Liverpool FC the 2008-2009 Season So Far by King Luis

This season has perhaps been the strangest season I have known as a red, a year when the team has met and perhaps exceeded the start of season expectations, yet the fans still feel cheated and lament the missed opportunities.

 

Liverpool are clearly in a better position now than they have ever been at this stage in any other season under the stewardship of Benitez, the figures below show the gap from the top at this stage of the season, for the last 5 years.

 

2008/ 9 2nd on 51 points 2 points behind the leaders
2007/8 5th on 43 points, 17 behind the leaders
2006/7 3rd on 46 points 11 behind the leaders
2005/6 3rd on 45 points 18 behind the leaders
2004/5 5th on 40 points 21 points behind the leaders

 

We have more points than ever before after 24 games, and are closer to the top than in any other seasons, so why do people still feel the need to credit this to luck or poor performances by the opposition?

 

The team is therefore in its best position to challenge for the title than it has been since we last won it, Rafa is closer than he ever has been to achieving his goal, yet people still suggest he should be let go this summer. To try and find reason behind this I will look into a number of areas of Rafa’s managerial style.

 

Team Selection

 

When Liverpool’s results are not as expected, generally the first area to be criticised is team selection. If you were to state Liverpool’s strongest line up as the one which started against Chelsea at the weekend, then in total those 11 players could have made a maximum of 264 starts. Those 11 players have in fact played 191 times, or 72.3% of our games this season.

 

This figure is lowered substantially by the fact that Torres, Auriello and Srktel have all suffered from long term injuries, whilst Arbeloa and Mascherano have been out for short bursts with knocks.

 

If you look at united, and argue that their strongest team at present is Van Der Sar, Rafael (?) Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Park, Fletcher, Carrick, Ronaldo, Rooney and Berbatov, then out of the total of 253 appearances that group could make, they have started 183 games, or amazingly 72.3% of their games this season.

 

This is slightly lowered by Carrick’s injury (although he has still made 14 starts) and the lack of a real right back.

 

This therefore seems to refute the suggestion that Rafa rotates more, especially when you consider that Rafa’s chances to select his best 11 have been restricted by injury concerns to more of his key players than Fergusson. People also seem to suggest that the likes of Agger/Alonso are dropped to almost damage our title chances, the fact that Benitez’s figure remains equal to Fergie’s despite having more injury concerns seems to suggest that Benitez does not rest his key players any more than his nearest rival, as if he did surely our figure would be substantially lower.

 

What it maybe does highlight is the lack of quality beyond our first team. Personally I think we have a strong squad, with a high quality first team, but maybe only 1-2 players of any real quality beyond that, the others are players that will do a job. When you consider United’s bench could include Nani/Anderson/Tevez/Giggs/Scholes, it does show where we have a weakness, and shows that whilst Rafa has spent a good deal of money whilst at the club, it was required of him to spread this over more players, reducing the quality of some of those which he brought in.

 

Tactics

 

This really is an area which could be debated on for hours, as it is very hard to use statistics to prove your point. The closest you can come to finding such a statistic, is that if the Premier League had run in the calendar year of 2008, then Liverpool would have won it, the mere fact we switched to the 4-2-3-1 in February 2008, after yet another dismal January shows the consistency in results the formation has brought.
However, one area where most reds agree is that in tight games switching from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-2 as we did against Chelsea would increase our chances of winning, by giving their defenders more to think about. This isn’t always helped by our chronic lack of pace throughout the team, and the fact that most teams visiting Anfield are set up to counter, therefore exploiting this weakness.

 

I think most fans however do believe that a more positive approach would be the best way of breaking teams down, against Wigan earlier in the season he replaced a fullback with El Zhar, and basically gave himself 2 wingers, on each side, whilst maintaining the 2 centre backs and 2 holding midfielders, maybe something like this in short bursts (last 20 mins of tight games) could give us the extra numbers and momentum we need.
The way the team went at Chelsea in the last 20 minutes of the game was superb, if it had been replicated in other home games this season, then we might not have drawn quite so many games.

