{"id":759,"date":"2009-10-21T17:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T16:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/21\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/"},"modified":"2017-02-09T12:34:36","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T12:34:36","slug":"tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/","title":{"rendered":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &#038; HIS REDS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phew! Who would want to be in Rafa&#8217;s shoes right now.<br \/>\nFour straight defeats in all competitions, the first time since 1987, an injury list as long as your arm and a tough game against Man Utd this weekend.<br \/>\nNot the ideal scenario, in fact, things couldn&#8217;t be any worse at Liverpool right now.<br \/>\nTorres, Gerrard, Johnson, Riera and Kelly are all injured leaving us in a position where Rafa will struggle to get a fit team out on Sunday to face our arch rivals.<br \/>\nWe are already seven points behind the League-leaders and a defeat would leave us ten points adrift and surely out of the Title race already, so early in the season.<br \/>\nWe would then be in a struggle to even finish fourth in the Premiership with Spurs, Arsenal, Man City, Aston Villa and even Sunderland in the race at the top of the table.<br \/>\nThe loss of our play maker, Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid has been a huge blow as I have said here many times and we look inept without him there to pull the strings in midfield.<br \/>\nHis replacement, Alberto Aquilani is finally getting a run-out for the reserves tonight and I will be watching that game with great interest as is vital we get a player with quality back in the midfield, Lucas just hasn&#8217;t got what it takes.<br \/>\nThe biggest problem all season has been the defence, of all things, Jamie has had a poor campaign, to date, but I do back him to come good again soon.<br \/>\nSo its time to stand behind the team and Rafa and to hope and pray that things get better, which I am pretty sure they will.<br \/>\nScroll down to vote in the poll, thanks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phew! Who would want to be in Rafa&#8217;s shoes right now. Four straight defeats in all competitions, the first time since 1987, an injury list as long as your arm and a tough game against Man Utd this weekend. Not the ideal scenario, in fact, things couldn&#8217;t be any worse at Liverpool right now. Torres, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &amp; HIS REDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &amp; HIS REDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Phew! Who would want to be in Rafa&#8217;s shoes right now. Four straight defeats in all competitions, the first time since 1987, an injury list as long as your arm and a tough game against Man Utd this weekend. Not the ideal scenario, in fact, things couldn&#8217;t be any worse at Liverpool right now. Torres, [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Friends Of Liverpool\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"777\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ed817b75a99d6b2cbfabd08214e74037\"},\"headline\":\"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &#038; HIS REDS\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\"},\"wordCount\":296,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Liverpool FC News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\",\"name\":\"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA & HIS REDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg\",\"width\":777,\"height\":400,\"caption\":\"Friends Of Liverpool\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &#038; HIS REDS\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/\",\"name\":\"Friends Of Liverpool\",\"description\":\"Liverpool FC News\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Friends Of Liverpool\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cropped-friends_of_liverpool_logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cropped-friends_of_liverpool_logo.png\",\"width\":869,\"height\":90,\"caption\":\"Friends Of Liverpool\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ed817b75a99d6b2cbfabd08214e74037\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f767a692d45baa2a2d60bdf4640c659a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f767a692d45baa2a2d60bdf4640c659a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA & HIS REDS","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA & HIS REDS","og_description":"Phew! Who would want to be in Rafa&#8217;s shoes right now. Four straight defeats in all competitions, the first time since 1987, an injury list as long as your arm and a tough game against Man Utd this weekend. Not the ideal scenario, in fact, things couldn&#8217;t be any worse at Liverpool right now. Torres, [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/","og_site_name":"Friends Of Liverpool","article_published_time":"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":777,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Estimated reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ed817b75a99d6b2cbfabd08214e74037"},"headline":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &#038; HIS REDS","datePublished":"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/"},"wordCount":296,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg","articleSection":["Liverpool FC News"],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/","url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/","name":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA & HIS REDS","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg","datePublished":"2009-10-21T16:17:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-09T12:34:36+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/friendsofliverpool.jpg","width":777,"height":400,"caption":"Friends Of Liverpool"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/2009\/10\/tough-times-for-rafa-his-reds\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TOUGH TIMES FOR RAFA &#038; HIS REDS"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/","name":"Friends Of Liverpool","description":"Liverpool FC News","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#organization","name":"Friends Of Liverpool","url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cropped-friends_of_liverpool_logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cropped-friends_of_liverpool_logo.png","width":869,"height":90,"caption":"Friends Of Liverpool"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ed817b75a99d6b2cbfabd08214e74037","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f767a692d45baa2a2d60bdf4640c659a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f767a692d45baa2a2d60bdf4640c659a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3458,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/3458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsofliverpool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}