united should beat inter at home . inter need to score and united need to win , and win they will at old trafford

man united bench quality should overcome whatever fatigues there are . if both liverpool and united are even on points maybe there's better chance but 7 points is very difficult . knowing SAF and how much he wants to even out with liverpool on overall league titles , he may sacrifice even the champions league for BPL

anyway the beautiful thing about football is unpredictability

All other top EPL club's managers has the power Rafa seeks, so why on earth should he be denied the same rights and controls as a manager ? He is not asking to own LFC but merely given control that grants the ability to sell and buy his players, and authority in other football aspects of the club.

You reckon in his 5 years reign, Rafa hasnt brought any progress to the team ? I know its been done to death, but you need to remember that he had to re-build the entire team from the ground up; replacing aging and not worthy players whists adding competitive depth to the team. He did this under constrained financial backing. Then you take in consideration that he had to worked in a hostile working environment. Ironically, its because of his stubborn nature that he was able to endured this long. Its a monumental task that i guarantee most managers would have failed spectacularly.

Im not a Rafa fan because of his personality or some unknown fetish, its because im grateful that he has healed and brought progress to this club. Its still in work in progress and i still believe he will bring further improvements to the team. Any fans who witnessed the declining of the club the past 2 decades and remember the Houllier era will understand how much Rafa has done to this club. He has once more made us a European elite and by so has brought us substantial financial income. People quickly and conveniently dismiss the CL achievements but forget that its due to this consistency that we have now been bestowed the pulling power to attract the players and youth talents that we have now. We have beaten every European elites (bar the mancs) in CL under his tenure. If beating the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ac Milan, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Juventus and Arsenal in the CL not deem as a great feat then im not sure what is.

If yesterday's team winning at the Berneubeu cant be labeled as a great team then im not sure what else you would be expecting. I watched the match again this afternoon and it wasn't an overly defensive display as most medias put it. Even if we were, is that necesserily a bad thing ? Truth is, we controlled Real from the start to the very end and we did it seemingly without a great struggle. It was like watching a matador masterfully containing and subduing a raging bull. We were very balanced tactically and superbly organized. Ironically, it was the kind of display that saw Souness's team won against Real back in '81. We contained them in the first half, then came at them during the 2nd half. We defended and attacked in numbers. We didnt just rely on Torres on teh break, but had Yossi and Riera running at them. Yes we didnt risk it all and gone all gunho, but as it turned out we didnt have to. It was a perfectly executed game plan. Sometimes a defensive game can be as beautifully executed and pleasing to the eye as free flowing attacking football.

One more I noticed lately. Arsenal are behaving more like us seasons ago where pretty unsuccessful in domestic league but triumph in cup and Europe. Wenger learns from from master Rafa eh?

And one more thing. We can win if our no.21 is not in starting lineup.. Gonna check some statistic now..

---

Added on February 26, 2009, 10:41 pmWin less with Lucas starting:

Aston Villa 0 - 0 Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur 4 - 2 Liverpool
Liverpool 0 - 0 Fulham
Arsenal 1 - 1 Liverpool
Stoke City 0 - 0 Liverpool
Wigan Athletic 1 - 1 Liverpool
Liverpool 1 - 1 Manchester City

Total: 7 matches

Win less without Lucas starting:

Standard Liege 0 - 0 Liverpool
Liverpool 0 - 0 Stoke
Atlético Madrid 1 - 1 Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur 2 - 1 Liverpool
Liverpool 1 - 1 Atlético Madrid
Liverpool 0 - 0 West Ham United
Liverpool 2 - 2 Hull City
Liverpool 1 - 1 Everton BPL
Liverpool 1 - 1 Everton FA

Total: 9 matches

But bear in mind, Lucas was involved most of matches above as sub for either Masch or Alonso around 75++ minutes. So Lucas still on the pitch at the end..

I'm not trying to prove anything here. Just rough stat about Lucas involvement in our 'win less' matches. Peace. 

Gerrard + Torres was good attacking player..if no torres, then who will be his partner?

I guess we have to live with that. Even without them, we were quite successful on the pitch. It's nice (I mean, great) to have them but have faith to other team members (except Lucas and Babel maybe?).. Maybe it's time to bring out Ngog more.

the kang-kang tackles may cost us but he looks sexy...

Liverpool midfielder Javier Mascherano has led the calls for boss Rafael Benitez to stay at the club.

GettyImages

Rafa Benitez: Contract talks ongoing.

The Champions League victory at Real Madrid was overshadowed by constant speculation that Benitez would quit as his contract talks floundered.

After the 1-0 win Benitez made it clear he was staying and had no intention of resigning, with further talks on his contract due with American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks scheduled for the next couple of days.

But this did little to allay the concerns of Benitez's players, 15 of the 18-man squad on show in the Bernabeu having been signed by the Spaniard.

Mascherano said: ''The manager brought me to Anfield, he has done a very good job here. We can get to the quarter-finals again and he has shown that against the top sides like in Barcelona, at Inter Milan last season and now at Real Madrid he is a very good coach for us.

''We are always a team who works very hard and every Liverpool supporter have to be very happy with this. Every players gives everything for the club.

''He is important for me. When I came to Liverpool I did not have any confidence after being at West Ham.

''The manager gave me that confidence. The only thing I can say to Rafa is thank you, he helped me during a bad moment in my career and now I try to do everything for my team and for him.

''I cannot say what is going to happen, but with him Liverpool is doing a great job. If we want to keep going in the Champions League and Premier League it is important to have him with us.''

Spain international Alvaro Arbeloa agreed adding: ''As for the manager and all the talk about him, I do not really know what the problem is but people must know how important he is for us.

''I hope he will continue with us for many years, but in these things you never know.''

Albert Riera added: ''As for the situation regarding the manager, we are aware of the dispute over his contract. But it is not something we were talking about in the dressing room, the match took up all our thoughts.

''Of course we want Rafa to stay. I wanted to play for Liverpool and he was a very important person in achieving that for me.

''Not only for me but for the other players too, we all want Rafa to be with us. If you asked everyone, 100% they would say they want Rafa to stay with us.''

Mascherano also revealed the players' delight at their victory in Madrid, adding: ''It was a great victory for us, in particular because we did not have Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres was injured very early in the match.

''We would always want to have them with us on the pitch, but it is good that we can show we can win games like in Madrid without key players.

''So we are happy with the way the first leg went. But the job is not done, we have to make sure we do the same job at Anfield to take us into the quarter-finals.''

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...england&cc=4716

well, with all these news, i believe something happend behind the screen and rafa might be on 50-50% to leave or not to leave..
damm! i just dont hope to see him leaving at this time!
fcuk parry n the 2 mickey mouse