Rafa needs to Kop on as hopes go up in smoke

MAYBE we should all wean ourselves off cup football? Having somehow persuaded the public to pay high prices for reserve matches in all but name, United upped the stakes in scandalous fashion by extracting money from people’s accounts for games they weren’t actually interested in.

Either that or lose your tickets for the games that really matter.

Liverpool, as ever, waddle wearily after the gravy train, late as usual but no doubt will clamber onboard eventually, citing the “in order to compete” mantra that says another con is looming.

Whenever someone asks how many are on the season ticket waiting list it grows by another 10,000. It makes you wonder if they’re just keeping us all on a tight leash.

The game with Cardiff wasn’t bad, gilded by another chance to let Fowler feel the love.

Their fans had the usual lower-league giddiness from breathing the rarefied Premiership air, and numerous little skirmishes in and around the ground marred the occasion.

El Zhar scored a screamer but our younger players rarely look like stepping up. Not that they’re likely to get a chance in important games, just these glorified training sessions.

In the 90s our chilled approach to youth still supplied several key performers. Since we’ve built modern facilities and adopted an international scouting system, no-one has come through.

Carragher and Owen starred in the Youth Cup win of 1996. They scored on their debuts for the first team within a year and were regulars within two. Gerrard soon followed. Something about wells running dry springs to mind despite winning it the last two years.

We can laugh at United’s flotsam like O’Shea and Fletcher, but it saved them money to put towards quality and nobody will convince me we haven’t had players on a similar level this decade.

Add the prices of the Houllier and Rafa mini-failures that we casually call chickenfeed, and it mounts up to a none too pretty penny.

Everyone must have seen the infamous Riise pay-slip by now, while stifling nauseous groans of incredulity. Stephen Warnock hasn’t exactly discredited the decision to release him but if his mere presence was making Riise shape up we should have kept him.

Competition for places is an admirable concept but it doesn’t appear to be working for us.

We knew we couldn’t just stroll onto Blackburn’s patch and dictate terms but few expected those tactics.

Gerrard roaming and Kuyt slogging away was exactly what we did to Kaka’s boys. We gave Blackburn the same respect as AC Milan!

In fact we gave them more, because at least Alonso has a creative streak, unlike Sissoko whose interpretation of ‘pass and move’ seems to be ‘pass to an opponent and move backwards to avert the impending danger’.

There is little intuition in our play but does rotation explain everything?

Kewell, who learned his trade under other managers, showed more control and guile in 20 minutes than Babel will show in a lifetime if he remains under the tutelage of this manager.

Why did it take so long to raise the temperature? Cynics claim the Emirates score affected things, but surely the chance to gain ground should have been grasped tighter.

We’re virtually the home side there anyway but the masses were subdued, smothered into silence by an approach bordering on cowardice until late on.

This is where Rafa will lose the supporters, that emphasis on what the opposition does rather than what we can do. It’s no use buying Babel or Benayoun if the fear of risk paralyses them.

The late charge has emerged so often this season you wonder if they sell tickets for the final 15 minutes at a discount.

Of course there’s a case to be made for a significant improvement once Agger, Alonso and Torres come back. The table does not look too bleak and the next four games are winnable.

The performances, though, are troubling. The number of fans who believe the absentees will make a difference while the team shows little courage is dwindling.

With Jol out of the way the press need a new wicker man. Small wonder Rafa can smell burning but there’s only one man who can douse the flames.