A thread about a man named Xabi

[Whelan]

Bobby Robson?

 

Good point, Bob Paisley as well.

 

Nice is different from Soft, Nice buys Kenny soft buys Sean Dundee.

[Ted]

Hiddink seems a decent fella, too.

[mattyq]

That's an interesting one, Ted.

Bobby Robson was the exception which proved the rule, i think

[Whelan]

Walter Smith comes across as a nice bloke, so does Sven actually (just more interested in shagging), Guardiola seems okay as well, mind you Rijkaard also?

[redrosetints]

Bobby Robson?

 

Yeah, in fairness I thought that after i posted it.

 

But he was ruthless, he fought two of his own players to establish his dominance at Ipswich in the early days.

 

But you're correct, my statement was wrong, nice men can be good managers, so long as they too have the ruthless gene. I guess there just aren't many who are nice but can screw you over !

[goatboy59]

It's been claimed (by someone who thought it put Rafa in the right) that the manager told SoS that Xabi refused to play against Liege for fear he'd be cup-tied once he moved to Juve - despite the fact Xabi DID face the Belgians.

 

He recently told a press conference that Xabi was unheard of before he came to Liverpool.

 

Now it seems he's been telling journalists that we knocked back a 25m euro bid from Juventus and a 27m bid from Arsenal, which is patently absurd.

 

That does seem a bit 'cunty' to me, and there are other things. Alonso's keeping schtum, and may continue to do so after this is all resolved.

 

This has gone beyond Rafa "doing his job", and the benefits of such 'ruthlessness' are not apparent to many of us.

[redrosetints]

Good point, Bob Paisley as well.

 

Nice is different from Soft, Nice buys Kenny soft buys Sean Dundee.

 

Hiddink seems a decent fella, too.

 

Walter Smith comes across as a nice bloke, so does Sven actually (just more interested in shagging), Guardiola seems okay as well, mind you Rijkaard also?

 

Yep, yep. Yo uall got me, hold me hands up, bad wording.

 

But none of them will last long unless they can be ruthless and do what they need to , when they need to, no matter who is upset.

[Red Phoenix]

90% of the arguments in this thread summed up in 13 seconds :

 

[YOUTUBE]36JeeqyTMCQ[/YOUTUBE]

[WhiskeyJar]

Now when he's too rigid. Carrot can work as well as stick, y'know.

 

They're not pieces on a chess board and I sometimes think Rafa forgets that.

 

True but maybe after all thats what being a manager is all about. If you played constantly with your heart you're blinded by sentimentality. If you play without it then you are too rigid. You cant have everything in a manager but Rafa being Rafa is what I love about him.

 

He sees the players as cogs and if he sees a flaw in his crushing machine then he will have no hesitation to sub that said player. With Alonso I can admit that it has dragged on for far too long but bare in mind he wants whats best for the club not for the player.

[INTORRESTING]

No one knows what goes on in the dressing room, the training pitch etc. All those "nice" men could be absolute ruthless cunts. Nice to the fans and press is one thing reality may be different but we do get suckered in and believe what the press tell us on the whole.

[goatboy59]

Is all this 'nice guy' nonsense exacerbated by Ferguson, the biggest cunt of the lot?

 

Shankly was more eccentric than ruthless, on the whole he was a decent man who loved his players.

 

Can you see the likes of Keane, Hyypia, Crouch and now Alonso swapping stories about Rafa 40 minutes after they were 'dumped'? Like St John, Hunt and Yeats do even today about Bill?

[Ted]

I wasn't trying to be a cunt with you or anything either.

 

 

Whoever said Guardiola would be half right.

 

There was a lot of shit that went on with him and Eto'o last season and he was, apparently, the one who wanted shut of him, even last year. He's a ruthless, handsome, sharp, charismatic fucker. But he's got a lot of class about him.

 

Unless someone can present me with quotes that directly link him to unsettling Mascherano, then he's a bad cunt.

[hamstrung]

He always seems so happy and smiley.

[TheHitman]

It's been claimed (by someone who thought it put Rafa in the right) that the manager told SoS that Xabi refused to play against Liege for fear he'd be cup-tied once he moved to Juve - despite the fact Xabi DID face the Belgians.

 

He recently told a press conference that Xabi was unheard of before he came to Liverpool.

 

Now it seems he's been telling journalists that we knocked back a 25m euro bid from Juventus and a 27m bid from Arsenal, which is patently absurd.

 

That does seem a bit 'cunty' to me, and there are other things. Alonso's keeping schtum, and may continue to do so after this is all resolved.

 

This has gone beyond Rafa "doing his job", and the benefits of such 'ruthlessness' are not apparent to many of us.

 

A bit of a one sided perspective to take, you could easily draw up a list about player x in any transfer situation that counteracts that. My take on it is we just want as much money as we can get we being the club

 

Let us not forget who we are negotiating with. Didn't the club where the victim Xabi is going to basically come out and say Xabi is not that valuable to us and we can just play the kids from the reserves if we don't get him. This stance taken after they recruited their marque players. If Xabi is upset with Rafa's treatment he is joining the wrong club.

