja Vu watching us so far this season. Why can't we ever start the season like we finish it? We finish strongly every year, playing fantastic stuff and nearly always start the season poorly? And i think Rafa himself is a big part of that. I just don't think he sends the team out there to really go at teams from the first to last minute. Gerrard said it himself, we played our best stuff last season when we just went for games because United were going to run away with it. It should be like that all the time. I just hope it's not another case of, too little too late.

Yer wha!?! It happened last season too mate. Lets not imagine otherwise.

I don't see how it is tbh. He was okay in the first, never anything more, and then when we needed him to be that mid-fielder dictating things in front of the Villa box, we was absolutely nowhere to be found. It's a regular feature of his play really, sadly.

*sigh* Look, Xabi was a brilliant player, but lets not pretend performances like tonight never happened with him in the side. Tonight was an all too familiar sight.

He doesn't though. Unless he's being asked to be nowhere on the pitch, when it matters. He's hardly being asked to do that now surely?? He's supposed to be a clever player, someone who's going to help knit the play from mid-field to attack. He was a complete passenger tonight, and you can't be having them in the middle of the park.

I don't know mate. I've got some time for Lucas, but why is Masch, a defensive mid-feilder able to stamp more of an authority on the game than Lucas? He doesn't go looking for the ball, and even when he's in a position to recieve it, he doesn't demand it. Where was he tongiht like? We had load of possession in front of their box, yet it was always Masch on the ball, Lucas is supposed to be the more cultured attacking threat. He was nowhere to be found. Masch played his part for me, he's there to break up the play and then give the ball simply to the players who are better on the ball.

Although Lucas was the invisible man tonight. I can never bring myself to slate an individual in a f***ing dire team performance. We simply lack the mentality for a title win. Which makes you wonder just how much faith these lads have in the manager, or indeed what kind of mentality Rafa is instilling in them, when performances like tonight, at Anfield, have been far too regular an occurrence. How can we gout there, play great for a few minutes, 10-15, then completely hand the initiative to Villa, without making them work for it? We bent over, as we done last season. But of course the performances will pick up, as a last resort only though.

Ah f*** that.

I'm well behind. But COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

Jesus, that just caps off a fine display form the ref. No surprise to see Lucas go. Complete passenger tonight.

Lots of pressure just don't get "that" feeling we're going to score here.

Is Shorey down syndrome?

Real headless Chicken stuff now.

That's just it though. Why ease off after that bright start? It's not like Villa played themselves back into it. It's a lack of courage. It's easy to look brave when your coming form behind. But showing it form the first to last minute, that's proper stuff and what title winning sides do.

Absolute crap from us. Carbon copy of what we were doing last season in these games at Anfield, we only come to play for the first 10-15 minutes, if we don't score, we start to get the shakes. The best sides don't do that. What'll piss me off now is Rafa will go and blame the ref, who has been absolutly dire but not the only reason for this collapse.

Bit gutting to see Snejder going to Inter for €15m if we're thinking of spending €10m on VDV. Though Tony B didn't actually write the piece about VDV, and seems to think we wouldn't be interested even if we had the money.

I've no problem with people not rating him as a player, but this 'no heart', 'doesn't work hard', is just complete and utter b******s. Try him on the right maybe, he's so one footed i'm not sure what the idea is playing him on the left tbh. And yes, he does seem to have gone backwards. That's a question for the coaching staff as well as the player.

Still doesn't.

Deja vu really. Played like we did for much of last season, with Xabi in the side FWIW, except the last minute get out of jail card didn't come out. It's one game and all that. But just watching us, there was nothing there to suggest we are going to approach these games any differently than we did last year, or the four previous. It was the same turgid, rigid, non football we see all too often as Liverpool fans. Of course it all changed when we had to take the game to Spurs, we looked like maybe creating something then. As we did when it started to look like United would run away with the League last season. We react to situations rather than having the courage to play our football form the first minute to the last. Ah, Rafa and his shackles.

I don't quite follow? When has Yossi ever played up front for us?

Not necessarily. And it comes down to that thing called movement again. Look at Barca for instance, or Chelsea under Mourinho. Both teams played with one striker but rarely were they left isolated, for obvious reasons.

But i'd argue that change needs to happen regardless of it being Lucas or Aquilani in there. Nor do i think it's a slight on Lucas to suggest as much. Think a lot of this comes down on Rafa being too caught up in the tactics. We should have our own style of play by now, where players coming in and out of the side shouldn't be that big of a deal. Okay, we were always going to miss Xabi, but just how much we struggle to get our passing game going without him, without going behind in games, is very worrying.

It goes a bit deeper than Lucas not being as good as Xabi thought surely? They are different players, trying to play in a totally different way, but the team mentality is stuck in one where we absolutely need a Xabi type of player. Throw Aquilani in today, what difference would we have seen? Aquilani, like Lucas, is going to need a team around him, that actually move around the pitch ;looking for space. Our problem is still we have too many statues out there sticking to a rigid way of playing football, until we go behind that is.

This Gerrard in mid-field lark. What is stopping him from dropping deep and getting more involved in the play? Is that not what is so great about that position? Free role and all that? Ah, just think people make far too much of it, especially when Lucas was as good as anyone for us today. No, my concern, again, is this notion Rafa has, that we mustn't take risks until we go behind, or late on in the game. You can clearly see this in our first half performance when the scores are level. There was absolutely no attempt to have a go at Spurs, none whatsover. Yet we go behind and all of a sudden, we're getting inot Spurs area, the full-bacs start bombing on. Well if we start gaes like that, risk a few losses ot turn all those draws inot wins then maybe we have a chance this season. If we don't, then well, we'll be playing ctach-up all season i suspect.

Lucas Johnson Reina