The Liverpool Players Miss the Chances and the Manager Is To Blame

There is a new bandwagon rolling through town and alongside the usual rival supporters and biased "expert" pundits who normally steer a speedy direction towards negativity, we now appear to have our own supporters hopping aboard the proverbial wagon.

I don't know how many times I have gone on to a Liverpool discussion board after a game and found countless "supporters" talking complete and utter b******t.

The same tired accusations about the manager are repeated nearly as much as an episode of Friends on E4.

These same accusations have been thrown around after pretty much every draw so far this season. But many of the draws we've had have contained a combination of Gerrard, Torres, Kuyt, and Keane on the pitch.

All these players are proven goal scorers and have the ability to score goals either on a regular basis or at a crucial time when a goal is required.

But when they fail to deliver the goods on the pitch the blame is not placed on their heads; the blame is instead fired at Rafa Benitez.

Take Fernando Torres as an example. Everyone knows he is one of the best strikers in the world, and his goal scoring record last season proved he has the ability to score goals.

But when he has a poor game—and he does have poor games—where he doesn't contribute to the match at all and misses several chances, do the supporters get on his back and accuse him of being poor?

Of course they don't.

Just like when a Liverpool team consisting of Gerrard, Torres, Keane, and Kuyt fail to score a goal or win a match—they are not blamed for the lack of goals.

It is Rafa Benitez who is apparently at fault, despite not being on the pitch at any time during the game to kick a ball.

Many lazy "supporters" can't be bothered to look past media spin and slander headlines and appear happy to just accuse and insult their own manager—certainly not the infamous Liverpool way of supporting your team and its manager during the course of a season.

What they, and many newspapers, fail to highlight is that these players have chance after chance after chance to win the game, and it is the players who are at fault for not scoring goals to win matches.

I don't know how many times I have heard people use the excuse "he is too defensive" or "he sets the team up to draw games." Yet, in all competitions last season, Liverpool scored 119 whilst Manchester United scored 109.

Hardly the behaviour of a defensive manager.

More Than Enough Chances Created

There is no denying Rafa builds his tactics around defense, but his tactics are also designed to create chances—as the stats below prove—but it's down to the players that these tactics don't always produce goals.

To claim he doesn't set his team up to win a match is laughable to say the least.

Going back through the results for this season, it is not difficult to see that the "defensive" Rafa Benitez has actually set his team up to create a great many chances.

But despite what many pundits and some Liverpool "supporters" would have you believe, he doesn't actually tell his players not to score or to win games.

He doesn't say "I want you to get into their area and then I want you to shoot wide."

Here is a list of Liverpool's draws so far this season and some interesting stats that show how many chances the team has had to score the goals needed to turn the draws into wins.

p= Possession, on= Shots On Target, off= Shots Off Target, bs= Blocked Shots, c= Corners, g= Goals

v Aston Villa: 0-0
p:56 on:1 off:7 bs:2 c:8 g:0 - Another game where the hard done by Robbie Keane missed his chance to score a goal.

v Stoke: 0-0
p:74 on:6 off:18 bs:6 c:19 g:0 - Keane, Torres, Gerrard, and Kuyt all played and the team managed not to score, despite a massive 24 shots and a substantial 19 corners.

v Spurs: 1-2
p:56 on:4 off:8 bs:5 c:4 g:1 - Gerrard, Keane, and Kuyt all played, 12 chances and only one goal to the team's credit.

v Fulham: 0-0
p:57 on:6 off:12 bs:3 c:9 g:0 - Keane, Torres, and Kuyt played, and again, an amazing 18 chances at goal without scoring.

v West Ham: 0-0
p:67 on:6 off:15 bs:4 c:17 g:0 - Keane, Gerrard, and Kuyt played with 21 attempts to score a goal with no reward and another massive corner count of 17.

v Hull City: 2-2
p:67 on:5 off:14 bs:8 c:8 g:2 - The game was 2-2 with an hour to play and Gerrard and Kuyt on the pitch, but 19 goal attempts plus eight blocked shots and the team still can't score another goal to get the three points.

v Arsenal: 1-1
p:58 on:5 off:5 bs:3 c:2 g:1 - Gerrard and Keane both played with Arsenal down to 10 men after an hour of play. Ten chances to score another goal to win the game.

v Stoke City: 0-0
p:66 on:2 off:5 bs:4 c:5 g:0 - Gerrard, Kuyt, and Torres for the last 30 minutes and one change from the attackers used in the 5-1 win over Newcastle.

v Everton: 1-1
p:54 on:2 off:5 bs:2 c:4 g:1 - Torres, Keane, Gerrard, and Kuyt all played.

v Wigan: 1-1
p:61 on:3 off:8 bs:1 c:2 g:1 - Gerrard and Torres played two-thirds of the game but the team managed just one goal from 11 chances to score.

v Man City: 1-1
p:61 on:3 off:16 bs:4 c:6 g:1 - Torres and Kuyt both played 90 minutes of this match but the team squandered 19 goal attempts.

v Middlesborough: 0-2
p:72 on:4 off:12 bs:7 c:9 g:0 - Gerrard and Kuyt played with the team missing 16 goal attempts to secure the much needed three points.

So over the course of 10 draws and two losses the Liverpool players have managed to rack up the following statistics:

Shots on target: 45

Shots off target: 125

Blocked Shots: 49

Corners: 93

With an amazing amount of pressure applied by the team and an incredible 170 attempts at goal—not including the 49 blocked shots— you would expect quite a high goal return.

Goals scored: 7

Games without scoring: 6

Now, I am certainly no football expert and I certainly don't pretend that I am, but surely a team that is creating that many goal scoring opportunities over the course of a game must suggest to people that the tactics are not defensive.

Personally, that many chances with such a small amount of goals in return doesn't say to me that it's down to the manager and that his tactics are not creating chances.

I would fully understand the accusations about Benitez if the team had been having just one shot on goal every game and no other form of attack or pressure.

But it is the players missing the chances, not the manager, and it is the tactics of the manager that is creating those chances.

Just like that E4 Friends episode, there will be no doubt that the same repetitive supporters will continue until they have got what they wanted.