Rafa's actions hint at Cisse exit
When Djib was surprisingly substituted six minutes after half time yesterday the look on his face revealed that he was having great trouble understanding Rafa's decision to withdraw him. It seems that Djib receives the least amount of backing from Rafa despite the fact that he is our top scorer. Rafa is always happy to keep Peter Crouch on the field, although his contributions have recently justified Rafa's faith in him, surely if Djib was given more playing time he would do the same. And when Nando was misfiring Rafa gave him every chance necessary to break his drought and establish himself.Djib always finds himself the favourite to be withdrawn when things aren't going well. Surely, as in the situation yesterday, when you need a goal, your top scorer should be kept on the field. Although, in this instance, Rafa's decision was vindicated as we scored less than ten minutes after the change. Also Djib's pace is far more effective towards the end of games when there is more space and teams are chasing the game. There was one incident when it looked like Kewell was through until he was outpaced by Danny Mills. This type of situation would have been tailor made for Cisse.
The comments made by Rafa last week, stating that he expects more from Cisse, the early substitution yesterday, and the repeated lack of support suggest that Rafa will be looking to offload him in the January transfer window. I'm sure these factors also have a negative effect on Cisse's confidence thereby compounding the situation further. In my opinion letting Cisse go would leave us with a large void in our attacking options as he is our only striker with the type of electric pace that can pose any defence problems.
Please post your views.
posted by withwolves @ 1:08 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
What you talkin about man? Cisse did absolutely nothing all game. What we were needing badly was a player between the lines, but at the same time not lose our defensive stability. Kewell did that perfectly yesterday. Cisse is not a player like Owen who can score out of nothing at the end of the game. Cisse has such a poor attitude on the field, if the ball is not perfect he refuses to run after it. There are many strikers I believe who can come in and replace him more than adequately. Granted, he is our top scorer, but I'm sure his void can be adequately filled by another striker.
That's just my opinion of course....
In my opinion Cisse is not good enough for liverpool. He has pace but no dribbling, he has shot power but no acuracy. He misses as much as he scores. Eventhough peter crouch or morientes haven't scored as much as they should have, they create chances. Cisse is not match for Liverpool's way of playing. We should replace cisse with a star right winger this jan.
Cisse simply is not good enough. He is a one dimensioned player with only pace to burn, when you are looking for intelligent play, he can't do it. If pace is all that matters to you in a striker.. try looking at Roberts from Wigan or Harewood from Westham, they have pace, brings the rest of the team into play and has a good finishing. Some can argue that the players i mentioned are not good enough for Liverpool. But IMHO, they had impressed me so far more than Cisse. Crouch is much more important as it is with a target man like him that midfielders get to score.
The most important think for a striker is confidence, and that confidence should be a result of confidence the manager as in his strikers.
Cisse 11 goals tells its own story. Neigther Morientes or Crouch will reach that many goals this season, but eventhough it seems that they are the favourites in Rafa's book. But surely that must change at some point. I mean, normally top topgoalscore would be your first choice in the starting elleven. Instead of a man who refuses to score!
Cisse will bang in around 20 goals this season if he gets enough time on the pitch, and 20 goals a season i brilliant for a striker!
I agree that Cisse has pace and shot power although not always accurate. Another thing is that he always tries to shoot even when the chances are very slim rather than passing to a team mate who has a better chance of scoring. The CL final was a good example where Liverpool was on the counter attack and he was on the ball with Garcia running into space away from the 2 AC defenders (I think that was in the additional time). If he had passed to Garcia I think he would have had a better chance to score. Since we've won in the end, it didn't matter so much. But if we didn't he would have been blamed. I think Rafa wants him to be more of a team player rather than an individual. I guess that's why he always give his support to Crouchy and Mori.
cisse has the pace and power but his laziness is not good for the team and he is always expecting the ball to drop right in front of him instead of trying to find space and working hard. morientes and crouchy might not be scoring but they are working very hard to achieve victory for the team. cisse has always been complaining and his expression on the field does not augurs well for the team. after the latest incident during the match against man city i think we should off load him in january tranfer window provided we can get an able replacement
Cisse is an excellent striker - for a mid-table club. For Liverpool he is just not good enough. Speed seems to be his only strength. He can't place a ball anywhere except straight at the keeper and he whines everytime something goes wrong. His attitude is damaging to the team and his play is downright selfish. I'd rather have Crouch who doesn't score goals but sets up midfielders to win the game than a striker who hogs the ball, scores a goal and causes the team to lose. Cisse scoring and Liverpool winning are quite often two separate issues.
