Benitez this season. Requirements?

[Ted]

Heavy duty?

[PaulMcC]

No requirements.

 

See how the season goes and decide whether i think he's done a good, bad or adequate job.

[torrific]

So Does Rafa. Mourinho has yet to prove that he can win anything in a top league without copious amounts of money.

 

champions league with porto?

[Stu Monty]

Just rip with me, and rip with me, and tear with me right now.

[G Richards]

Title challenge required. If we aren't there or thereabouts then Rafa should, rightly, be on thin ice next summer. Finishing well off the pace after going so close will mean the knives will come out.

 

As for trophy, then for me, it all depends on what we mean by 'required'. So, if we get pipped to the title by a point, make it to the final of the CL and/or FA Cup, but never win a trophy, then that is still a good season and should mean Rafa continues the following term.

 

But I do take the point that it has been a good while since we won a trophy, and that's the business we are in after all, so it would be really nice if we put that right and obviously when it comes to which trophy, the bigger the better.

 

Title challenge is the main measuring stick though.

[silverlining]

This thread is a mixture of the prescient and the very, very depressing.

 

Did anyone think it was going to be this bad?

[Unrighteous]

This thread is a mixture of the prescient and the very, very depressing.

 

Did anyone think it was going to be this bad?

 

No one thought that LFC would be this fucking embarrassing.

[zigackly]

How strange. I don't see anyone saying that our expectation should be fifth place, in line with our wage bill.

[silverlining]

How strange. I don't see anyone saying that our expectation should be fifth place, in line with our wage bill.

 

 

It's a real puzzler, certainly

[Code]

I expected us to only get around 76 points at best this season after the sale of Alonso, but now it looks like we might not even get 66 and thats worse than I could ever imagine.

 

I was expecting Voronin to get a fair crack of the whip though, but I did not think that would make such a difference and that Rafa for some time would think N`Gog would be good enough to lead the line.

[coop]

Had i posted on this thread at the start of the season i would have said a title challenge and hopefully a trophy along the way.

 

I honestly thought at the start of the season even with the loss of Alonso we would have enough to at least mount another title challenge.

 

For me the minimum this season was progression.

 

I could fully accept not challenging for the league if we at least showed that we were still progressing by winning a major trophy such as the Champions League or FA Cup.

 

Its not beyond the realms of fantasy of Liverpool finishing seventh (depends if we totally collapse it could go lower) which is not good regardless of who the manager is and whatever injuries we have suffered.

 

The leauge table does not lie and you can not finish in seventh and be unlucky.

 

It means that a club the size of Liverpool and with the players we have there is serious problems which need addressing otherwise the slump will continue.

[zigackly]

I said I expected us to be doing our utmost to win the league. In retrospect, the injuries we have had would probably have put paid to that even playing at our best.

 

What we've been served up with though can in no way be described as good enough.

 

We've taken huge steps backwards this season instead of learning the lessons of last, and we need a drastic change to sort it out in my opinion.

[Markmywords]

I wrote a massive blog article last summer that I was going to send to Dave, full of positivity and high expectations.

 

We then sold Alonso.

 

I had to change loads of it after that, so much so that my expectations changed to mediocreness, so mediocre that I didn't feel it was worth posting.

 

Put it this way, I'd rip the arm off anyone offering me that mediocreness now. This is way beyond the realms of anything I could have believed back then.

[Monster Masch]

This time last year we had 64 points after 30 games.

 

1 Point behind United.

 

We just thumped Villa 5-1 at home with Gerrard scoring a hat-trick.

 

We were still in the Champions League.

 

We have taken some serious backward steps since the summer.

[BolshieBastard]

This time last year we had 64 points after 30 games.

 

1 Point behind United.

 

We just thumped Villa 5-1 at home with Gerrard scoring a hat-trick.

 

We were still in the Champions League.

 

We have taken some serious backward steps since the summer.

 

This.

[Brownie]

There are several of these threads from the summer and they all make very interesting reading.

[jackofdk]

This thread is a mixture of the prescient and the very, very depressing.

 

Did anyone think it was going to be this bad?

 

Well, Red Nick was ridiculed for predicting a more positive scenario than the one we look at now.

[Brownie]

Well, Red Nick was ridiculed for predicting a more positive scenario than the one we look at now.

 

Yep, there were people taking the piss put of him with pictures etc but he got it right.

[rage]

all about net spend, injuries and the owners i'll have you know

[silverlining]

There are several of these threads from the summer and they all make very interesting reading.

 

I know. It's quite depressing really. My first post in this thread was vaguely worried, nothing more, but I think my hysteria started to go into overdrive from the very first game, when I posted that if we started against Spurs with Lucas and Masher in CM, we'd lose and wouldn't win the league.

 

Never did I think it would be quite this bad. Not ever.

[Redexile]

I don't think anybody thought it would be this bad. I visualised us starting off in the free flowing style of last season and that we would be in the mix in all comp's. at the end of the season. How wrong can you be?

[2pak]

My main concern is not necessarily our lack of a league challenge but more an increasing lack of core playing style. We are more than ever set up to capitalize on one or two talents and even when thery are out we expect their less capable replacements to fill in a la Ngog. A far cry from the pass and move we last witnessed +10 years ago. Whatever happened to flexibility? to our attack minded ethos? to PASS and MOVE?

 

For me those are the reasons I do not believe in a Rafa Benitez future and the main reasons we have regressed so markedly.

[Josef Svejk]

Last eight of the Europa Cup and struggling for European football next season. Sixteen loses, ten of them in the league.

 

Who came closest to predicting that scenario (with the potential for further misery)?

 

One thing's for sure, we would all have agreed on the consequences for Benitez last summer, even allowing for ownership problems and injuries: The Sack. So, why-in-the-world should we think differently now?

[loadsoftrophies]

Looking back we did over achieve last season and we're underachieving this season regards being in at least the top 4 and i want to cut rafa some slack but the football being played on the pitch is what hurts, it's been just terrible all season and we are one of the worst teams to watch in the league.

[Carradona]

Very interesting thread. People suggesting that not challenging for the title and not winning a trophy was a sackable offence.