 

Personality

 

This is another area that winds up certain sections of the fan base. Take the recent squabbles with the owners over transfer control, fans and sections of the media often say “ leave it to the summer” but this misses the fundamental point, that the clubs transfer business is done in the summer. Whether you wanted Barry or not, it was the politics being played out so openly last summer which prevented the purchase from being made. He can’t afford to wait until the summer to deal with the issue, it needs to be sorted before the transfer window reopens, and therefore in my opinion was fully justified in demanding what he did.

 

With regards Ferguson and his “rant” the sections of the fans who are now criticising Rafa for it would be the ones, who if he had said nothing, would criticise him for not trying to play Fergie if we were to lose the title at the end of the season.
As for Keane, I think this is well trodden ground.
So what for the title race?

 

The bad news is that in four of the last five seasons the team top of the league in the first week of February, have gone on to win the title. However...

 

In 2004/5 in February we were 21 behind, and finished 37 behind.
In 2005/6 in February we were 18 behind, finishing 9 behind
In 2006/7in February we were 11 behind, finishing 21 behind
In 2007/8 we were 17 behind in February, finishing 11 behind.

 

Therefore in the two years we have made ground on the eventual champions, we have reduced the gap by 7.5 points on average.

 

In the two seasons we fell further behind the eventual winners we lost on average 13 points.

 

Also, take into account the two seasons were we lost ground were the two seasons we went to the European Cup Final, and therefore rested players for most of the last 6 fixtures of the season, which had its effect on our point’s total. Therefore there is some evidence that we may well close that gap to United.

 

So where will the title be won and lost? Obviously both teams will need to aim for maximum points out of the lower teams in the league. The next obviously important game is the one between United and Liverpool in a little over a month’s time, if Liverpool lose that game, and then our chances will take a severe, if not final blow. If we win it then we will again close right in on United. But on top of this there are some tricky dates for both teams, against City, Villa, Tottenham, Arsenal and you can even throw West Ham and Fulham into that who will not be easy to beat. The team that gets the most points from that run of fixtures, in my opinion will win the league.

 

Conclusion

 

The aim of this piece was to look into the reasons why some of the confidence in Benitez has diminished in the season when he has brought us closer to our overall goal than he ever has before. I didn’t set out to right a pro-Benitez piece, but by looking through the main aspects of the fans frustration if find it very hard to do anything but support him.

 

I won’t go back over what has already been said, it has been a long enough article as it is, so now may be the time to voice some frustrations I do have with Benitez. I do think the fact he focussed the rant about Fergie, his rejection of the contract, and the Keane situation into less than a month concentrated way too much attention on us, at a time when perhaps a spell out of the limelight as we struggled for form would have been what the doctor ordered.

 

I also get frustrated in the way he makes substitutions, making them one by one disrupts the team more than making multiple substitutions, and often leads us to have a 15 minute spell where the players are waiting for the final change to be made before they push on with the last assault. I also think his substitutions are often late, and the odd change at half time when the team clearly isn’t working would not go a miss.
These tactical nuisances are part of his cautious make up, but I will not lambast him for that, as his cautious approach will also gain us points as well as lose them for us over the course of the season.

 

I think the loss of faith in Benitez has been self-induced, not just because of the odd mistakes he makes as a manager, but because of the progress he has brought to the club. Whilst there may be an element of the support that are frustrated that the same old problems that have plagued Benitez since his first season and still haven’t been rectified are losing us points when we need them most, personally I see this season as another step in the progression of the club under Benitez.

 

Not many club will go from 4th to 1st in once season, not many clubs will win the league in their first serious title challenge for 10-15 years either, if we win the league this year it should be considered a bonus and something achieved ahead of schedule. We have dealt with the issue of not beating those around us, and next seasons target will be to reduce the number of draws. I personally felt Keane would add the goals and creative spark we required, but it didn’t work out and therefore except for Riera, I believe our squad as stagnated somewhat this season, we need to add quality this summer, game changing quality and hopefully this will aid us in our bid to win the title.

 

The best time to change a manager is when they reach their peak and the indication is that they are heading backwards, personally I do not believe we are at that stage with Benitez, even if we don’t win the league this year; unless we dramatically fall away from the top I firmly believe he deserves at least another season.