Liverpool - Inter (19 Feb 08)

I don't agree with you Azz, about the midfielders. JZ and Cuchu? They are world class and everybody knows it. But not everybody knows, that you need someone in front of them who can take the ball, pose some threat.

It seams that Mancini always gets scared like a little girl and go for the save bet, and as usuall it bites us in the ass.

This 4-4-2 was actually 10-0-2 if you take a good glimpse. Just take a look at this:

Maicon - Matrix - Cordoba - Chivu ?

And In front you have,

J. Zanetti, Stankovic, Cambiasso, Maxwell.

That's like the best defense in the world, and it was. For the first 30 minutes Liverpool created sh1t. For the first half they make nothing, we were almost perfect when it comes to defense. But it's not suprise if you take a look up again. Liverpool deserved one goal at most, but we didn't even deserved 1 shot on goal with that play that we showed today.

And I go countless times on and on, how we should never play 4-4-2 unless we get some top class wingers, with a hope that maybe Mancio will hear this moaning, but this nightmare never ends.

Get some attention to this too, this is funny. The reason why Vieira lost so many balls, and why he was indeed not so good, was because he knows that you can't just shove the ball over 50 yards over and over again, because you can't do anything with a game like that. So he tried (hehe, a defensive midfielder) to dribble, to pass on the ground but how can he pass when there is noone he can play with, only Zlatan in front of him.

As for Zlatan, what do you expect. I mean this is such a top player I just was sad to see him loosing his potential on this crappy game. You all know what he can do with the ball, but what he can do if you have 3, 4 reds players around you, and even if he somehow got the ball, he couldn't pass it on, because there was nobody who he could pass to. He was so briliant in the beggining of the season remember?

2 goals, 1 assis, 2 goals, 1 assist.

Remember those times? And now take a look at those games, and compare it to the game today, to the parma game, to the Catania game and so on, and so on. He can't do all this by himself. The whole team is broken, because we can't exchange 5 passes without loosing the ball. I mean, that is the first sign something is wrong.

I have so many thought after that game that I don't even know when to start the next paragraph.

When I will be on CN on 11'th I will be screeming my ass off, to show those reds fans how loud you should sing on your teams game, and maybe with some divine help we'll proceed, but even if we do, I don't see us getting through the next round.

Interista nr.1 said:

oh and what the hell shoul Ibrahimovic do, takeon 4 players few times and score few goals??

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Yeah, that's what people expect from him. He couldn't of done anything different today. I doubt any striker in World football of his size would of done better. Infact I'm sure they would of been even worse. Even so he should of been taken off for Suazo who is a player that can dribble past players with his speed and earn freekicks in the same way. I can't understand why Mancini didn't give Suazo atleast a couple of minutes.

Lukair said:

I hope everybody put this defeat aside and watched the highlights of other games too see how other away teams played.

Let me make it clear. Mancini is a good coach, you have to be a good coach to win the Serie A, even with a strong team as ours. But he can't set up team for the games outside of Italy, he gets lost. We have to make a choice. Are we keep winning the italian league as we are doing now, but without showing our pottential in europe, or we are taking a new aproach and try to change some things. Personaly I think Spaletti would make with this team wonders. They have so much weaker side than ours, not mentioning the whole squadra of 22-25 players, and still they are making the best they can.

I won't throw anything just right now, we'll se how the return leg will go. I think we still have a good chance of proceeding. We will play in front of our fans, and that is an advantage, that we didn't have last 2 years. We play a lot better on home ground even against other european teams. We were unlucky against Valencia, and we could win against Villareal at home, and I expect us to play a lot better at home to the reds, and of course Liverpool will be deffending(why shouldn't they now), although I am sure they will try to put up some fight.

But even if we will get through some way, I am yet to be proven wrong. Mancini when it comes to the away cup games is still in the mid 60's. It seems that the key is not to loose away. Take a look how Madrid aproached the game against Roma.

Our style of play got lost lately, I was saying it countless times here. We lost our dominant play somehow, and IMO it's not because of some individual thing, it's on a global scale. When you are being pushed back at home against a side like Parma it has to be something wrong.

I was worry about this game seeing us playing lately, and it turned out that my worries were not delusional.


Yes. Still, my anger over this game took over me. Sorry again.

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Its ok man,funny enough though i am not as sad as i am hopefuly for the next leg.

i dont usually post in threads outside ndu no more, but id just like to point out some of you are absolute dicks.