The biggest problem of Cisse is he cannot keep the ball well - the same problem we had with Baros.
Going by the majority of the responses, I believe most of you don't know much about Football. If Cisse was given half as many chances as Crouch, he would have scored another ten. I think Crouch is great and Nando is a legend but how many open goals can they miss before enough is enough. The only way anyone can win the title is to score goals and win games. We are very lucky that our midfielders are chipping in with some goals, thankyou Riise, or else we would be fighting against relegation. If is is not the strikers object to score goals, then he may as well be a defender. Send Crouch to the reserves to score 10 goals in 5 games and come back with the some confidence. Then he may go on scoring. Take away Cisse from our current side and WHO is going to score the goals!!!!!!!
I love it when morons like to say that other people "don't know much about football". Obviously YOU don't know much about football when you think Cisse will score a lot if "given half as many chances as Crouch". Cisse has been given lots of chances, he doesn't take them or doesn't even run intelligently enough to allow people to pass to him. Only in recent games has Crouch's desperation led him to try for goal everytime he can. In general, he is a great team player who sets up teammates, holds up the ball and causes defences to collapse. Even Wayne Rooney admitted that Crouch's presence threw off the Argentinians allowing Owen to steal in with two free headers. I don't see Cisse doing anything close to that for the team, besides blasting shots into the top tier or into the keeper's groin.
Well said (Anonymous 28/11/05 3:06AM). If a striker should go to make way for another I opt for Cisse. I think Baros was better than him. At least he cost Stam (AC Milan) a hell lot of problems during the CL Final. When Cisse came on, it was the other way round ie. he got out-muscled by Stam most of the time. Unfortunately Baros was unsettled. With the way Cisse is playing, I would have preferred that we had Baros. At least he passes more to team mates than Cisse would to say the least. and Cisse's finishing... no accuracy at all! Besides his pace and shot power (not to mention his shot accuracy), he's not good with headers unlike Mori, he can't hold up play like Crouchy and he can't dribble like Pongolle.
I agree with most of everyone's comments on Djib ... he, in my opinion, looked 'lazy' in the last match against Man city (for those who felt he shouldn't be withdrawn should watch this match again and take a good look) ... at present, he doesn't look like a natural goal-scorer or a good-enough team player for the current liverpool side ... however, I will keep him until the end of the season because i believe he has the potential to certainly be much better than he is now - his pace and ability to create chances for himself to score is really good ... if he can use all those to score much more than he misses (as he does now) or put others in a position to do so, he'll really be excellent ... and I think benitez has the ability to help djib reach that potential. Of course if djib's attitude continues to stink and plays more for himself than the team, then he's gotta go (but again, only at the end of the season). Finally, I also think we shouldn't sell djib in the mid-season and get another big-name no-premiership experience striker then to replace him because many such strikers struggle when they first arrive (e.g. Crespo) and will be worse-off than djib in the closing months of the season which is a big no-no (by the way, I don't think any premiership side will let Liverpool buy the prolific kind of striker that it needs, esp in mid-season). Let this season be a season where Liverpool improves greatly in the league and get at least the 3rd position so that we can build on this, get a striker who can potentially score 20+ goals in the league in the off-season (if the current liverpool ones don't improve) and really give a good fight to become champions of the league in the next.
cisse's reaction to the substitution was typical of him. the 'what have i done wrong?' look. if i was to read into it i would say benitez at half time probably said to him stick out wide. (thats where kewell went straight to) allowing gerrard to go back in the middle. cisse stayed up front, benitez said enough is enough, and took him off. I have heard a few stories (true or not) of benitez getting riled with djib in training cause he just doesnt listen to instructions. One incident apparently lead to benitez lashing his clip board down and walking off. (allegedly)
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