Champion form from Rafa's men

Feb 1 2007 Red Watch by Andy Proudfoot, Liverpool Daily Post

ARE we on a roll or what?

The embarrassing Arsenal interlude has distracted attention from a truly impressive run of Premiership form that has seen us garner 32 points from a possible 39 while conceding just two goals.

That, as the cliché goes, is champions’ form in anyone’s book.

So should we start tentatively glancing up the table rather than peering nervously down it from hereon in?

Well, they say the mark of a good side is that it can win while not playing well; we seem to have developed a variation on this maxim by winning while playing very well for 25-minute spells.

The win at West Ham on Tuesday followed the pattern of recent games against Chelsea and Watford, in that the game was won during a blistering spell of ascendancy sandwiched in between periods of competent, if sometimes frustrating, possession football.

Whether this is by accident or design only Rafa can enlighten us, but the pace and penetration of the 20 minutes or so after half-time were in marked contrast to the rather pedestrian attempts to build attacks in the first half, and the sometimes nerve-shredding defending that followed the Hammers’ ultimately consolatory goal.

As long as we score during these exhilarating episodes, then victory is virtually assured given the tremendous form of our centre-backs and the newly-confident Reina.

Credit to Crouch >>>