Yes, despite our best defensive showing of the year we probably played our worst game in 2-3 years. And yes you have every right to be pissed off, thats what makes us fans.

but to the idiots who want mancini sacked and say this team is shit, need to have a glass of harden the **** up.

Our team needs an overhaul? please. One game does not make up for years of being the best in italy. We would not have beat european and world champions milan so many times if we werent.

tactics was not at fault today, i wouldnt blame mancini. our team were overwhelmed and just made it harder on themselves. whenever we had the ball we would jsut bomb it foward back to them. we did not even try once to hold some proper posession, passing backwards etc..thats what makes us deadly.


and i just want to clear up somethings.

• a new AM will not of changed an absolute thing. Could of had platini or pele there and they would of done nothing, cause we wouldnt of even got them the ball.
• how the **** can anyone put any blame on ibra, we didnt even give him one chance to do anything.
• matrix was ****ing careless
• 2-0. it isnt over yet.

Not only in this game, just look at the Valencia games, Ibra goes completely awol. I remember Adriano's time with us, the game against Ajax and Villareal, atleast when our midfield was creating shit, he would drop back and try to help out the midfield.

The way we played today, our problem runs much deeper than just the lack of a quality AM. FFS the whole team couldn't string 3 passes in the whole game.

The only way I see us winning the return leg is, if we beg Milan to loan us Nesta, Pirlo, Gattuso and Kaka for a week. I would personally give both Galliani and Platini a BJ if they allow us to do that.

We are so bad in Europe, its beyond ridiculous. We serioulsy have to stop entering this competition.

Nice post Hal.

Benitez hails the perfect refree, saying both of Matrix's yellow were justified.

Seriously, would he mind sharing the cocaine with me? I could really use some. Weed and Shrooms just aint doing anything for me right now.

The problem h2o is that it's not the first time. And that's the problem. I wasn't saying anything after Villareal, I was angry, but I wasn't calling for Mancinis head. After Valencia it was a little worse, but I was still yet to throw some clear acusations. But it happened for the third time come on.

I don't mind loosing, that's not it. Loosing is a part of game, everybody knows it.

But how you loose, is a big part of judging the team. If you play to win, if you try to score, even if you open yourself up, and the opposing team has more chances to win, that's ok, because you can't have one and two at the same time. You can't defend with the whole team, and attack with the way a team like Inter should.

I say it again it's not the score that make me, personaly so angry, it's the way we played. Today, last year, and the year before that.

This was a perfect game for Suazo. At some point in the second half i counted 8 liverpool players in the Inter box or just outside. One long ball to David and you had the goal that we needed. All through the match there was no offensive midfield (or even defensive). Inter has a tough game coming in the second leg. Lets hope the team rises to the ocassion in the second game at home. If not, good bye CL (once again).:boxing:

where was I justifying the way we played was ok? I wasnt. we played like shit, you saw what i said...the worst game we've had in the past 2-3 years.

Like shazmeister said, we couldnt string 2-3 passes for the entire game.

What i dont agree with are people questionning mancini or the talent of our team. You dont go on 2-3 years dominating everywhere, to lose on aggregate a couple of times and be shit.

We choked today. simple. its not over yet tho

h2o said:

What i dont agree with are people questionning mancini or the talent of our team. You dont go on 2-3 years dominating everywhere, to lose on aggregate a couple of times and be shit.

We choked today. simple. its not over yet tho

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I agree with the last part totaly. It's deffinetly not over although, the bets are not good at the moment. We were also too nervous(as always).

And I'm last to say we lack talent, either. So far I agree.

But... this "dominating everywhere" thing? If you mean Italy by "everything", than I agree. But we all know Italy is not everywhere.

I don't mind loosing, I really don't. All I want to see is for us to show the pottential we have. Some people are saying we are not good enough to go and not defend like that at Anfield. And I ask myself what would be the difference between us and say Rimini from italian lower division.

In tearms of goals probably a big difference. In tearms of style of play, probably none.

We are not some C class team, we are the italian champions, and "maybe" we should behave like one, and that what I and I hope everybody was expecting. Didn't we say, "it's about time to show what class we are" ?

Even with the biased papers in england, all said, that we are incredible dangarous. That we didn't loose in the league yet, that we are winning game after game, that we score many goals, and at the same time we conceed not many goals. I felt ashamed I was seeing us playing like that, kicking the long balls, not possing any threat at all.

