[Nuje]

Well, clearly something is wrong. There are 2 different sets of people to blame.

1. The ownership: They're not giving Rafa enough money, or

2. Management. Be it Rafa, Sammy Lee, anyone else on the staff. You can blame Rafa for bringing in wrong players, or employing a very wrong style.

I think that for the money provided, Rafa has made good player decisions. Not enough of a sample size to say how good Maxi will be, but Kyrgiakos certainly had a very good game today. What bothers me is some of the tactics.

There is a very small list of teams who are as bad at set pieces (both delivering, and defending against), than Liverpool are. The ball ends up on a non-Liverpool head most of the time in any situation, and that's something that needs to be taken care of. Another seriously annoying thing was the tendency to play in the air today. It wasn't working, but the team somehow was allergic to keeping the ball on the ground. While that was bad enough, the worst part was, the play changed after Kyrgiakos scored, and Liverpool were attempting to hold on to that narrow lead. When they pressured Stoke, it was going well. Liverpool however, are not good at "parking the bus" either. Might as well go for that second goal really.

As far as the tactics, is it Rafa? Is it the players? I'm not sure that it could be the players, as you'd assume that Rafa would tell them to stop that crap, but if it's Rafa, why is he continuing to try something that clearly isn't working?