actually, i would blame the euro2004 more than anything. and the board of directors. the club took it's time to appoint a new manager and with the euro 2004 cutting in between the midseason, rafa never really had a chance to work with the team until a few weeks before the season began. that was not ideal.
admittedly, the players were on a post-season break then and so rafa can't do much training even if he had been appointed early but he could lay the groundwork, establish a working staff and even meet and talk to players who were in the country then.
this poor guy had but two months in the hot seat and let's face it, liverpool were never the most tactically astute (more of a one-trick pony, really) and the players were good but lacking technically. it's an english league disease, i find, and to be succesful, teams need to work hard to add the kind of tactical astuteness and technique that we now see in arsenal, man utd and chelsea.
mourinho may gloat about how good he is, but ranieri did the vital groundwork and taught the players how to play together. and money brought in many top-class players who added their experience and guile to the mix and the likes of lampard and terry learned from that and added their steel and spirit to the games.
alonso, garcia and josemi are very good players and they would add much to the team but they are relatively inexperienced in the big stage as well, and are still learning the ropes. you really cannot compare them to the experience that the likes of desailly, makelele and zola contributed to the team.
i just hope the team continues to improve. it's okay to be outplayed as long as the team tried hard and continue to learn from their mistakes but we need to cut out the amateurish defensive errors and stop constantly giving the ball away cheaply.
i hope we can make it to the champions league next season. if not, too bad. but i do hope there will be much improvements by next season. i must say, i am heartened by the way the team played some of the matches and if they can play consistently like that, the future looks good.
that's my 2cents anyway...