It seemed to me, I was watching different team. Was I ?

Seeing us playing like a scared girl that got lost in a woods made me feel really resigned. It's the same story over and over again.

Stop blaming referees all the time. Our team is full of idiots like Burdisso, Vieira and Materazzi who have little intelligence and foul without thinking of the consequences. There is no accountability in this team, next time a player gets a stupid red card (s)he should be benched.

And anybody would send Materazzi off for the second foul. Cynical shirt-tugs like that are punishible everywhere, doesn't matter if you got a silly yellow card 10 seconds before, but like I said, there is no accountability.

Prediction: We will be leading 2-0 in the second leg, but Chivu will slip in the middle and fall, Gerrad will win the ball and pass it to Crouch who scores in the 90th minute. There will be a big fight between our players and their players because Gerrad fouled Chivu according to us.

Our focus will be shifted to who will be suspended and who won't. Members here will whine and have avatars of death to Gerrad and Schit Cochmeister (the German referee) and say there is always next year and that CL is weak competition. Then summer comes and we will get players like Aquiliani (in August 31st) and M Diarra and we think that a midfield of JZ -- Stan -- Cambiasso -- Jimenez will be enough. True, this will be enough to win the goodwill cup and might even score you some point with the man upstairs, but not in Europe.

moneymike said:

Benitez probably said Cruz was a dangerous player so that we would start him and he can have the last laugh...seriously Cruz? That is what we wanna win this competition with?

C'mon..

The guy's the best reserve striker in the world. Reserve striker.

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i gotta agree with this.

i mean form is all great in all....but cmon guys.....is this 33 year old going to win us the champions league?

hell no

he is not the reason we lost but he is one of the reasons why we cant ever win these things

figo and suazo have to play the next game or we are gone

Well to be fair to Cruz, he is great when we are creating stuff, and giving feeding him balls inside the box, but in games, where we are defending with 10 men, afraid to get forward, or the other team is not letting us go forward, he is completely useless.

I am not blaming Matrix's red card for our defeat, the way we played, we would have probably lost 2-0 even with out the red card, but any sane person could see that, that those were extremely harsh yellow's. Both just fouls at best. In the second one, Torres dived, Matrix tugged his shirt a little bit, and then let it go, then Torres decides to dive 3 seconds later.

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Enzo said:

i gotta agree with this.

i mean form is all great in all....but cmon guys.....is this 33 year old going to win us the champions league?

hell no

he is not the reason we lost but he is one of the reasons why we cant ever win these things

figo and suazo have to play the next game or we are gone

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well said, I always view Cruz as a great player to have as a reserve. I never view Cruz as world class or someone who can make an impact. Against Liverpool, he was disastrous!!

As a ballsy armchair manager I would have inserted Suazo nearly immediately after Matrix's send off or at the very least at the half time. there were several breaks were you just would have wished it was Suazo dribbling the ball and not Cruz or Viera.

The more I think of that the more dissapointed it makes me.

Inter just froze at the night once again.
Mancini is just a good coach but he never shows an instinct of a great one.
The situation demanded that he said to his boys that you have to play your game.The defense had a great organisation about it but what the **** was Mid Field doing.We just gave too much respect to a pathetic Liverpool side.
Oh Yes they are just an ordinary side but the result is justified because thats what happens when everybody is just defending people like Finnan,Crouch looked like Figo and Ronaldo.
And what Mancini does is to bring Viera when he had likes of Figo around at least Figo would have helped keeping the ball within ourselves.And Deki sucked the whole night atleast Figo could have come for Deki.
The refree did a great job of not spotting Viera's handball it would have been embarasing.
Yes it was two absolute shocker of decisions to send Matrix off.But you have a world class MidField that is 10 times better than Liverpools and what you do is everbody queing up in the penalty area to defend.

Suazo could have been 10 times better than Cruz.Cruz would work only if the Midfield works.
What dissapoints me that Inter looked really comfortable when they had the ball with them still they chose to defend, defend and defend.
And regarding Ibra.Common guys hes a great player but hes not Maradona or Zidane.WTF can he do when the Midfield was non existant.

I am having still hopes at Meazza atleast the softies would play their game because they would feel at home and this Liverpool side has been made to look like World Champions just because our lack of Self belief.
It should go till extra time there that too i am highly optimistic.