[Guest Ulysses Everett McGill]

I would suggest the carrot of merely playing for Liverpool and picking up £50,000+ should be enough

 

I'm quite happy for Rafa to be the stick

 

But seems as we are playing nice guy top trumps, Rafa the manager is completely different from Rafa the man.

[cyador]

Is all this 'nice guy' nonsense exacerbated by Ferguson, the biggest cunt of the lot?

 

Shankly was more eccentric than ruthless, on the whole he was a decent man who loved his players.

 

Can you see the likes of Keane, Hyypia, Crouch and now Alonso swapping stories about Rafa 40 minutes after they were 'dumped'? Like St John, Hunt and Yeats do even today about Bill?

 

I'm pretty sure rafa doesn't want to fucking 'swap stories' with his players.

He's not their friend, he's not their mate, he's the boss.

 

Your arguments are a load of shit goatboy.

[CaptainK]

Perfectly valid comment, but he certainly agonised long and hard about his faves in the 60's. We had to get beat by a 3rd Division team before he finally realised time was up for them.

 

The trouble with Rafa is you rarely get the great side of Shankly, his sheer joy in players eg that old vid of Hughes training; "Ooooooh, I doubt if there's a better player in the game".

I've watched Torres scoring goals and thought, "There's not a better striker on the planet."

 

I've watched Gerrard, thinking, "Best player in the world"

 

I've watched Reina prepare to to save a penalty, knowing that he WILL save it.

 

I've watched Mascherano destroy attacks and thought "Best destroyer in the world."

 

Or when Paisley got the bottle of Scotch that was almost as big as him in 77 and said "it's all about the players really".

 

Different personalities, innit? Can you imagine Bob making dispparaging comments about Everton - back garden and drawing of curtains, for example. And Rafa dares to retailate against Slur and some of our own fucking fans slate him. He only said what we all thought.

 

When did Shankly sub his captain with 20 minutes of a derby left and then talk disparagingly afterwards about his intelligence? There's a ton of other examples.

Some fans think they know better than the manager, but in this case, wasn't he proved right? Neville sent off with the captain's substitute being responsible for the nearly goal? And he has been right about Gerrard all along.

 

Some people get a kick out of Rafa's cold clinical approach, personally I think it's one of his biggest flaws.

No one gets a kick. It's just the way he is - personalities, innit?

 

On the whole Alonso has been good for Rafa and Liverpool. He hasn't deserved most of what's gone on lately.

Nobody knows what's gone on and it's wrong to lay ALL the blame at the feet of one party, whoever that might be.

[goatboy59]

I'm pretty sure rafa doesn't want to fucking 'swap stories' with his players.

Whoosh.

[goatboy59]

I would suggest the carrot of merely playing for Liverpool and picking up £50,000+ should be enough

How's that plan working so far?

[Anubis]

How's that plan working so far?

Looks like it's working very well with most players.

[goatboy59]

Looks like it's working very well with most players.

Try it on Mascherano next, then. Maybe Gerrard and Torres too.

[Dirk]

Try it on Mascherano next, then. Maybe Gerrard and Torres too.

 

I doubt he will ever need to.

[Anubis]

Try it on Mascherano next, then. Maybe Gerrard and Torres too.

I think Gerrard's already experienced it. Houllier always put an arm around his shoulder but didn't Carra say that Benitez wasn't one for sympathy. Other players have said that after a match there's little praise, just pointing out mistakes and how to rectify them. They are professionals. It seems most act like it.

[Guest Ulysses Everett McGill]

How's that plan working so far?

 

 

Seems to work fine with the best goalkeeper, midfielder and striker in world football.

 

Or would you rather he treats certain players a different way, could he not then be open to accusations of having "favourites"?

 

I thought mental toughness was a pre-requisite to winning these days?

[SpeedyG]

Don't know about 40 minutes, but I'll guess how they'll be in 20 years. This assumes they get called up fairly regularly to do interviews.

 

Keane: No. Won't do interviews at all. Strikes me as someone who'll be shoeing people off his property with a blunderbuss, taking care not to hit the statue of himself he's had put there.

 

Hyypia: Yes. Rafa didn't bring him to the club, but I'm sure he'll look back fondly on his time here. He'll have a good few stories to tell about both managers. I'm sure there'll be some fond ones in there somewhere.

 

Crouch: Yes. Probably mixed, because his Anfield career kind of had two halves to it. And that'll probably lead to more questions about his robocrouch stuff.

 

Alonso: No. His departure's been far too protracted, and his relationship with Pako merges in with it all too.

 

On the other hand by the time another 20 years has passed maybe they'll have seen it from a different point of view, maybe they'll have had a crack at management themselves.

 

Ballague often says of Benitez that none of his players like him and they are always bitching about him, That is until he leaves and then they realize why he is like he is and that they were better players for it.